{"id":94697,"date":"2014-10-23T13:31:45","date_gmt":"2014-10-23T19:31:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lookingcloser\/?p=94697"},"modified":"2014-11-02T18:51:55","modified_gmt":"2014-11-03T01:51:55","slug":"scott-derrickson-delivers-us-from-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lookingcloser\/2014\/10\/scott-derrickson-delivers-us-from-evil\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Derrickson May Not “Deliver Us From Evil,” But He Knows Who Can"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"deliver-us-from-evil\"<\/a>This year, I\u2019ve seen two priests on the big screen. Both have marched solemnly toward a showdown with evil.<\/p>\n

That evil takes two very different forms \u2014 a human being with a gun and a grudge, and a demon using a broken human being as his vessel.<\/p>\n

Yes, these two\u00a0films are altogether different\u00a0experiences. But both deal cleverly, even subversively, with a variety of genre conventions (one\u2019s a scenic, small-town, Masterpiece Mystery-type production; the other is a grim, big-city police procedural). Both present priests who are admirable men who can crumble if their weaknesses are exploited.\u00a0Both are unusually sincere at heart. And both include far more interesting and complex depictions of faith than the preachy mediocrity that is typically categorized as a\u00a0\u201cChristian movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t found the time yet to give an in-depth review of Calvary \u2014 <\/em>the whodunit, <\/em>or rather, the who\u2019s-gonna-do-it \u2014\u00a0but here are some revealing responses from \u00a0critics I regularly read<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Deliver Us From Evil\u00a0<\/em>\u2014\u00a0which arrives on home video just in time for Halloween<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 is\u00a0a police procedural driven by the obsessions of my favorite current scare-master, Scott Derrickson. Tricked out with wild special effects, Deliver Us\u00a0<\/em>follows\u00a0a cop who, skeptical about Satan, teams up with a Catholic priest in order to track a serial killer: a villain whose methods defy rational explanations, and who may not even be human.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a closer look at that one. I saw Deliver Us From Evil\u00a0<\/em>last July, and I\u2019ve been thinking about ever since.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/h3>\n

For Steven Spielberg, it\u2019s the slow zoom in a dramatic moment. For Martin Scorsese, it\u2019s the long-take dolly shot. What\u2019s horror-master Scott Derrickson\u2019s signature shot? It may well become that hold-your-breath moment, as a terrified seeker\u2019s face is illuminated in the very light that he\u2019s shining into the darkness.\u00a0That image builds suspense by concealing the very things we are straining to discern in the darkness. But there\u2019s a sneakier implication: That the light may indeed be revealing part of the problem \u2014 the seeker himself.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s oversimplifying matters to say that, in Derrickson\u2019s film, \u201cthe real problem is within.<\/em>\u201d But that idea has come up in his work before:\u00a0In The Exorcism of Emily Rose,<\/em> Laura Linney plays a skeptic whose doubt becomes a torment when the evidence suggests supernatural events; and in Sinister<\/em>, Ethan Hawke plays a novelist searching for understanding about horrific crimes, only to discover that his neglect of family is like bait for the monster. These aren\u2019t simple\u00a0stories of good guys hunting bad guys. They\u2019re about people who won\u2019t overcome evil unless they discover the insufficiency of their power, the weakness in their faith.<\/p>\n

In Deliver Us From Evil<\/em>, Derrickon\u2019s most ambitious project, Eric Bana plays Officer Sarchie, a cop with a\u00a0weakness\u00a0and a strength. His righteous anger can get the better of him (Bana has plenty of experience \u201cHulking out\u201d). But he also has a sixth sense for, well, sinister<\/em> activity \u2014 think Peter Parker whose \u201cspider-sense\u201d tingles when criminals are up to something.<\/p>\n

\"1175917<\/a>On this particular manhunt, the killer seems capable of things that Sarchie\u2019s worldview cannot explain. (Sarchie the character \u2014 loosely based on the film\u2019s inspiration, a real cop-turned-exorcist who wrote\u00a0Deliver Us From Evil\u00a0<\/em>as a memoir, not a novel \u2014 is\u00a0a lapsed Catholic, determined to explain away things that go \u201cbump\u201d in the basements of the terrified callers who ask for his help. But as this case leads him down into creepy cellars, his confidence dissolves in the glow of his own flashlight. Something wicked this way comes \u2014 has already arrived<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Bana\u2019s leading-man status is the first of several remarkable things about Deliver Us From Evil<\/em>. It\u2019s been nine years since Spielberg\u2019s Munich<\/em>, where Bana played the Israeli avenger who learns that responding to evil with violence can hollow out a heart. It\u2019s been ten years since he was cast as the conscience-burdened Greek hero Hector,\u00a0dueling Brad Pitt\u2019s Achilles in Troy<\/em>. But his full commitment to this performance proves here that he\u2019s still a fine choice to play a movie\u2019s Muscular Conscience.<\/p>\n

Sarchie he comes equipped with the genre accessories: an amusing sidekick (Joel McHale, all smirk); a beautiful \u2014 and thus vulnerable \u2014 wife (Olivia Munn); and a cute-as-a-button daughter who may as well wear a shirt that says \u201cHey Evil Spirits, Please Come Haunt My Bedroom\u201d on the front, and \u201cHey, Villains \u2014 Keep Me In Mind For This Movie\u2019s Final Act\u201d on the back.\u00a0What sets good<\/em> genre-film directors apart from bad<\/em> ones? It isn\u2019t their avoidance of convention, but whether or not they find a way to suspend our disbelief and surprise us even when we know the formula. Great<\/em> genre-film directors find ways to do something truly imaginative within those routines, or alter them in some powerful way.<\/p>\n

Here, Derrickson does both. He keeps us leaning forward in hopes of naming and catching the killer, but he\u2019s also pulling a bait-and-switch. It\u2019s a police procedural cake pan, but he\u2019s filling it with horror-genre cake batter. So the result isn\u2019t much like anything we\u2019ve seen before.<\/p>\n

Derrickson, his co-writer Paul Harris Boardman, cinematographer Scott Kevan, and a chillingly effective team of sound designers,\u00a0mix up the ingredients; his actors \u2014 Bana, McHale, Munn, and the extraordinarily charismatic and confident Edgar Ramirez doing his first big genre pic \u2014 sell the results. They\u2019re better than the genre requires.\u00a0But Derrickson\u2019s secret weapon here is one we rarely see in horror: This film is \u201cInspired by Actual Events<\/em>.\u201d That\u2019s a claim likely to set film critics to scoffing. Come on, really? Demon possession? Crosses? Chants? Holy water, and all that?<\/p>\n

But look into it, folks \u2014 Ralph Sarchie is for real, and his on-the-record stories are unsettling<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You may not believe in this stuff, but much of the world does, and it\u2019d be tough to write off as mere fiction the testimonies of exorcism that defy rational explanation, and the cultural traditions around the world that accept the existence of demons. The Italian family whose haunted home is investigated by Sarchie \u2014 that\u2019s not make believe. In an online discussion, Derrickson said, \u201cI saw the video recordings that the real Ralph Sarchie made with the family members that the scene was based on. Those people weren\u2019t lying, weren\u2019t trying to get attention, and were absolutely terrified of their own house. Chilling to watch.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m of the opinion that this stuff goes on scaring us because there is some truth to it. Whether we\u2019re watching a B-movie like Paranormal Activity\u00a0<\/em>or an art film like No Country for Old Men<\/em>, we are troubled because there is something about the suggestion that Other Powers are at work in the world\u2026 something that we sense to be true, even if it slips past the use of scientific instruments. And the fact that such testimonies persist \u2014 across generations, cultures, and geographic boundaries, while maintaining the same basic details \u2014 should give anybody pause before shrugging the spookiness off as \u201cpsychological disturbance\u201d or coincidence. \u201cThere are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,\u201d Shakespeare\u2019s Hamlet insists, and I believe that. But some religious traditions endure because they have given us a vocabulary about such things that rings true.<\/p>\n

Sarchie \u2014 the character, not the real guy \u2014 wants to shrug off the suggestion of demonic powers, but the deeper he descends into some overlapping mysteries, the more he sees things that he wishes he could un-see.\u00a0This isn\u2019t an idiot-factor horror movie, in which stupid people get what\u2019s coming to them, or a monster lurks just waiting for somebody to stumble into his clutches. Derrickson already fulfilled that formula with Sinister\u00a0<\/em>\u2014 masterfully, in my opinion. Here, he\u2019s aiming higher. He wants to bring a stereotypical American hero \u2014 a muscular cop, a family man, and a pretty rational guy \u2014 face to face with the devil, or pretty close. He wants to show us that our heroes aren\u2019t strong enough (or smart enough) to take on the real enemy, not without expanding their worldview and learning where the real power to overcome evil comes from. It\u2019s Obi-Wan Kenobi arguing with\u00a0Han Solo about the Force all over again. Sarchie insists that he\u2019s seen \u201cnothing that can\u2019t be explained by human nature.\u201d Mendoza replies, \u201cThen you haven\u2019t seen true evil.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Edgar-Ramirez-in-Deliver-Us-from-Evil\"<\/a>Thus, Sarchie\u2019s a skeptical Scully to the enlightened Mulder of Father Mendoza, a \u201cplainclothes priest\u201d who specializes in demonology and exorcism. Mendoza believes. He\u2019s seen enough to know, and his faith fills in the rest. Sarchie\u2019s seen enough to know too, but he actively resists the faith that would complete the picture \u2014 he knows that he cannot embrace the truth without it costing him, without it changing his head, his heart, and his choices.<\/p>\n

As Sheriff Bell said in\u00a0No Country for Old Men:\u00a0<\/em>\u201cThe crime you see now, it\u2019s hard to even take its measure. It\u2019s not that I\u2019m afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But, I don\u2019t want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don\u2019t understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just as Mendoza is, for this moviegoer, the film\u2019s strongest character, so \u00c9dgar Ramirez is the actor who steals the show. He\u2019s quiet, simmering, and introverted, which makes audiences lean forward. And he\u2019s given a rich backstory \u2014 in part because Ramirez thought the character in the original screenplay needed work, so he inspired a rewrite by doing his own research on a Jesuit priest from Latin America.<\/p>\n

As Sarchie, Bana is earnest and aggressive, seemingly the kind of cop hero that audiences love \u2014 which makes it all the more interesting that he never really takes control of the narrative, but remains a cipher, a guide whose doubts most people will understand.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s Derrickson\u2019s twist: As in Raiders of the Lost Ark<\/em>, the hero\u2019s job is to realize that he\u2019s not going to be the hero this time around. He cannot win this battle. His job is to (forgive me) \u201clet go and let God.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Prayers are not magic spells but appeals for someone else to engage, to fight in our place.\u00a0Best to\u00a0invite the Almighty into the confrontation.<\/p>\n

And how does God fight? By presenting himself as love, willing to suffer any evil we throw at him, willing to die for us. He shows us that true deliverance lies not in returning evil for evil, violence with violence, cruelty with cruelty, but in overcoming evil with good (see footnote*).<\/p>\n

\"Sarchie<\/a>Thus, when these two\u00a0\u2014 the man of faith and the man of skepticism\u00a0\u2014 sit down like Pacino and De Niro in Michael Mann\u2019s Heat<\/em>, we feel that we\u2019ve finally arrived at the film\u2019s reason for being. It\u2019s too bad, then, that this scene flies by, and that their conversation barely scratches the surface of their subject.<\/p>\n

Similarly, while Bana and Munn make a good-looking couple, the scenes between them were too slight to make me really feel the tension when the inevitable tests come.<\/p>\n

Still, as Sarchie and Mendoza close in on the responsible party, Derrickson keeps things strange by keeping them true \u2014 drawing on the details of eyewitness accounts and recordings of exorcisms. Yeah, the big showdown with demons will come, which makes for sensational big screen spectacle; but Derrickson makes sure that nobody leaves the theatre feeling completely satisfied. Demons don\u2019t get locked away like crooks, and you can\u2019t shoot them. The movie provides steps forward for its characters, and this particular demon hunt reaches a blistering, explosive conclusion. But moviegoers will feel that they\u2019ve just seen an origin story \u2014 an episode in which a cop finds new vision and confidence, and a partnership worth following is formed.<\/p>\n

Would it be too much to ask for a sequel? The devils, they\u2019re still out there. And Mendoza has so much more to teach Sarchie.<\/p>\n

Did you \u201clike\u201d the movie? Your answer will have a lot to do with what you believe. If you believe that \u201cpossession\u201d is something different than a psychological disorder, this film may have the ring of truth. But if you think science can explain every mystery we encounter, and that spiritual warfare is just some dark-age delusion, this won\u2019t feel like much more than a trip through a hokey house of horrors.<\/p>\n

Me, I don\u2019t think questions about spiritual forces get enough airtime at the movies. As someone who has come a little too close for comfort to a couple of circumstances like this, and who has close friends who express regret that they ever encountered such stuff first-hand, I don\u2019t attend to stories like this the way I attend to, say, superhero movies. What Derrickson\u2019s spotlighting is not just a bunch of \u201cgenre cliches.\u201d Most of the time, entertainers treat demons as merely mythological, exploiting them for cheap thrills. Derrickson has\u00a0enough respect for common, consistent testimonies \u2014 and enough faith in humankind\u2019s ongoing experience of mystery \u2014 to take things much more seriously.\u00a0By adhering to the details of actual testimonies, he provokes audiences to wrestle with the implications of those testimonies\u2026 that certain horrors cannot be\u00a0just labeled and shelved as mental conditions or temporary psychosis.<\/p>\n

This is, in some senses, a genre film, and thus certain familiar tropes are in play. But it\u2019s a formula movie well-played, and one that layers formula upon formula into an intriguing hybrid. It\u2019s built to entertain. But this is also a Scott Derrickson film. It\u2019s going to give you more than you bargained for. It might keep you up at night with troubling questions about evil committed by humankind and, yes, evils done by something else. Derrickson shouldn\u2019t have been able to \u201cdeliver\u201d something that works both as a late-Friday-night popcorn scare fest and as a provocation to ask ourselves what we make of the prevalence of testimonies \u2014 across generations and cultures \u2014 regarding spiritual warfare of this nature. But that\u2019s what he did.<\/p>\n

No, not everything works. Olivia Munn should\u2019ve been given something more than the usual concerned-mom\/\u201dWhat about us?\u201d cop\u2019s wife, because she made an impression with what little she had to do. I didn\u2019t get enough from McHale\u2019s character for his big scene to pack the necessary punch. And the end-credits montage, going to extremes to disturb and distress, ends up merely trying our patience. This\u00a0material called for something a little more subtle and, dare I say it? Sacred.<\/p>\n

But the cast is strong, the sound design is fantastic, and everything looks great. As the craft of horror goes, it\u2019s a scream; and as a game of \u201cCatch the Homage\u201d or Use Your Allusions,\u201d it\u2019s a hoot and a half. \u00a0(Blade Runner<\/em> fans \u2014 watch for the clever Roy Batty reference at the end.)<\/p>\n

And for the record, Mr. Derrickson, sir, if you\u2019re listening: I would follow a whole franchise of \u00c9dgar Ram\u00edrez as The Specialist.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

* This is a bit of a tangent, but it\u2019s one I find compelling, so bear with me. The climactic confrontation in Deliver Us From Evil\u00a0<\/em>is profoundly Christian because it becomes a clash not of one violent force against another, but a meeting of the enemy\u2019s violence with God\u2019s willingness to suffer for the sake of love.<\/h6>\n
Many Christians get very excited about the idea of \u201cThe Battle of Armageddon,\u201d a sort of epic-fantasy battle in which the armies of God and the armies of Satan clash at the end of the world. But what\u2019s remarkable about the Scriptures upon which such fantasies are based is this: Revelation describes the enemies of God gathering at a place called Megiddo. But the battle never actually occurs.<\/em> All that happens is this: God says from heaven, \u201cIt is done,\u201d an echo of what Jesus said on the cross when he overcame by entering into death and overcoming its power. When those words are spoken, that is that. All resistance to God implodes, for the Great Liars have their strongest weapon\u00a0\u2014\u00a0death\u00a0\u2014\u00a0proven to be powerless against God\u2019s immeasurable love. Thus, apocalyptic stories that show the Powers of Good overcoming Evil with a sort of coercive violence miss the whole point. It is God\u2019s willingness to accept ultimate\u00a0the ultimate suffering of our hatred, rejection, and violence\u00a0\u2014 as an expression of his immeasurable love for us\u00a0\u2014 that is (and has always been) the invincible, overcoming force in the universe. It is finished, indeed.<\/h6>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

BONUS: Here\u2019s Scott Derrickson giving nothing short of an epic interview to Steven Greydanus.<\/p>\n