How much of Deliver Us From Evil is true?
Screen GemsDeliver Us From Evil, directed by Sinister’s Scott Derrickson, is the number two movie on Netflix in the US – but how much of it is actually true? Here’s what you need to know.
Moviegoers have had trust issues ever since Fargo claimed it was a true story and most events within were depicted “exactly as they occurred” – only to discover the film’s opening gambit was a big fugazi.
Horror is infamously flexible when slapped with the “based on a true story” claim: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was loosely inspired by Ed Gein, but it’s almost entirely made up; The Fourth Kind is a pseudo-documentary that really wants you to think it’s real, just like The Poughkeepsie Tapes; and Wolf Creek has a flimsy tie to Australia’s “backpack murders.”
So, what about Deliver Us From Evil, advertised as being “inspired by the actual accounts of an NYPD sergeant” – is the story true, or is it lying to you?
Is Deliver Us From Evil based on a true story?
Deliver Us From Evil is said to be “inspired by true events” – however, it’s mostly a fictionalized story that ties together Ralph Sarchie’s accounts from his ‘memoir’.
The movie follows Eric Bana’s Sarchie as he investigates increasingly creepy, bizarre, brutal incidents in the Bronx with the help of a Jesuit priest clued up on the rituals of exorcism. When it was first released in 2014, its supposedly true story was a major angle of the marketing – but it’s not that straightforward.
Derrickson based the screenplay on Sarchie’s 2001 book Beware the Night, chronicling his experiences on the beat and working as a demonologist, “investigating cases of demonic possession and assisting in the exorcisms of humanity’s most ancient – and most dangerous – foes,” according to the synopsis.
However, by Sarchie’s own admission, the film is a “work of fiction… based on aspects of my cases and aspects of my life. It has to be interesting… you have to entertain people. A lot of people like to be scared… it’s fun to be scared when you’re safe.”
“Scott took a lot of elements of my cases and put them in a different context than what I originally wrote about. He took liberties with certain aspects,” he also said.
Sony PicturesFor example: Father Mendoza (Édgar Ramírez) isn’t a real person, but he’s based on two of Sarchie’s mentors, Bishop Robert McKenna and Father Malachi Martin; Sarchie never beat anyone to death; and Mick Santino (Sean Harris) isn’t a real person.
In an interview with Complex, Derrickson explained: “[The Exorcism of Emily Rose] was based on a real story, and the real girl died and there were surviving members of the family, so I took the concerns of that very seriously. When I wrote the early draft of Devil’s Knot, I was really concerned about it because the West Memphis Three were still in jail and I didn’t want to fictionalize anything.
“In this case, I had the good fortune of being able to run everything by Ralph. His memoir, Beware the Night, which he wrote and Jerry Bruckheimer bought for me to adapt, is a bunch of individual cases—they’re not connected at all. So I just took elements from what I thought were the most interesting cases and tied them together with a fictional narrative. I told Ralph I was going to do that, and said, ‘Look, this is going to be a real blend of fact and fiction, but I’m going to get you right,’ which I think I did.
“It’s the real Ralph Sarchie, how he thinks, how he talks, what he does, how he’s changed as a person as a result of the stuff he does. But the main storyline is fictional, and I had to do that in order to make it work as a movie. I would have not done that, though, if I didn’t have his blessing.
“Even if I had a legal right to do that, I wouldn’t do that to somebody’s name unless they were behind it. When he read the script, I think he felt that while there’s a heavy blend of fact and fiction, who he is and what matters to him as a copy and demonologist, which is what he describes himself as he felt that I got a lot of it right.”
Deliver Us From Evil is on Netflix now. You can check out our other Halloween horror content below: