The 90s and early 2000s had their share of religious horror, but these days, the subgenre seems to fall into a few narrow categories: demonic pregnancies, exorcisms, and evil nuns. Back then, religious horror movies were almost like thrillers, often with Satanic cults chasing after pregnant women, like in End of Days or Bless the Child. Sometimes, Satan himself would get involved, usually offering shady but nigh-irresistible deals in the guise of, say, Al Pacino. The results of this kind of genre blending were spotty, admittedly, but a recent example, Deliver Us, might have what it takes to reignite the interest in more thriller-like religious horror.
The movie does play with a lot of familiar tropes, as a nun becomes pregnant with both the next Messiah and his Antichrist twin; there’s even a cult element as well. But the nun isn’t evil, and she gives birth pretty quickly, so the bulk of the movie leans into the tension of one of the cultists hunting her down to stop what he believes is the apocalypse. It’s a violent chase-thriller that stretches across the beautiful but stark Russian countryside that’s unlike any religious horror from the last few years.
‘Deliver Us’ Goes for Bloody Horror Over Supernatural Scares
When your movie opens not just with multiple murders but also with the skin being peeled from the victims’ backs, you know you’re in for a bloody good time. The backs in question contain enormous tattoos that depict a prophecy of a woman who will give birth to the Messiah and Antichrist as twins. Sister Yulia (Maria Vera Ratti) later finds herself as the woman in question and calls on the aid of Father Fox (co-writer and director Lee Roy Kunz), who’s on the verge of leaving the priesthood to start a family of his own. The children’s conception is shown as “immaculate”—also sudden, painful, and terrifying. But this isn’t a slow-burning movie about the fears of pregnancy; Yulia actually gives birth fairly quickly, although Deliver Us makes sure to fit in more than a few uncomfortable scenes before she gives birth, like the twins squirming inside her stomach.
The birth itself isn’t all that horrific, but it’s certainly stressful, as Yulia is forced to give birth on a moving train while being hunted down by the last remaining cult member, who’s really part of an obscure Christian sect—instead of being a Satanist or a pagan worshiper as is often seen in religious horror. Even without as much of the visuals common to most religious horror—there’s no backwards crawling, no horrific demon babies, no exorcism-gone-wrong—Deliver Us is still full of disturbing imagery and quite a bit of violence. The villainous sect member, Father Saul (Thomas Kretschmann), chases Yuila, Father Fox, and a second priest, Cardinal Russo (Alexander Siddig), across a wintery Russian landscape, and he has no qualms about murdering anyone who gets in his way—and, as the opening scene should tell you, he can be vicious in his methods, even leaving one of his victims torn to shreds.
Good and Evil Isn’t So Black and White in ‘Deliver Us’
Father Saul’s violent nature during his search for Yulia and her children is the anchor of most of the horror in Deliver Us. There are some surreal dreams with upsetting imagery, and even though it’s not real, one scene in particular may be very upsetting for those who don’t like seeing babies in danger. There’s also the occasional flash of a creepy child, but most of the actual blood and death isn’t supernatural—it’s just a scarred, hulking man leaving a trail of blood across Russia as he searches for Yulia’s group. The movie is effective at keeping the tension high by always cutting between Yulia and her companions caring for her children in a peaceful, secluded hideout and the relentless pursuit of the priest they don’t know is still on their tail.
Interestingly, because Father Saul isn’t a Satan worshiper, his character lets the movie present an interesting moral question, one that, strangely, fans of The Fantastic Four: First Steps will recognize: is killing one child to save all of humanity the right thing to do? Father Saul doesn’t want to hurt Yulia specifically; he just seems to truly believe that it’s his duty as a man of God to kill the Antichrist and prevent the apocalypse. And there are plenty of implications that something is speaking through the twins to encourage this belief, not just in Saul, but in several other characters as well. In fact, the movie’s climax is all about this idea of doing something terrible for the greater good, and by placing the villain on God’s side (as opposed to trying to allow Satan or some other horrible demon to take over the world), the morality of his views on this concept isn’t as cut-and-dried as usual (even if his methods definitely fall on the side of heinously evil).
He’s a strong counterpoint to Yulia’s utter faith—that raising both children is what God really wants, with Father Fox as the conflicted priest in the middle. Deliver Us doesn’t just offer a good old-fashioned horror-thriller; it also uses its religious angle to ask a potentially difficult moral question. So, even in the quiet moments between the violence and evil whispers of the religious horror aspects, there’s still a sense of dread and tension for the audience as they try to figure out the right thing to do alongside the characters onscreen.
Deliver Us
- Release Date
-
August 30, 2023
- Runtime
-
102 minutes
- Director
-
Cru Ennis
-
-
Maria Vera Ratti
Sister Yulia
-
-
