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Deliver Us from Evil | 2014 | R | - 3.7.7

The story follows an NYPD detective (Eric Bana) in the Bronx, as he's approached by a priest (Edgar Ramirez) who insists on helping with a case he feels it involves demonic possession. Together, they work to solve the case and confront many instances of paranormal intrigue. Also with Sean Harris, Olivia Munn and Joel McHale. Directed by Scott Derrickson. [1:58]

SEX/NUDITY 3 - A husband and his wife hug briefly in two scenes. A husband and his wife lie in bed; he is fully clothed and she is wearing a tank top with a quilt covering the rest of her body (the shape of her nipples seem visible through her tank top as the scene ends).
 A man who appears to be nude jumps out of a wall in a dark basement and we see what looks like a side view of nude buttocks, thighs, legs, shoulders and arms. A magazine picture of a nude woman has faces pasted over the breasts and a huge laughing mouth pasted at the groin area; we can see a bare shoulders, arms, abdomen, navel and partial thighs. A woman wears two dresses that reveal some cleavage. Three men appear shirtless; two have tattooed stars and patterns along their shoulder blades and upper back while the third man has Latin words and Persian symbols carved into his entire chest and much of his back.
 We hear that a criminal called Marvin the Molester is charged with 11 cases of child molestation and two counts of child murder. A priest tells a colleague that he had sex with a parishioner who became pregnant and had an abortion; in another scene, a man tells the priest that the baby was not aborted, but we hear that this is a lie. A woman in a bar tells a man that he looks good sweaty; he wishes her good night and leaves. A man berates a priest for taking a vow of celibacy and the priest ignores the remark.

VIOLENCE/GORE 7 - A man chases a another man, pistol-whips him until his face is bleeding down the full front of his shirt, and finally punches him to death and keeps on punching the body below the frame; after this incident, the man hears static, sees the man's bloody face and hears children laughing in several scenes while no one else can see or hear these things.
 A woman has a bloody face from a beating and sits crying as her husband runs outside, away from police, who fight him with fists, headlocks, knives and a thrown baton (his mouth is bloody). American soldiers in Iraq shoot rifles and we see men fall dead (no blood is seen). A man with two knives fights with a zombie-like man that has a narrow-bladed hatchet; after a few minutes of swiping at each other, the zombie-man wounds the other man in the chest (blood gushes from the wound) and the attacker leaves and we see a pool of blood under the wounded man.
 A detective finds a dead baby wrapped in a blanket and in a dumpster (we see the infant's ankles and feet). On an outside staircase landing, we see the scratched and bloody lower legs of a 6-year-old girl sticking out from behind a toppled waste can and hear that she is dead by murder. A bloody female psych patient falls from an upper window onto the window of a police vehicle, cracking the front glass; we see her on the ground, twisted and with eyes open, bones sticking out of her knee and a demon-possessed man later says that he killed the woman.
 In a dirty maximum-security psych ward, we see food trays scattered along a hallway; a man lies on the floor of a cell with his right arm convulsing and a woman covered with blood about the hands and face nearby; the woman crawls over the man's body, carrying a ring of keys in her mouth and moves off screen as the man's twitching arm stops (the man is presumably dead). A possessed man chews two large pieces of flesh from one of his lower legs and we see blood on his mouth as he spits the two pieces onto the floor; we see bloody flesh on the floor, but not the leg wounds. A man bites into the thigh of one man and the arm of another man, but we do not see the wounds; the men shout in pain.
 An intense sequence in an interrogation room shows a priest and a police detective performing an exorcism on a man whose chest is carved with Persian symbols and Latin words and he is bleeding; the man breaks out of a straitjacket and handcuffs and we see that his face and mouth are bleeding as he is restrained to a chair with new handcuffs (his neck breaks itself backwards over his chair back with a snap and then rights itself again) while loud rock music plays and the detective covers his ears; suddenly, his forehead opens up in a line under the hairline and bleeds (resembling wounds of an invisible crown of thorns), the priest repeatedly splashes holy water over the man's head and face, touches the forehead with a crucifix, and anoints the forehead with oil during scripture readings while the man growls, shouts, screeches and hisses loudly like a cat; he knocks down the priest (he is unhurt), a powerful scream drives the detective to go down to his knees, but he rises again as a blurred shot depicts a spirit flying around the room and re-entering the prisoner; glass windows shatter loudly and a rainstorm pours into the room, the lights go out and come back on until we see the carved man holding a rosary and a Catholic medallion while trying to scream like a demon (he appears shaken and bleeding, but alone).
 A man jumps out of a wall (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details) and a flashlight shows a dead man lying face-up with gray-tinged skin; his eyes and stomach move and they suddenly burst out with swarms of flies (no blood or gore is seen). Two soldiers descend into a cave, say it stinks in there, and their camera goes blank; we hear shouting and cursing as the scene ends and we later see one of the soldier's zombie-like face covered in streams of blood as he looks at a cave wall with Latin words and some symbols and a cloud of bats flies across the frame. A detective's forearm is sliced open and we see a bloody wound; we later see the stitched arm bitten (blood gushing from dark brown stitches) by a female psychiatric patient that is foaming at her dirty mouth and has bloody fingers and a bloody, gray face; the detective shouts that he needs an HIV test and in the next scene, the man's arm is completely wrapped in a bandage. In a zoo, a man complains that he hates cats and he becomes stuck in an enclosure with roaring lions during a power outage (he escapes). A criminal fights with a detective in his home, fist fighting until the cop puts him in handcuffs; the criminal pulls a hot-air heating pipe from a wall and is unharmed by it and he is arrested and taken to jail. A zombie-faced man looks at a woman on a video of zoo footage and she throws her two-year-old child into the lion enclosure, but he hits his head on a low wall and falls into a ravine; we hear that EMTs took the child to a hospital and he will be OK. A piano plays "Pop Goes the Weasel" by itself and a male criminal jumps out the back of the piano, strangling a man until a priest shows up with a crucifix that silences the criminal. A little girl is frightened when the lights go out, her bedroom door locks itself and her toys move by themselves in three scenes; a jack-in-the-box plays its own music and a large round owl toy hops and rolls toward her and when she opens the door, she sees a hooded man at the end of her hallway and screams loudly as the scene ends.
 We hear that 11 children have been molested by a man called Marvin the Molester. We hear that three Marines attacked someone and were dishonorably discharged. A man says that at age 12, he used a ball bat to club a man who was about to attack his mother; we do not hear what happened to the criminal or whether he lived. Police investigate murders and child killings. A man on a sidewalk points his finger at a cruiser like a gun as it passes. A little girl complains of scratching noises under her bedroom floor. Another scene shows a woman scratching at dirt and stone on the ground at a zoo. A woman tells a man that her husband returned from the Iraq War and began scratching and clawing the floors at home and we see scratch marks. A husband and his wife argue about his long work hours and his stress on the job. A man hanging upside down from his feet calls out, "No, please... they'll kill me!" A male detective says that a basement stinks.
 We see a cat nailed to a crucifix in place of Jesus and its dried-up body is slit open from throat to tail to reveal bones and dried flesh. Many tarantulas skitter up a palm tree beside a man. A multi-legged worm as large as a snake crawls over a man's boot. In an apartment, roaches run across the floor and up the walls, where other roaches are pinned to artwork. A man smashes a roach as he walks through a group of insects and we hear crunching. In a basement, we see a snake and then a length of cable in its place, like a hallucination. A lamp shakes by itself and we hear a loud snap, after which we see a rat caught in a trap (no blood). A dog barks loudly while chained to a bed and wearing the pendant of a man-beast with animal legs and cloven hooves. An aquarium looks like it is boiling and camera close-up shows the fish inside fighting; the water becomes cloudy, but no injuries appear. Cats and lions hiss and growl at a man in different scenes. In silent footage, a zombie-like man paints over Latin and Persian messages on a zoo wall and talks to a lion that walks away. End credits feature collages of skulls, snakes, severed arms and legs, insects and spiders.
 Several police cruisers rush with flashing lights to a self-storage site and cut locks from overhead lift doors until they find a woman and a little girl (both dirty, but unharmed).
 Outdoors at night, we see basement windows blow out toward the deserted street by themselves, shattering loudly and scattering glass. An explosion sends smoke and sparks into the night. A carousel in a zoo runs by itself, even though power is out.

LANGUAGE 7 - About 28 F-words and its derivatives, 14 scatological terms, 4 anatomical terms, 2 mild obscenities, name-calling (crazy, whack job, Addams Family, creepy, liar), stereotypical references to priests, skeptics, the police, drug abusers, men, women, mothers, little girls, immigrants, Italians, people who are possessed, cats, evil spirits, Middle Eastern legends, exclamations (Oh dear), 6 religious profanities (GD), 15 religious exclamations (e.g. Holy [scatological term deleted], Jesus, Jesus Christ, Sweet Jesus, Oh My God, By the Blood of Christ, By the Authority of our Lord, In His Holy Name I Renounce the Devil, All His Ways, All Evil).

SUBSTANCE USE - A doctor says that a patient is heavily sedated, a priest says that he used to do drugs until he woke up nude in a public square in a pool of urine with a needle for a speedball (heroine-cocaine mix) still in his arm and he joined Narcotic Anonymous, and police officers ask several people if drugs are connected to murders and beatings (the answer is no). A man drinks a bottle of beer at home, a man drinks whisky and a woman drinks wine at a bar where there are bottles of liquor lined up along the back, and two men drink whisky in short glasses in a bar. A woman smokes at home, a priest smokes cigarettes in several scenes (in a car, in a police station and on a sidewalk), and a cigarette is lit in close-up and the camera cuts to a priest exhaling smoke.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Religions, demonic possession, murder, child molestation, war, families, work, responsibility, vengeance, justice, deliverance.

MESSAGE - Vengeance is not justice.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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