Deliver Us From Evil

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Casting is everything - if you get it wrong you're sunk. Eric Bana and Joel McHale are fine actors in their own right but neither are Bronx special ops cops - not in a million years. And Ramirez is never a priest. But, oh, if the casting was the only thing wrong here maybe this would have been salvageable.

Bana plays a NY cop involved in a bizarre case involving tattooed Iraq War vets, Latin-spouting madwomen, crucified cats, and toddlers tossed to lions by hypnotised parents. As he is sucked ever deeper in the mystery, priest (and NA member) Mendoza (Ramirez), offers to help while pregnant wife (Nunn) wants Bana to stay at home and spend time with their daughter (Olivia Horton) who's scared of the ‘noises' in her bedroom...

Writer Paul Harris Boardman and director Scott Derrickson (Sinister) team up again for another story based on true events and like their previous collaboration - The Exorcism of Emily Rose - it's not terrible, just unremarkable. No wait - it's terrible. Less a horror and more a supernatural episode of an ‘edgy' cop drama, Derrickson at least gets the look right, using Fincher's murky lighting/gloomy apartment visuals of Se7en to create mood. Passages and tunnels are always narrow with low ceilings, hemming everyone into an uncomfortable space. Lights flicker, cockroaches scatter, flies swarm, pipes leak. Fight scenes on dirty stairwells. It's always night time. All this works.

But the inconsistency is shocking. At one point Bana scours old army footage for clues, is suddenly attacked by an assailant who makes off... and then he returns to footage search. As if nothing happened. Later, he is visibly distressed when he listens to a recording of an exorcism... and then he has a game of pool. As if nothing happened. Dropping The Doors into the mix is unintentionally funny and not just because it's only Bana who can hear them. In fact, every time Derrickson is trying to scare us, he ends up making us cringe.

And then there's the casting problems. A committed Bana works hard and at least has a stab at an accent but the wise-cracking McHale, with his cap on backwards, badge casually swinging from his neck and his dependency on his knife rather than his firearm, looks like he wouldn't believe his performance. The always creepy, always value for money Sean Harris, however, manages against all odds to walk away from the movie with his held high, despite playing what will probably the most ridiculous bad guy he'll ever play.

Some good, most bad.