Scott Derrickson, the director of The Exorcism of Emily Rose and breakout horror hit Sinister, knows how to scare you. And the trailers for his latest frightfest, this summer’s Deliver Us From Evil, suggest that his scariest outing behind the camera yet may only be a few months away. Mashing together a cop thriller and a supernatural nail-biter, Deliver Us From Evil centers on Detective Ralph Sarchie, who stumbles upon a demonic possession case that threatens to consume him and everyone he loves.
The latest trailer, despite not including much new footage, may be the film’s best one yet, really turning up the amount of scares. Last summer, we were treated to old-school haunted house chiller The Conjuring, and it looks like this summer will remind us why so many horror directors lean more toward jump-out scares and grisly images. If anyone can make that kind of horror movie without slipping into cliched territory, it’s Derrickson.
As with most horror movies hitting theaters these days, Deliver Us from Evil is purportedly based on a true story. In this case, the film takes its inspiration from the actual accounts of NYPD Detective Ralph Sarchie. In Deliver Us from Evil, Sarchie (Eric Bana) teams up with a renegade priest (Edgar Ramirez) and chases down leads in the bizarre case of a woman who has fallen under the influence of a demonic force.
Unlike in the other trailers, the evil entity is depicted here as a supernatural epidemic, capable of infecting countless innocent individuals. Whether that’s actually the case in the film remains to be seen, but it’s a highly effective marketing angle, allowing us to get sneak peeks at loads of scary stuff (the rolling owl toy in Sarchie’s daughter’s bedroom is what got me the most, surprisingly) without making the trailer feel like a haphazardly compiled clip reel. I’m totally on board for this flick; the cast is strong, the scares look to be plentiful, and the cop angle should keep things fresh.
Olivia Munn, Joel McHale and Sean Harris co-star in Deliver Us From Evil, which opens July 2nd.
