Happy October everyone!! The best month of the year is finally here. Time to come home after work in the dark, walk to work in the dark and the fog, eat a lot of candy, spend a lot of money on more decorations, and more importantly - watch horror movies. More than usual.
Let's jump right in as we have two reviews for our Day 1 movie. The first is mine, and the second is Sofia, a 16 year old high school student who is starting her adventure into the lonely life of a horror fan.
DAY ONE - DELIVER US FROM EVIL (2014)
The first week of the horror movie challenge is a “re-watch”
week for me and a “first time watch” for Sofia. I started out with Deliver us
from Evil. I watched this film last year and remembered it being gritty, dark,
and terrifying.
Upon re-watching only two of those were true. I still
enjoyed the film, don’t get me wrong, but I looked at it this time with a much
more critical eye.
Deliver us from Evil was released in 2014 from director
Scott Derrickson. It’s based loosely on the real life events of Ralph Sarchie –
a tough New York cop turned demonologist, and his book Beware the Night. Obviously the movie takes some creative freedoms
which is why the poster reads “inspired by” and not “based on”. Sarchie in real
life actually seems super cool. He also worked with Ed and Lorraine Warren so
ya’ll know I’m instantly on his side. He has a reality show coming in November
to Destination America (surprise, surprise) called The Demon Files (surprise,
surprise) which I will definitely binge watch.
The film stars Eric Bana in the role of Sarchie, Joel McHale
as his partner, Oliva Munn as his wife, and Edgar Ramirez as the sexy priest.
Who is just a regular priest. But sexy.
So Sarchie, as stated, is a tough ol’ cop with his sassy
partner who is only there to make one liners and then die. Although, it is nice
seeing Joel McHale in a more serious role, and all beefed up. Honestly,
everyone in this film is very good looking and if all New York cops and priests
look like this…sign me up.
The movie follows Sarchie as he discovers how a small team
of men encountered something demonic while fighting in Iraq. They bring this
demonic entity home with them and then proceed to fuck everything up. Including
their wives and people’s walls and the zoo. Sarchie with the help of an “undercover
priest” (which I’m not entirely sure what that is? Do you secretly pray to
Jesus?) who drinks, smokes, and gets rowdy, gets to the bottom of all these
strange goings on and then at the end (because duh) they perform an exorcism
and everything is happy and fine.
A few things I didn’t love about this movie;
It is constantly dark. I get that they work the night shift,
that it’s scarier, and that it adds to the mood yeah yeah yeah. But I honestly
spent half the film squinting at the screen trying to figure out wtf was happening.
Also too much rain? Every time they stepped outside it was a
torrential downpour. Do you live here in Vancouver? What’s with the damn rain?
Does New York have a monsoon season?
And let’s talk about this undercover priest. He comes from a
history of drugs and crazy sex until plot point happens and life changed and
now priesthood. But he’s like, a cool priest. If he wasn’t so sexy, I honestly
think I would hate this character. He’s just so…looming. Keeps telling Sarchie
to confess his sins which is kind of intense. Although when he meets Sarchie
for the first time he hands him his business card and goes, “If you see
something strange or inexplicable…please call me” and I think I’m going to
start introducing myself that way.
There’s lots of plot holes in the movie, some of which don’t
matter, some of which bugged me while watching. Like why would the zoo hire
this random guy to paint the inside of a lion’s den? He looks like a fucking
psycho with like face paint and goth makeup and the zoo is like, here’s full
access? Really? The priest smoked inside of a bar? Really? Its 2013 when this
movie is set? I fucking wish you could still smoke in bars.
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The one thing that did scare me though was when Sarchie kept having these quick flashbacks to his major plot point of emotion (he killed a child murderer with his bare hands and it gives him feels that he can’t deal with), the guys’ name was Mervyn and completely randomly Sarchie would have these flashes of Mervyn’s bloody face. They were such well-placed jump scares and got me every single time.
The exorcism scene was nothing special. You’ve seen one
exorcism scene, you’ve seen ‘em all.
Overall the movie felt pretty long winded. I got a little
bored about half way through and then lost the plot for a while. But I still
think as far as possession movies go, this one is one of the better ones. If
only because it feels more like a gritty cop drama than a possession film, and
it’s not found footage which is always a plus.
First time watching this movie I would’ve given it a 9/10
but now as a second time watch I’m going to only give it a 6.5/10. I’d recommend
it for first time watchers, but I probably won’t watch it again anytime soon.
If you want to find out more about the real Ralph Sarchie,
there’s a great 15 minute documentary on youtube that came out along with the
film, you can watch it here
Well hello there! Quick intro, my name is Sofia, and I am
a 16-year-old budding horror enthusiast. My lovely friend Charlotte asked me to
join her on her 31 day challenge, and I undoubtedly agreed, despite the fact
that I am a total wimp. Since I am an aspiring writer, you could imagine my
excitement when she asked me to co-write on her blog for this wonderful spooky
month. You can find me on my personal blog, www.memoirsofanerdgirl.wordpress.com , and
join me on my adventure of my life! Now, onto the review!
I am always down for a good possession movie, and was
looking forward to kicking off the challenge with Scott Derrickson’s Deliver Us
from Evil. It was rather cliché heavy, especially in the beginning. You have
your sweaty work out montage, a not-so-merry-go-round complete with expected
jump scare, and a dead body full of bugs. Oh no, your flash light stopped
working? Again? Also, this movie contained enough scene setting flickering
lights to last a lifetime.
On the bright side, there were also a lot of unexpected
things. A dead dumpster baby, a man shoving cigarettes up his nose, and the
chucking of a child into the lion’s den. Literally.
Ralph Sarchie, our main character, is a cop with a
‘radar’ for bad things. His partner, Butler, is an adrenaline junkie that feeds
off Ralph’s nose for danger. They begin to discover mysterious cases, throw a
promiscuous priest in the mix, and, well, you can guess what’s behind it
all.
Our main demon man is very humanoid, and doesn't possess
(haha get it?) a lot of the supernatural abilities you'd expect. Although, he
does have the remarkable ability to carve shit on his back. I guess yoga Saturdays do pay off if you want to summon
Satan. No telekinesis, not paranormally strong, just a super creepy dude with
some very bad make up skills. And his name is the Jungler. What?
Exorcism scene was good, I liked the breakdown of each
part of the ritual and the priest's weakness when the demon taunted him. Most
of the time, our exorcism priest's seem very collected. I don't care if you
have the power of Christ in you, if some demon starts talking smack, you'd want
to punch him.
Alright, so that's it for day one ya'll. Join us for day two where we watch (and re-watch) The Innkeepers, a ghostly classic.
Stay Spooky!
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