‘Deliver Us From Evil’ Trailer Suggests That Demons Don’t Abide by the Law

By  · Published on April 11th, 2014

Screen Gems

With horror movies hitting theaters left and right, it’s often hard to tell new releases apart. After all, it’s easy to stick with a tried and true formula if it’s guaranteed to get the maximum amount of scares and screams. Take some nice, normal people, for example, and have them get plagued by a demon or a malevolent poltergeist. It’s been working for the last 30 or so years, hasn’t it? Have their plight be viewed through the grainy green haze of found footage and there’s an even bigger chance that it’s going to be a hit. Or stick that nice family in an even worse situation – maybe it’s some facet of the house itself that’s turning on them, like a cursed mirror or family heirloom. It’s the “call is coming from inside the house” of ghosts.

While these methods of spookiness are effective and often masterful, they’re also becoming another thing – expected. There can only be so many Paranormal Activity sequels before Paranormal Activity: Maybe We Should Just Move makes it into the mix. That’s why the trailer for Deliver Us From Evil, the new horror from Scott Derrickson (Sinister, The Exorcism of Emily Rose) looks so refreshing. While Derrickson is guilty of a few genre sins in his last couple films – that nice family plagued by demons, getting a pretty Catholic girl mixed up with Satan – Evil appears to be unlike what the genre’s been churning out for the last few years.

Check out the trailer for Deliver Us From Evil below.

The film follows an NYPD detective (Eric Bana) bent on solving a series of gruesome murders with no leads. His investigation puts him in contact with a rather unconventional priest (Edgar Ramírez) who points out that maybe the deaths have an occult edge, as in it’s not any human committing theses crimes. While a normal cop would probably ignore this warning, Bana’s character dives deep into the world of the unknown, bringing back a whole lot of terrible with him.

What makes this trailer look so promising is that besides the storyline being unconventional – hiding a horror film in a cop flick – is that it looks genuinely terrifying as well. Obviously we at home know that the moment you listen to a recording of an exorcism and start snooping where you’re not supposed to, stuff starts to get real, but it’s going to be oh so satisfying seeing Bana and his poor, suffering family (run while you can, Olivia Munn) figure that out in real time. As soon as the toys start operating by themselves, it’s pretty much too late.

Whether or not this will turn out to be the horrorfest of our dreams or just another flick full of jump scares remains to be seen, but it should be in good hands with Derrickson at the helm – Sinister is still the stuff of nightmares. It’s also worth noting that Evil is one of our 52 Most Anticipated Movies of 2014.

Deliver Us From Evil hits theaters August 2nd.