When a nun in a remote convent claims immaculate conception, the Vatican sends a team of priests to investigate, concerned about an ancient prophecy that a woman will give birth to twin boys: one the Messiah, the other the Anti-Christ.
“Deliver Us” sets out with a very intriguing premise: a young nun, Sister Yulia (Maria Vera Ratti), lives at a remote convent in rural Russia and claims that she is pregnant by immaculate conception with twin boys. She says one is the Messiah, and the other is the Antichrist, and that she must raise them as they will eventually have to fight each other, brother against brother, good against evil. This is the most exciting aspect of the story. The film itself, however, try as it may, never entirely lives up to its potential of delivering a good old-fashioned horror thriller; instead, its premise overshadows the entire movie itself, hinting at what could have been.
Co-directed by Cru Ennis and Lee Roy Kunz, “Deliver Us” does manage to create a chilling atmosphere, especially when the characters leave the convent and move into an old log cabin in a forest in the middle of Tallinn in Estonia, with no one and nothing around for miles, gradually dialing up the fear factor.
Lee Roy Kunz plays an American Jesuit priest, Father Fox, who is about to leave the priesthood as he has fallen in love with a woman. Before he goes, he is asked by the Vatican to take on one more case, that of Sister Yulia. He begrudgingly agrees and visits her at her convent, where she tries to convince him that her story is real, but he has difficulty believing her. When he inadvertently stumbles upon a secret society called the Vox Dei, led by Saul (Thomas Kretschmann), a priest who believes in an ancient prophecy about a young woman giving birth to two identical twin boys, one good, one evil, and will stop at nothing to kill them, Fox disrupts his plans and along with a fellow priest, Cardinal Russo (Alexander Siddig), takes Yulia to Estonia to a log cabin that belongs to his fiancee’s late grandfather, in the middle of nowhere, hoping that it will be enough to save her.
After Yulia gives birth to the two boys, Fox and Russo experience strange phenomena, such as voices telling them to carry out horrific and gruesome undertakings while shadows move inside and outside the house. As the voices grow stronger and more sinister, both men must rely on their faith to help get them through these ungodly times, but when Saul unexpectedly turns up, hellbent on annihilating Yulia and her children, they must work together to prevent him from achieving his objective.
“Deliver Us” is beautifully shot; cinematographer Isaac Bauman utilizes widescreen images and an assemblage of drone footage to capture the loneliness and isolation of the Estonia wilderness. The performances, for the most part, are fine, and the always reliable Thomas Kretschmann chews up the scenery whenever he is onscreen but Lee Roy Kunz, the film’s co-director and also Father Fox, is less than stellar. As the one character meant to rise above evil and essentially save the day, his character is criminally underwritten, and he spends most of the film’s 103-minute runtime constantly looking perplexed. Maybe Mr. Kunz should have stuck to directing and cast a more capable actor. This is the first time I have seen Mr. Kunz onscreen, so I have no other performances of his to compare it to, but based solely on this, I was not very impressed.
Ultimately, “Deliver Us” is a competently well-made horror thriller that suffers from its own self-aggrandizing marketing. It tells you what you’re in store for but fails to deliver the goods. With a stronger script and noteworthier characters, it could have been a classic, and who doesn’t love a good old-fashioned thriller about ancient biblical prophecies and the end of times?
In Theaters and on VOD Friday, September 29th
