The Dry (2021)

Score: 3 / 5

Detective Aaron Falk returns to his home of Kiewarra, Australia, for the funeral of a childhood friend, Luke, who murdered his wife and young son before turning his gun on himself. But Aaron's return is greeted mostly by furtive whispers and untrusting glares because he himself was a suspect some twenty years prior, when he left town. As he (and we) learn about what happened to Luke and his family, we also learn about Aaron's youth, when a teenage girl drowned and both he and Luke were implicated, lied to the police, and suffered ostracism. It only ended for Aaron when his family left town; apparently the intensity and stress never really ended for Luke. But now that he's back -- and in a sweltering drought, no less -- the town's old wounds open up like they'd never healed.

After Luke's parents convince Aaron that there is room for doubting Luke's guilt, he decides to stay and investigate the already closed case. He has to endure some difficult conversations with townsfolk, including the father of the dead teenager from Aaron's past and the local police chief (who is clearly green when it comes to violent crimes and dead bodies). Interspersed among these scenes are flashback scenes that show a young Aaron and Luke hanging out, flirting with girls, and ultimately the events that led to the drowning. The assumed credulity of these flashbacks reveals a lot of misinformation, projection, and misguided anger in the present, as the flashbacks establish a gap between what people thought about the past and what actually happened. And as present-day Aaron connects with the idiosyncratic townsfolk, he uncovers a lot of secrets, motivations, and guilts. What is going on in Kiewarra during this dry spell?

The Dry stars Eric Bana as the guilt-ridden, haunted detective, and it's smart enough to let him carry the film with his singularly moody demeanor. It's his best role in years, and he runs with it like the protagonist of a Gillian Flynn novel or a new season of True Detective. We're left wondering for most of the film's runtime exactly how guilty he really is about the previous murder, and Bana gives us almost no help, even refusing to deny accusations or claim innocence when confronted. Clearly he feels guilty, but how much and why are left for us to decipher as audience detectives, and the film trusts us to keep up with its not-so-verbose screenplay.

The film -- as is true with many Australian films -- highlights the landscape, with frequent establishing or transitional shots taking in the windswept, dusty fields around the rural farming town. Warm with amber light, the film exudes its heat right out of the screen, transporting us to a land choking for air and water. We see dust devils on the plains, and often an overhead shot of the riverbed where the teenage girl drowned before, now a rocky crevice splitting the landscape. The townsfolk, primarily farmers who can't currently farm, are made to sit around lazily waiting for rain, gossiping about the crimes of the past and present and the ghosts tied to this town. I wondered a few times if the film would tip into wider issues, such as the danger in these small towns of dying out due to capitalist/corporate farming, or some deeper distrust of law enforcement or forensics (there is an underlying motif of powerlessness experienced by every single character), but it never really went there. It was just a fairly engrossing, beautiful to watch and unwind, whodunnit in the outback.

Deliver Us From Evil (2014)

Score: 3.5 / 5

We've seen it all before. An uncomfortable opening that makes little or no sense. The promise of icky, not-so-subtle creepiness. Profuse (and often incorrect) religious exclamations, explanations, and imagery. Shaky camerawork and various bizarre sounds mixed in with the screaming. A woman or child in danger (both, if we're lucky). A good friend sacrificing himself. People popping out where they shouldn't, things popping out of people where they shouldn't.

If you have to guess whether it's demon possession movie, you should dunk your head in some holy water.

Deliver Us From Evil, the most recent release from director Scott Derrickson, hit cinemas last week. Fans may recognize his name, and for good reason: he has written and directed notables (and personal favorites) The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) and Sinister (2012). I was excited to hear about his new project, even though it claims to be based on a true story, and looked forward to seeing Eric Bana in a scary movie (and a tight black t-shirt).

Besides the bad taste its title leaves in your mouth, the film's plot may be too familiar to chill you this summer. You hardly have to know its premise to guess what evil we'll be delivered from, how it'll be done, and who'll make it out the other side. So if you only like films that keep you guessing and surprised, steer clear of this iceberg. But if you enjoy seeing a master of atmosphere kick around an old story and eke out some fresh sensations, give this movie a watch.

A shadowy, rainy Bronx becomes a great character in itself - one that Derrickson brilliantly highlighted but should have explored more. And inside the gritty city facades beats a palpable heart in the form of Bana's performance as NYPD officer Ralph Sarchie. Derrickson wrote an engaging if flat protagonist, but the character's bravado is complicated by Bana's sensitivity and dark gaze. Sarchie at first seems the ideal candidate to head a movie about urban demonic activity. Buff, a loving husband and father, buff, intelligent, good to his partner, buff - he is an intriguing hero, gifted with his own Spidey-sense, a "radar" of discernment. Hints at a man haunted by pain and suffering, however, pervade the screen from the first shot (that is, after the bizarre prologue).

It turns out that Sarchie is deeply troubled, resulting in a damaged home life and a loss of faith. Thankfully, Derrickson doesn't burden us with any extended didactic on faith or the nature of evil - besides one nicely-written scene between the cop and the priest. In fact, there is hardly a religious presence in the film until the exorcism scene itself. Typical of the possession movie's happy ending (The Exorcist (1973), The Rite (2011), and Derrickson's The Exorcism of Emily Rose), the ending tries to force-feed us a "message" of sorts, in which Sarchie (spoiler alert...but not really) reclaims his lost faith. If that's the story Derrickson wants to tell, I won't fight it, but I don't particularly like it. Especially with the film's title, which should have remained its original Beware the Night.

Though the film is testosterone-heavy, I found some fresh air in seeing that women were not the only victims of demonic assault. Too often in films men are tasked with incarcerating or killing possessed women, which certainly continues a dialogue about sexist historical medical/religious practices, but which does not provide new images for younger audiences. But the main "villain" here is a man (a balding man with lots o' blood), and though he does threaten women and children, they are not the objectified targets.

A surprising amount of violence and gore pervades the film, which adds to the gritty realism of the setting. Typical of Derrickson's work, not all the jump-scares are very jumpy or scary, but they all add to the atmospheric dread. The film would have benefitted from being about twenty minutes shorter, cutting some of the unnecessary lengthy close-ups of the second half. But for two hours of atmospheric chills, bloody bald guys, and Eric Bana fun, it's definitely worth a watch.

IMDb: Deliver Us From Evil