Black Phone 2 (2025)

Score: 3.5 / 5

The Black Phone was, in my opinion, over-hyped and hasn't really stood the test of time, even in only four years. I liked it well enough, but repeat viewings have made its substantial plot holes increasingly difficult to swallow. Some movies are just meant to be seen once and enjoyed as such; Derrickson's mastery of suggestive suspense and brutal scares is too profound for him to make a mediocre cinematic experience. However, the story was simplistic, messy, and too vague for its own good. Perhaps that's why Ethan Hawke's villainous Grabber character has maintained its interest: he's enigmatic enough to be upsetting. I think of him the way I think of Michael Myers: sure, he's scary enough, but it's not until he should be dead and rises again anyway that we really lock into the horror Laurie Strode is up against.

When a sequel was announced, I blanched. Joe Hill only wrote a single short story, and that was adapted into the first film; what could happen next, with the Grabber dead? But I'm glad I reserved judgment, because Black Phone 2, despite its terrible title, took me on a wild ride that scared me, provoked my curiosity in refreshing ways, and eventually helped me think of its predecessor in a kinder light. That's pretty remarkable these days, with strung-along sequels and remakes that never try to do something really weird and make it work.

I won't recount much plot here, because piecing it together is part of the fun to be had, but Black Phone 2 relocates Finney and Gwen, now considerably older, to a Christian camp alongside a mountainous lake in their home state of Colorado. Led by Gwen's visions of their dead mother's time working there, the kids (and Gwen's new boyfriend) arrive amidst a terrible snowstorm, isolating them in cabins along with the four camp staffers stationed there. Gwen's visions worsen, and Finney receives calls via the camp's decommissioned payphone: the Grabber, long dead, has figured out a way to seek revenge on Finney for killing him. The logic is a bit unclear, but he's haunting a site of his own early murders, reinforcing the psychic connection between the Grabber and the kids through their mother, whose unwelcome visions allowed her to see his victims and eventually drove her mad (and to suicide, as was presumed in the previous film). 

Less like Michael Myers and more like Freddy Krueger, this film swings into directions I was not at all expecting, and Derrickson's aesthetic choices in the first film are doubled down on here, making his earlier choices make more sense. For example, the first film features intercuts of what appear to be Super 8mm footage indicating the abduction/murder scenes of what we know to be missing persons; it's utilizing a sort of mockumentary/found footage technique for no reason because of course no one was filming those crimes. Yet in this film, it's finally clear that that technique is simply a visual cue as to how Gwen's visions appear: grainy, blurry, awkwardly spliced together. Whereas I thought it was, before, a cheap ploy capitalizing on Derrickson's terrifying successes in Sinister (which it may well have been), now I see it as a suitably reasonable approach to non-anachronistic visual representation that the character herself would be familiar with.

Regardless, the Grabber's crimes are no longer so pedestrian, and here he's got a nasty axe to grind. Literally. The bloody violence of this film had me gagged, and I mean that literally as well, because it was not what I expected. Hawke returns, and this time he's not quite as chillingly spooky; nor is he as sexually suggestive, which I both liked and wish we had some closure about. His first outing was like Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates: performative and cerebral, rather femme and quietly disturbed. This time, he's full-on psycho, an edge of diabolic malevolence to his gravelly voice, launching headfirst into rooms from shadowy corners and taking broad swings with his weapons of choice. He's not going to trick or toy with his victims now. He's going to dismember them. 

Surreal nightmare logic won't work for everyone, but this movie worked for me on that front. I also liked that Gwen takes more of a leading role here, and the actors (excellent already in the first film) deliver shockingly mature performances yet again. Finney has the thankless position of trying to become a man with the only role model of his father (Jeremy Davies, who returns in a diminished capacity here), who is only tenuously no longer alcoholic and abusive. Naturally, Finney has some junk still to sort through mentally, and he's numbing his pain and his life as a result. Gwen's visions this time are more brutal, and so is her treatment by the Grabber, making the nature of violence in this film a really cool counterpoint to the first: then, it was suggestive, abductive, and sexual, whereas now, it's explicit, bodily, and psychic. 

This is still a big-budget slasher film, even with its ghostly elements, and it doesn't all cohere the way we might want. Rather than allowing the kids' dynamics to breathe naturally, they're forced into conversations that reveal key things laid out as breadcrumbs by the writers, building to a contrived climax that only works as the sum of these crumbs. The camp staffers, including Demian Bichir and Arianna Rivas, are mostly forgettable, only there to allow the kids chances to explain what's happening and to spur them on to make tough decisions and help with physical tasks, such as searching a frozen lake for bodies stashed there more than twenty years prior. 

Crazy? Yeah, and that's the kind of weird thing that a film like this should have worked out in, well, workshop. Derrickson is too good to let a weird screenplay get in his way, but this story (like the previous one) could have used some serious help in development. But if you're willing to let plot holes and strange logical jumps be what they are, Black Phone 2 has boons in store. Terrifyingly choreographed and edited sequences turn nightmarish visions into impossible realities, shifting between visual modes as we watch the Grabber viciously tearing apart his victims while, in waking cuts, bodies of teenagers are flung about with spurts of blood. Derrickson and his cinematographer milk the snowy, mountainous landscape for all its worth, often using window panes and ice as our actual frame into their world. And while Derrickson's penchant for religious content isn't gone here -- Gwen still talks to Jesus for help in her wonderfully crass way, and the Grabber's mask is about as demonic as you can get -- it does feel earned and grounded in ways we so rarely see (these are not idolatrous possession films bogged down in Catholic imagery or emotionally manipulative Warren-esque normative families). This works surprisingly well in a film that basically turns a one-off spooky story into a full-fledged supernatural slasher franchise. Where else has the Grabber killed kids? Will he go on to haunt those places, too?

The Gorge (2025)

Score: 3 / 5

You may find familiar, dear reader, my praise of films that know and demonstrate exactly what they are, regardless of budget, marketing, and online chatter. A B-movie that is, enthusiastically, the kind of simpler, cheaper, wackier thing you expect to see in an encore feature at a drive-in or underground film festival will earn extra points for me purely as a result of this self-awareness (not metafiction, mind you, but pure comfort in its clearly defined subgenre or intended audience) and resulting conviction. Think genre films. Think zany action. Think excuses for flair. These are films you don't have to take notes during -- heck, you probably don't even need subtitles, because the dialogue isn't that important -- and can sit back and fully enjoy. Or not, and you can snack and chitchat with your friends while it plays before you. 

This is what Scott Derrickson, notably religious creator of thoughtful and haunting horrors The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Sinister, has released to us this year. I'm a big fan of Derrickson's work and the way he has articulated his faith in relation to his preferred genre, and I've been glad for his continued rise in prominence and studio structures. Though nothing he's directed has felt as poignant or personally affecting as those two titles already mentioned -- the former remaining the single best meditation on the intersection of faith and horror I've ever seen and the latter being the single scariest viewing experience I've ever had in a cinema -- the director of Deliver Us from Evil, Doctor Strange, and The Black Phone seems to enjoy playing with big budgets and effects-laden visuals in recent years. The admittedly diminishing returns show no sign of running out with The Gorge.

Sadly, though, this film was not released in cinemas, and I simply cannot understand why. Unless you're at home with a sizable tv screen and at least decent surround sound, The Gorge cannot glean from you the awe it was clearly intended to harvest. 

In brief, the plot concerns two mercenary snipers stationed in isolation at two towers opposite a gorge, which they must maintain lest the dangerous creatures below emerge. That's it, and I tell you that because as such, this is a fabulously high-concept film. Compare it to '70s disaster films or major summer blockbusters: you can get a lot of mileage out of Kevin Bacon fighting carnivorous giant worms in the desert. And regardless of the quality of its special effects, there is something charming about simply watching the compelling conceit unfurl; it helps the film's legacy when major stars populate the screen and special effects are convincing and/or funny. 

And while Derrickson and his screenwriter Zach Dean clearly have fun plumbing the depths of their titular gorge and its secrets, one does grow a little suspicious of their own investment in the film. Because for all its wacky energy and bizarre plot turns -- and trust and believe, these are aplenty -- the film takes itself just -- just -- too seriously. Needless details are one thing, but when their sole purpose is to elicit sympathy from the viewer and intensify emotional attachment, we trespass into sentimentality. We don't need to know that Miles Teller has PTSD from the military or that Anya Taylor-Joy's terminally ill father is soon to commit suicide; these are masterful performers with enough charisma to lead larger projects than this, so let them just do it. Edit out the sentimental crap and turn this movie into what it should be: a mostly silent, curious and introspective, white-knuckled ride through hell and back.

That's not to say the romance aspect of this thriller/adventure/sci-fi/horror film is unwelcome. Despite its truncated length, the budding relationship between the two characters feels both blissful and earned, thanks to a montage sequence for the ages. By the time he hatches a plan to visit her, we're fully on board with this, though frankly she was so rude to him at first I was yelling at the screen for him to go back. The problem is rather that the film leans too heavily into this at times, and too heavily into the action and mystery and horror at others, with no clear tonal through line or even recognizable pattern. Worse, and this is perhaps a little mean, but Dean's dialogue needed some serious workshopping to sound believable and to save my poor eyes from rolling.

After you see the film, I dare to just think about the exact same story but shot entirely from Miles's perspective. Or Anya's. Think about us, stuck there silently with one character as they have to learn their job, settle into place, discover each other, try to communicate and build a relationship, and decide to make the dangerous and disobedient visit. That approach would ratchet up the tension and mystery even more by obscuring certainty about the beguiling other person, shed the artificial sentimentality of being force-fed their backstories, add opportunities for creative cinematography, editing, and sound mixing around one person's isolated existence, and provide space for unexpected and earned comedy as we would understand the awkwardness of being alone and needing to connect with another character even from afar, if only to learn what the heck the movie was about! We'd discover things along with the characters in a much more compelling and authentic way, without too many details from the screenplay being lost along the way.

And I think that's where we'll leave this review. Several things yet I wanted to mention -- including the amazing score from Reznor and Ross that electrifies this film's energy, Sigourney Weaver's delicious appearance from head to toe, effective and scary monster design (a mix of Annihilation and The Mist), Sope Dirisu's considerable skill in enlivening a miserable exposition-dumper minor part before being totally wasted by the film, the absolute nonsense that these lovers need binoculars to even see each other yet often smile and wave without so much as a squint, the insane color grading of the fog scenes (gray to yellow to blue to red, for no apparent reason) that had me in a panic attack because I hadn't taken anything so why was I tripping -- but describing too many details of a movie like this can really take the joy away from your raw viewing of it. So if any of this sounds remotely interesting to you, or you want to just have a fun time with a fine flick, check out The Gorge. It's a solid date night choice.

The Black Phone (2022)

Score: 3.5 / 5

Thank goodness Scott Derrickson chose to bless us with another horror film. Sinister is, in my not-quite-humble opinion, perhaps the scariest movie I've ever seen; The Exorcism of Emily Rose is one of the smartest and most beautiful horror movies I've ever seen. After Deliver Us from Evil, Derrickson joined the MCU and I feared we'd lose the raw genius to big-budgeted committee-written work. But the man still knows what he's doing and clearly loves making movies like this. It's not on par with his scariest or most provocative work, but it's certainly a scary time at the cinema! This one feels much more emotionally resonant than the writer-director's previous work; it's also his most hopeful horror film to date.

Based on a short story by Joe Hill (son of Stephen King), The Black Phone feels much like other work by the esteemed writer from Maine. It's got the '70s nostalgic elements, the oddball outcast kids, schoolyard bullying, a very real-world monster, and some ambiguously supernatural elements that provide both dread and awe. The story concerns Finney and Gwen, siblings who live in a suburb near Denver with their widower father, an abusive alcoholic (played by character actor Jeremy Davies). They go to school and navigate their way between bullies -- although the younger Gwen tends to be a bit more protective in those instances -- before heading home, and it's not always clear which they dread more. But when Finney's best friend Bruce disappears, not even the journey to school or back home is a safe time for the kids.

Bruce has been kidnapped by The Grabber, a mysterious criminal in the neighborhood, who has been abducting teenage boys in broad daylight. A new age bogeyman, he primarily operates out of a black windowless van labeled for his part-time magician work. Dubious as that occupation may be, he does cut quite a menacing figure for the first third of the film, seen primarily in the distance or through what appears to be Super 8 film reels, often accompanied by a bundle of black balloons. He looks like a cross between Pennywise and the Babadook, in all black except for a white, garish face and tall black top hat. He's played by Ethan Hawke, in a rare turn for the actor as a villain (this is his second time this year, after Moon Knight), and despite my general misgivings about the actor, he's extraordinary here. We don't even really see him for almost half the movie, and when we do he's almost always covered by a mask or parts of a mask that appear interchangeable, for different faces. He's still and calculated and calm (for the most part), and even rather effete, which is annoying but accurate to the social fears of the time; he is given no real backstory or sympathy by the screenplay, so he's just a terrifying evil man. Curiously, despite his limp wristed mannerisms, the film stops short of declaring that he's molesting or abusing these adolescent boys. But, like Freddy in the first Nightmare on Elm Street, it's clear what his sins are even when it's carefully never mentioned.

Gwen sees psychic visions of the Grabber and his crimes, and when she tells the detectives about it, her father is approached at work for questioning and later takes out his embarrassment on Gwen's backside violently. He should be kinder, because before long Finney is taken, too. Held in a soundproof basement, bare of all but a dingy toilet and tattered mattress, Finney immediately starts looking for a way out. The only window is a little too high and is blocked by bars. The massive door is bolted shut. And the wall-mounted black telephone isn't connected to any lines. The Grabber occasionally feeds him, but he's clearly not going to be eating well. Gwen prays fervently for help in navigating her visions and to see where her brother is being held. Finney isn't idle, but his situation seems pretty hopeless. When the phone starts to ring, though, things really get weird.

It may not strike audiences as weird in the age of cell phones, but to have a clunker like the titular phone start ringing in a nasty bare cellar is plenty creepy on its own. Add to it the disembodied voices of Bruce and the other kidnapped and murdered boys, and it's a miracle Finney doesn't lose his marbles. But the voices, overcoming some vague forgetfulness that apparently accompanies death, seem eager to help Finney escape, and they get him to work on multiple projects, including pulling a wire out from the walls, tearing off the window bars, and digging a hole in front of the toilet. When the Grabber begins playing "games" with Finney -- see, I told you he's a pervert -- and leaves the door unlocked, the phone rings to warn Finney that the games are tests, and failure means death. Bravery will mean death.

The nostalgic element is present in the film's mise en scène, of course, but also in its presentation. Much as he used Super 8 film in Sinister, here the spliced "archive" footage depicts many of the crimes happening. It also, interestingly, connects to Gwen's visions, something I would have liked a little more clarity regarding. Along that line of thematic thinking, there is a lot here regarding kid-to-kid support systems, cycles of parental/adult abuse of kids, and the bonds of youth forged by trauma. Even the Grabber, fey as he might sometimes be, could also be described as childlike in some ways, suggesting perhaps that his psychosexual development was arrested as an adolescent (I think this theory falls apart in the film's climactic confrontation, but it's debatable for sure!). I told you this wasn't far from Stephen King's oeuvre. 

It's the kid actors who deserve the praise for this film though. Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw are just stunning young performers, in full command of their craft while headlining in roles that are at once thankless and demanding. Apart from them, the film is suitably thrilling, deeply chilling, and pretty fun in a macabre sort of way. They imbue the plethora of drama with believable heart, turning even the most horrific of moments into genuine tragedy or panic, sometimes simply falling silent under the burden of parental abuse and survival while sitting together. And that's what makes this horror film so emotionally involving and satisfying.

Doctor Strange (2016)

Score: 4.5 / 5

I shouldn't be surprised by what Marvel Studios produces anymore; with a budget that big, they can do just about anything and gt away with it. Yet Doctor Strange is not unlike Ant-Man in providing a suitable origin story for a new hero (who is unconventional and nauseatingly typical at once) while expanding our understanding of and appreciation for the world of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe). Sure, it's got its dull, prideful hero who suffers a loss and spends the rest of the film seeking redemption. Sure, it's got its fake anti-hero villain with creepy eyes and accent who gets disintegrated at the end. Sure, it's got a potentially great female love-interest/sidekick who is woefully underwritten. But it's still a ton of fun.

If you can get past Benedict Cumberbatch's American inflections, he performs flawlessly as the doctor, showcasing his own intellect in a markedly different manner than we've seen before. He imbues some remarkably deadpan comedy to the wealthy, proud New Yorker, even when he has come to the end of his hope. He plays the character not unlike Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark in the first Iron Man, and his best moments are during his training in Kamar Taj and especially its library (his interactions with librarian Wong steal the movie).

Frankly, I was expecting a nightmare of visual effects, like in Ant-Man, as our hero bends reality and traverses  alternate dimensions. And while it is largely just that, the filmmakers have a couple of tricks up their sleeve. Most important is that everything feels weighted: great cinematography and sound mixing (and, yes, VFX) keep it all feeling substantial and grounded. While the images on screen begin to look like Inception run amok, director Scott Derrickson (Sinister, The Exorcism of Emily Rose) keeps the action focused precisely and tightly on the actors. He also lets the background chaos order itself into impossible kaleidoscopic shapes; I wonder if the patterns that result are in fact easier for us to watch, allowing both Derrickson and the audience to peripherally absorb it without becoming too distracted.

Doctor Strange might host the best cast of any Marvel movie yet. Mads Mikkelsen plays Kaecilius, the baddie with glowing purple eyes and cracks in his face, and Chiwetel Ejiofor hammers out his Mordo with conviction and the promise of becoming a future anti-hero (stick around after the credits, guys!). Rachel McAdams is not as present as much as she should be, but she proves herself to be a capable and fully-functional heroine in her own right. Of course, the best parts of the film belong solely to Tilda Swinton, the Ancient One who teaches sorcerers in Kathmandu. Ethereal and surprisingly funny, she handles power and control of the film in a way Anthony Hopkins would have liked to in Thor. And then she made me cry at the end.

In context of the other films, this one fits nicely behind Ant-Man for the reasons I gave above. It feels a little disjointed after Civil War -- because dammit I want to know what happened to everybody! -- but it provides several pieces that will come into play later on down the franchise path. It reveals the Infinity Stone of Time and its power. It connects to the "multiverse", which we've heard of before in Thor and in Ant-Man. And it sets up (or, rather, teases) what we might expect in Ragnarok one year from now. The mid-credits scene (which I suspect comes from the third Thor, much like the Civil War scene we saw after Ant-Man was lifted from that film) shows Strange offering to help Thor and Loki find Odin. Which seems a bit, well, strange, since the last time we saw Odin and Loki was in The Dark World, when Thor thought Loki had sacrificed himself, but the latter was impersonating an apparently absent Odin. I guess we'll have to wait a while to find out what shenanigans are happening in Asgard.

One last note: the score in this movie is everything. Michael Giacchino is brilliant.

IMDb: Doctor Strange

Sinister 2 (2015)

Score: 2.5 / 5

Meh.

I really wanted to like this movie. I loved the first one, and though the premise was never going to be really dynamic in a sequel, I still had high hopes, especially when I learned that Scott Derrickson was still helping out. But he really should have directed this one, too.

Maybe that's not fair. Director Ciaran Foy (whom I had never heard of) does a decent job with keeping the dread looming above. But that hardly makes a film worthwhile these days, and it puts a horror sequel six feet under by default. With maybe three exceptions, the jump-scares are predictable and less than chilling. That said, I think we need to make a clearer distinction between "scary movies" and horror films. This picture is horror, through and through, simply in its thematic elements. If you saw the first, you know it's a contemporary re-imagining of Children of the Corn in a different setting, where the children become enamored of a demonic figure who entices them to sacrifice their families and join him in a ghostly dimension. While good artists can usually expound and elaborate on a rich concept like this, they didn't much here.

Don't get me wrong: it's not a "bad" film. There are some lovely choices that I should probably applaud. First, centering the story on Ex-Deputy So & So (James Ransone) is definitely a wining point, and a counterpart in Shannyn Sossamon was a brilliant choice. They have some lovely character moments, partly due to the nice dialogue in their more intimate scenes as well as on their own. It's pretty obvious that Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill (also from the first film) have their hearts with this duo, and it allows for a lot of warm feelings in an otherwise heavy picture.

The central gimmick of this franchise -- that of children murdering their families in imaginative and graphic ways and filming the crime as an homage to their deity -- is chilling, but has largely lost its efficacy in a sequel. While watching those sequences is no less horrifying (I heard at least two groans from other audience members), it is not particularly scary anymore. Here we go again, conflating the two. My point, though, is that some horror films (especially ones that have this kind of weighty emotional import) might do well to have a few well-designed jump-scares. Much like good comedies need some slapstick or body humor to complement intelligent plots or character development, good horror films with particularly memorable plots that disturb long after viewing might do well to offset the heavy stuff with some frisson to make it fun as well as horrifying. Does that make sense? Horror films beg audience reaction, and to only hear a few groans of discomfort is probably not the best sign that your picture is working. You need a few shrieks or even giggles.

And I'm not saying all horror needs that. Look at It Follows, which had very little humor in it; it doesn't need much humor because its premise isn't as deeply disturbing in our culture. Adolescent sexuality is punished, okay, yeah sure. Our culture expects that, because it's been our narrative in real life even more than in film. So that movie can maintain its sense of dread by feeding off plays in narrative devices. But in Sinister, we have children murdering their parents and siblings in religious observance, which is far more taboo for our culture; indeed, very few horror films have ever (to my knowledge) broached this matter. So when almost every other scene of this film forces us to watch these atrocities, it would be nice to have some jump-scare levity in the meantime.

Besides my ambiguous feelings toward the thematic elements of this movie, I should also mention my more pressing concern for it. It's just not as good as the first one. Maybe because it can't spend much time on exposition, it dives pretty quickly into the heavy horror, and it can't really go anywhere from there. Director Foy tries, but he can't escape his own dangerous trap: The gimmicks of his film (the videotapes of the murders) become the stars of his film. Grotesque and disturbing as they are, we yearn for the next one because the rest of the film so lacks what we want to see. Even his camerawork and set design look like rip-offs of other franchises. The first Sinister worked because of its pervasive Gothic energy and sensibility, mixed with a rural awareness of social and religious dynamics. This one feels like a bloodier regurgitation of that atop a mosaic of Children of the Corn. I mean, the climax is a child chasing our protagonists through a cornfield with a scythe, for crying out loud!

Don't get me wrong. I'd much rather watch this than a whole slew of other scary movies. It accomplishes all its sets out to do, with some style and even some heart to boot. It's not bad.

It's just disappointing.

IMDb: Sinister 2

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