(Very) loosely inspired by the memoir of an NYPD detective who worked with exorcists, “Deliver Us From Evil’’ expertly serves shivers, buckets of gore — and pretty much every cliché of the genre.
It’s also got a solid lead performance by the intense Croatian-Australian actor Eric Bana (“Lone Survivor’’) who treats the sometimes risible occurrences with deadly seriousness while still maintaining a sense of gallows humor. Bana’s refusal to treat this as camp or slumming is a good part of why this hard-R supernatural thriller is a definite guilty pleasure for those so inclined.
New York cop Ralph Sarchie’s exploits — he claims to have participated in more than 20 exorcisms — made the front page of The Post in 1999, and his memoir was published two years later.
That hasn’t stopped director and co-writer Scott Derrickson (“The Exorcism of Emily Rose’’) from moving the story forward to the very different Bronx of 2013, where Sarchie investigates increasingly weird incidents involving a trio of Iraq war veterans.
Unlike his devoutly religious real-life counterpart, Bana’s Sarchie is a lapsed Catholic with a very dark secret that a priest (Édgar Ramírez, whose excellent work matches Bana’s) with his own dark secret says gives Sarchie a unique insight into fighting evil.
Lord knows, there’s plenty of evil to be combated here — including a possessed woman who tosses her infant son into a moat in front of the tiger enclosure at the Bronx Zoo and later takes a bite out of our hero’s arm when he is unwise enough to stick his cellphone into her hospital cell.
Oh, and then there’s the possessed veteran who kidnaps Sarchie’s wife (Olivia Munn) and young daughter who he has been neglecting.
Derrickson, who maintains interest for a solid two hours, hasn’t missed a single trope: flickering lights, weird sounds and voices, scary dolls, suicides landing on car hoods, the sinister jack-in-the-box that slows down, then speeds up its delivery of “Pop Goes the Weasel.’’ The fight to the death atop an old player piano may be a new touch, though.
Joel McHale of TV’s “Community’’ provides some comic relief as Sarchie’s more laid-back partner, who is still willing to go along with his crazier hunches. But the real chemistry is between Bana and Ramírez — you won’t nap during their climatic exorcism at a station house, that’s for sure.
Sarchie told The Post’s Douglas Montero back in 1999 that he’s a fan of horror films from way back. I don’t think he’s disappointed with “Deliver Us From Evil,’’ and neither will be other horror aficionados.