DELIVER US FROM EVIL (US - 2014) Directed by Scott Derrickson. Written by Scott Derrickson and Paul Harris Boardman. Cast: Eric Bana, Edgar Ramirez, Olivia Munn, Joel McHale, Sean Harris, Chris Coy, Dorian Missick, Mike Houston, Lulu Wilson, Olivia Horton, Scott Johnsen. (R, 118 mins)
It's been 41 years since THE EXORCIST was released and filmmakers still crank out demonic possession movies as if they have something new to bring to the table. DVD bargain bins are cluttered with the forgettable likes of STIGMATA (1999), LOST SOULS (2000), THE UNBORN (2009), THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT (2009), THE RITE (2011), THE DEVIL INSIDE (2012), and THE POSSESSION (2012). THE LAST EXORCISM (2010) was a well-done found-footage variant, though it spawned an awful sequel. Writer-director Scott Derrickson and co-writer Paul Harris Boardman fashioned one of the more relatively interesting entries in the current possession parade with 2005's THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE which, while not a great movie by any means, was a surprisingly compelling mix of demonic horror and courtroom drama, a sort-of LAW & ORDER: EXORCISM based on the case of Annaliese Michel (also chronicled in the 2006 German film REQUIEM and the 2011 Asylum knockoff ANNALIESE: THE EXORCIST TAPES) that got a lot of mileage from the presence of respectable actors like Tom Wilkinson and Laura Linney, plus Jennifer Carpenter's impressive performance as the possessed Emily Rose. Derrickson later helmed 2012's grim and disturbing SINISTER without Boardman, but the duo are back together for another possession rehash with the "inspired by true events" DELIVER US FROM EVIL. Based on the experiences of Bronx cop-turned-demonologist Ralph Sarchie (played here by Eric Bana), chronicled in his 2001 book Beware the Night, the hopelessly generic DELIVER US FROM EVIL doles out just about every possession cliche you've been seeing since 1973, but seems especially devoted to recycling major plot points of 1990's THE EXORCIST III, minus William Peter Blatty's sharply unique writing and his direction of numerous unsettling sequences throughout. Derrickson's lazy jump scares can be seen coming a mile away (when Sarchie closely examines grainy surveillance footage, you know an evil face is going to flash on the screen and make him bolt back in his seat) and the possession bits get downright laughable as things go on, as the classic rock-savvy demon seems to have an odd affinity for The Doors, haunting Sarchie with greatest hits staples like "Break on Through (To the Other Side)" and "People are Strange," and even hurls some "Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin!" as the exorcism commences. Call me a possession genre purist, but I'll take "Your mother sucks cocks in Hell!" any day of the week.
Sarchie is a tough-as-nails cop working the night shift with wisecracking, hot-dogging partner Butler (a miscast Joel McHale, looking ridiculous in an Alice in Chains tee and the seven deadly sins tattooed on his neck). The job is taking its toll on Sarchie, though perhaps it wouldn't if he didn't let his internal "radar" direct him to jump on every dangerous call that comes over the radio. He's got a loving, church-going wife in Jen (Olivia Munn) and an impossibly cute daughter (Lulu Harris), and Jen looks past his being a lapsed Catholic, lamenting that she--wait for it--feels like she doesn't know him anymore and "Even when ya heah, yanot heah." Over the course of a few shifts, Sarchie and Butler encounter a dead baby thrown in the trash, a woman (Olivia Horton) tossing her child in a ravine outside the lion's den at the Bronx Zoo, a dead handyman (Scott Johnsen) in a basement, and Jimmy (Chris Coy), an Iraq War vet who's beating his wife. They're all connected by another Iraq War vet named Santino (Sean Harris), who's caught on camera and seen by witnesses at all of the crime scenes. Sarchie is hounded by Father Mendoza (Edgar Ramirez), a loose-cannon priest who dabbles in exorcism on the side. The Bronx zoo mom is a member of his parish, and he's convinced she's demonstrating signs of demonic possession. Soon, these evil forces invade Sarchie's life as he begins seeing and hearing things that aren't there on a conscious level, and his daughter falls victim to the out-of-tune strains of a beat-up jack-in-the-box and a stuffed toy owl that hoots on its own. Mendoza informs Sarchie that he has a gift, that his "radar" for cases is actually a sixth sense gift of a connection to the spirit world, and that the spirit may be targeting him for a past sin.
It's hard to imagine what past sins Bana and Ramirez committed to get stranded in a film as bad as this one. They're fine actors but they can't really bring much life to these characters. The spiritual conversations between Sarchie and Mendoza don't exactly have the same sense of insight, banter, and rich characterization that you've seen in similar scenes between Lee J. Cobb's Lt. Kinderman and Jason Miller's Father Karras in THE EXORCIST, or George C. Scott's Kinderman and Ed Flanders' Father Dyer in THE EXORCIST III. Derrickson is pretty shameless in his EXORCIST III worship throughout, from the cop angle to an irresponsible doctor in the psych ward to a possession victim going on a rampage in the hospital, acting under the control of the demonic spirit. Sarchie even races home once he realizes the possessed Santino is at his house, just like Viveca Lindfors' shears-wielding nurse in Blatty's film. Derrickson and Boardman (the duo also wrote Atom Egoyan's empty DEVIL'S KNOT) try to awkwardly shoehorn in some Iraq War commentary but they never really allow it to develop. Santino, Jimmy, and the handyman were all vets who encountered a Latin verse carved into the wall of a cave as some evil latched on to them. Are the filmmakers trying to make some kind of heavy-handed analogy between PTSD and possession? Who knows? They can't even follow through on all of the plot threads, the constant Doors references are just silly, the SNL "Da War of Da Woilds" accents overbaked, the SE7EN-inspired set design too darkly-photographed, and the only thing that really keeps your attention is the recurring continuity flub with the bandaging on Sarchie's right arm that appears and disappears throughout. Drab and dull, overlong and underthought, the tired and vacant DELIVER US FROM EVIL wheezes its way to its weak conclusion, seemingly working from a checklist rather than an actual script.
Directed by James Wan. Written by Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes. Cast: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Lili Taylor, Ron Livingston, Shanley Caswell, Joey King, Hayley McFarland, McKenzie Foy, Kyla Deaver, Shannon Kook, John Brotherton, Sterling Jerins. (R, 112 mins)
Based on the experiences of controversial husband-and-wife paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (played here by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), best known for their investigation of the Amityville house in 1975 and since labeled everything from groundbreaking paranormal researchers to hardcore right-wing religious zealots and outright kooks, THE CONJURING focuses on a pre-Amityville case in Harrisville, Rhode Island in 1971. Trucker Roger Perron (Ron Livingston), his wife Carolyn (Lili Taylor), and their five daughters move into a lakeside house made cheaply available at a county auction. First their dog Sadie refuses to enter the house, and is found dead outside the next morning. Then all the clocks in the house stop at 3:07 am. Roger finds the basement sealed off, with the previous owner's possessions still there. One of the daughters starts sleepwalking and another has a new imaginary friend named Rory. Another daughter sees a figure standing behind a door and another is attacked by a ghostly specter that vanishes. Carolyn starts developing unexplained bruises all over her body. She attends a Warren seminar and pleads with them to come and look at the house. Instantly, the clairvoyant Lorraine senses malevolent forces in the house and on the surrounding property, including one particular spirit that she describes as the angriest and most hateful she's ever encountered. Convinced of the validity of the Perrons' story, the Warrens and two assistants set up shop in the house to conduct their investigation, as Ed believes the house may be possessed and an exorcism required. But the spirit has other ideas, zeroing in on a particular individual to possess while also latching itself onto the Warrens.
There's no plot details in THE CONJURING that you haven't seen before. But where Wan succeeds is in the way he presents it. With the exception of a few instances of incidental CGI (one involving a bed sheet that briefly takes human form), it feels like a movie that could've been made 30 or 40 years ago, and not just because of the impeccable period detail. It takes time to build the characters, allowing us to get to know both the Warrens and the Perrons and making their mutual ordeal that much more emotionally involving as well as balls-out terrifying. Too many of today's horror movies don't take the time to do this and they suffer for it (also note the several long and intricately choreographed, uninterrupted tracking shots of the Perron home early on, done to both show off and make sure the audience gets a grasp of the layout of the house). The performances, particularly Taylor, who's really great here, are top-notch. The film is so defiantly old-fashioned in many respects that when there actually is a bit of over-the-top violence, it seems out-of-place and just a little shocking simply because we then realize just how effective it was without any of that. And while the work of the Warrens themselves--Ed died in 2006; Farmiga consulted with Lorraine for the film--has been scrutinized over the years and much of it, especially the Amityville case, has been deemed suspect, it doesn't take away from the effectiveness of the film overall. Take out the opening crawl with "Based on the true story," and you still have one of the most solid horror films to come down the pike in quite a while, perhaps not quite on the same "classic" level as THE HAUNTING (1963) or THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE (1973), but still the source of some powerful jolts that you don't see much of anymore, proof that a modern horror movie doesn't always have to be all up in your business and rubbing your face in it to show how "intense" and "real" it is.
Directed by Ole Bornedal. Written by Juliet Snowden & Stiles White. Cast: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kyra Sedgwick, Matisyahu, Grant Show, Natasha Calis, Madison Davenport, Jay Brazeau. (PG-13, 92 mins)
It's been nearly 40 years since the release of THE EXORCIST, and the knockoffs show no signs of slowing down. Produced by Sam Raimi, THE POSSESSION is better than most, with an experienced figure behind the camera in veteran Danish horror/suspense director Ole Bornedal (1994's NIGHTWATCH and its 1998 US remake), but except for one nicely-done scare and some impressive production design, there's little here we haven't seen before. Written by Juliet Snowden & Stiles White (KNOWING), THE POSSESSION utilizes most of the standard-issue possession motifs (or as much as its PG-13 rating will allow) fused with more J-Horror imagery (are we done with this yet?), and relies too much on loud crashes and piercing music cues in place of actual tension and scares. However, Bornedal does a nice job establishing an unexpected, almost European look to the film in the early going (featuring the most Kubrickian-looking basketball practice gym you'll ever see), with some impressive camera movements and lighting and lots of interesting technical aspects that, for a while, set THE POSSESSION apart from the usual DTV-level time-killer that it eventually becomes.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan dares to open the Dybbuk box.
In this "true story" (inspired by a 2003 eBay listing) set in upstate New York, college basketball coach Clyde Brenek (a strong performance by the underrated Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is recently divorced from ex-wife Stephanie (Kyra Sedgwick) and gets his daughters--Hannah (Madison Davenport) and Emily (Natasha Calis)--on the weekends. The girls, particularly Emily, are having some difficulty with the disruption in their lives, and things get really complicated when Clyde and the girls stop at a yard sale and Emily is drawn to a mysterious, sealed wooden box with strange lettering carved into it. Emily soon becomes slavishly devoted to and fiercely protective of the box, and often erupts in violence if anyone comes near it. After Emily has a shrieking fit where she repeatedly smacks herself in the face, Clyde is accused of abusing her and Stephanie gets a restraining order. When Stephanie and her new boyfriend Brett (Grant Show) start observing Emily's continued strange behavior, Clyde does some research and finds out the lettering on the box is Hebrew, and seeks the guidance of Tzadok (Hasidic reggae beatboxer Matisyahu), who turns out to be the demonic possession genre's hippest exorcist. Tzadok says the box is a Dybbuk Box, used to house an ancient Jewish demon called the "dybbuk." Tzadok defies the wishes of his elderly rabbi father and agrees to perform an exorcism on Emily.
Natasha Calis as the possessed Emily
The "dybbuk" is an interesting concept, and it's handled better here than in the 2009 film THE UNBORN, which featured Gary Oldman as a rabbi who battles a dybbuk by blowing into a shofar The casting of Matisyahu as the exorcist is a distraction that's hard to get over, but he has a loose and engaging presence that makes one wish he had more screen time. THE POSSESSION's problems start when the script begins requiring otherwise intelligent characters to start behaving stupidly. Clyde should be a little more alarmed when Emily stabs him with a fork at breakfast for no reason. Why is it that parents of possessed children in movies are always way too slow on the uptake when it comes to these matters? Haven't any of these people seen THE EXORCIST?
Madison Davenport and Kyra Sedgwick
There's also stupid contrivances that are there only to advance the plot in the easiest way possible. In one scene, Emily is on the phone with Clyde and asking him if the box is OK and telling him to not to go near it (it's at his house). In the next scene, Emily has the box with her at school and attacks a classmate who tries to steal it from her. Emily is sent home and the box is left at school. That night, the dybbuk attacks and kills Emily's teacher (this film's obligatory Burke Dennings stand-in), who's there, alone, late at night, grading papers next to a tiny lamp at her desk. Are the screenwriters even trying? Does this woman not have a home? With better lighting? Also, what happens to Brett? He's last seen being attacked by a possessed Emily as all of his teeth start falling out, then getting into his car and driving it in reverse as Emily has a seizure on the front lawn and Hannah calls 9-1-1, and they're off to the hospital. Where does Brett go? Is he dead? Alive and still driving around in reverse, all bloody and toothless? I'm glad Grant Show is getting paid post-MELROSE PLACE, but his character is so irrelevant that even the filmmakers forget about him.
Exorcist Tzadok (Matisyahu) tries to save Emily
When the script isn't dumbing things down, Bornedal and his regular cinematographer Dan Laustsen have a great-looking film on their hands. And I liked the little shout-outs to past demonic possession films, like Emily's right eye moving on its own while the other stares straight ahead (from the 1975 Italian EXORCIST ripoff BEYOND THE DOOR) and a nicely-CGI'd swarm of moths surrounding a still Emily that looked a lot like the climactic bird attack in the 1979 OMEN/CLOSE ENCOUNTERS-inspired cult classic THE VISITOR). There is one very good, almost great jolt when Emily is getting an MRI and something pops up unexpectedly in the resulting scan. Those bits, Bornedal's direction, and the fine performances by both Morgan and Calis nudge THE POSSESSION a bit beyond the typical genre offering, but after a while, it's done in by a script that just feels illogical and half-baked.
