I was avoiding this film, but my friends wanted to see it and I tagged along. I enjoy all types of genres, but I feel like the horror genre is getting progressively worse. Many of them use cheap scares and are riddled with plenty of horror clichès. Deliver Us From Evil is one of the worst horror film I have ever seen. While it definitely has some style and a good performance from Eric Bana, it offers far too many cheap “scares” that are strung together by a terrible plot.
Light in the Darkness
While I strongly disliked this film, there were some good elements. Erica Bana was one of them. He is a good actor, and he did a fine job portraying his character. He was not given too much to work with, but his performance definitely stood out. Another person worth a mention is Edgar Ramirez. He was pretty good, but his character was just so underdeveloped it was difficult to care for him. As far as the direction of the film, it is merely okay. Scott Derrickon knows how to make a stylish horror flick, but this one falls short in every other aspect.
Deliver Us From This Film
As far as the shortcomings of this film, they greatly outweigh what it gets right. First of all, the plot is nonexistent. The film is just a collection of scenes strung together very loosely. There is no sense of closure by the end of the film, and nothing particularly interesting happens throughout. The acting (except Bana and Ramirez) was horrible. Joel McHale particularly stands out. I do not think he is a bad actor, but he was seriously miscast. The biggest problem with the entire cast is that they are given atrocious dialogue, and all their characters feel overly familiar. I guarantee that you can find an exact copy of each character in previous horror films. While I mentioned that the film has a good style, I had a big problem with a scene towards the end. I will not spoil the scene, but the camera was so shaky that it was hard to make out what was happening on screen, and it became very frustrating to follow the camera movements. Lastly, and perhaps the most infuriating aspect of this film is the lack of scares. Sure, they have jump scares every so often, but I was angry with their use of jump scares. Many of them were animal scares, and they made me angry rather than make me feel scared.
Closing Remarks
I do not recommend this film at all. It is very rare that I dislike a film so much, but this is such a film that does not deserve viewership. I only hope that the horror genre does not produce more films like this. They need to come up with something new, or they will keep going downhill.