On the night of July 12, 2013, we took it upon ourselves to visit the set of supernatural police procedural Deliver Us From Evil (at the time titled Beware the Night) as it lensed in arguably New York’s most unappreciated borough. Directed by horror favorite Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Sinister) and starring our favorite ex-Hulk Eric Bana, the film is taken from the files of real-life cop-turned-demonologist Ralph Sarchie.
In 2001 Sarchie published his memoir of working for the NYPD while moonlighting as an investigator of demonic possessions. Titled “Beware the Night,” the book caught the attention of Derrickson, who envisioned his adaptation as a story of a tough, pragmatic cop who goes from skeptic to true believer while battling forces beyond most people’s comprehension, all while trying to keep his family safe.
“It’s a story about that transformation,” Derrickson explains, “about him running into things he can’t explain and then entering into a relationship and friendship with a Catholic priest [played by Édgar Ramírez] who’s a very atypical priest. He’s a really complicated guy with a dark past, and emotionally, it’s about those two people as individuals, what’s happened to them in the past and how coming together, something very explicit happens. That’s really what’s at the core of it. And within that, there’s action, horror, possession and all the things that you want to have in a genre film.”
“Without giving too much away,” said Bana, “I’m playing the role of someone who is selling the supernatural to himself when he comes across it. It’s the beginning of that character’s journey. He’s just a 46th precinct, tough-as-hell cop. So, that’s who he is. He has no pre-determined belief in the supernatural or anything like that.”
