DELIVER US FROM EVIL

In 2010, three US army soldiers serving in Iraq storm a holy building and fall foul of ... something.

Three years later, we meet Brooklyn cop Sarchie (Eric Bana). He's a good guy, a family man, but he's becoming increasingly haunted by both the violent images he faces daily - babies discarded in dumpsters, for example - and an act of rage that still eats at him to this day.

When Sarchie and his wisecracking partner Butler (Joe McHale) are called to a domestic disturbance, it sets off a chain of events that get more and more bizarre.

An odd incident at the local zoo links a hooded figure called Santino (Sean Harris) to the aforementioned wife-beating ex-squaddie Jimmy (Chris Coy). But then, both disappear before Sarchie can quiz them further. And what of the woman known to both of them, Jane (Olivia Horton)? She's been captured on security cameras, after all, tossing her infant child into the zoo's lion enclosure seemingly at the behest of Santino. When she's brought in for questioning, a mysterious young priest, Mendoza (Edgar Ramirez), turns up claiming she's been possessed by a demon...

Can Sarchie cast aside his hardnosed cynicism long enough to fathom what's going on? Will his natural intuition for sniffing out villains come into play when saving the day? And will his family remain safe as he gets deeper embroiled in these supernatural shenanigans?

From ethereal screams echoing on the soundtrack (SUSPIRIA), through slowed-down demonic voices chanting in reverse (THE EVIL DEAD), to popular 60s songs being used as a signal of evil (FALLEN) in a city of perpetual night and rain (SE7EN), DELIVER US FROM EVIL is an unabashed patchwork of ideas from superior productions.

With a slick veneer and 'safe' approach that also brings to mind the likes of TV's "The X Files" (itself guilty of robbing concepts from genre flick of years gone by), there's very little in the way of originality to be found here. And as soon as Sarchie's partner opens his mouth, revealing himself to be the smart-talking comic relief to our overly straight lead, you really do start to wonder whether director Scott Derrickson will have any inspired ideas at all during the film's 113-minute running time.

In fairness, the hackneyed script also has the director's co-screenwriter Paul Harris Boardman to blame, along with the real-life Sarchie himself - this movie is based on the claims that resulted in him co-writing a best-selling "account" of his tribulations with Lisa Collier Cool.

Between them they clearly think that sudden jump-scares, cats inexplicably appearing from nowhere and hissing, and people growling out the lyrics to hits by The Doors are the things that truly frighten us. Oh, and does everyone in Brooklyn really live in the dark? And do 6-year-old kids these days truly have nothing but a dozen or so cuddly toys to keep them occupied in their bedrooms?

I know horror films often pay lip service, at the very least, to tried and tested formulas. But, crikey, DELIVER US FROM EVIL truly doesn't wish to deviate from the best-worn path at all. From Bana's sceptical cop who reluctantly becomes a believer, to the handsome young renegade priest who smokes, drinks and shags, to the later exorcism sequences which could've quite literally have used leftover script pages from THE EXORCIST as their basis; there is nothing we haven't seen done before, better.

It's a shame because the photography is consistently excellent, a few supporting performances are great and there's an occult-tinged pop-art closing titles sequence that's worth sticking around for. But the bad outweighs the good. Bana, for a start, seems to be concentrating more on his New York accent that delivering a credible performances. The scenes where his wife berates him for neglecting his family should, I imagine, recall DONNIE BRASCO and the like. They don't, because Bana doesn't have chemistry with anyone. It's absurd, because he was magnificent in CHOPPER ... but has been dire on screen ever since. Ramirez is just embarrassing, though admittedly he's saddled with the film's worst dialogue (and that's really saying something). The less said about the victims of possession, the better. Perhaps someone should've told them this was supposed to be a horror film, though, and not a comedy.

Not scary, rarely tense and totally unbelievable despite its "basis in fact", DELIVER US FROM EVIL is a polished, predictable slice of déjà vu which I imagine would be best enjoyed by the most casual of genre fans. Even the set-pieces seem designed, very carefully, to account for those jump-moments in the film's trailer.

DELIVER US FROM EVIL comes uncut to UK DVD courtesy of Sony.

Predictably, it looks great. Presented in its original 2.40:1 aspect ratio and in anamorphic widescreen, the picture quality here is pin-sharp, unerringly clean and blessed with remarkable clarity throughout. Colours are naturally rendered while, crucially, blacks and their various shades are conveyed without noise or compression.

English audio is proffered in a rousing 5.1 surround mix which truly makes the most of the film's bombastic sound design. An Italian 5.1 track is also provided, as is an English-language Audio Description option.

Removable subtitles are available in English, English for the hard-of-hearing, Danish, Finnish, Hindi, Italian, Norwegian and Swedish. The English tracks tendered well-written and easily readable propositions.

This disc opens to a static main menu page. From there, a static scene selection menu allows access to the film via 16 chapters.

Bonus features begin with an informative, fluent audio commentary track from Derrickson. He's a good host and offers a wealth of testimonial information here, about the film's background and the approach to bringing its facts to the screen.

A 13-minute Making Of featurette entitled "Illuminating Evil" does a good job of condensing many of the more salient of those facts into one EPK-style offering. The likes of Derrickson, Bana, Bruckheimer and even the real Sarchie are on hand to speak of how the original pitch was "SERPICO meets THE EXORCIST", the real mean streets of Brooklyn were used for the shoot, Bana's past as a stand-up comic held him in good stead for playing such outlandish material in a straight manner, and so on. Again, it's a worthy accompaniment to the main feature.

We also get a selection of trailers. The first is a showcase for blu-ray's capabilities, which tries its best to convince us that we really do need to see the likes of MEN IN BLACK in HD. Then we get previews for GRACE: THE POSSESSION, REPENTANCE and NO GOOD DEED. All of which look distinctly like "also rans".

Finally, there's a slip inside the keepcase packaging which contains an exclusive code allowing consumers to download a digital copy of the film.

DELIVER US FROM EVIL is derivative and, as its title no doubt suggests, more than a little formulaic. That's not to say it's not entertaining. But for seasoned horror fans, it's likely to leave them feeling a tad short-changed.

Also available on blu-ray.

Review by Stuart Willis