One of filmdom's most engaging actors, Eric Bana (“Star Trek,” “Lone Survivor”) stars in Columbia Pictures' supernatural thriller “Deliver Us from Evil” as real-life New York police officer Ralph Sarchie who joins forces with an unconventional priest schooled in the rituals of exorcism, to combat the frightening and demonic possessions that are terrorizing their city.

Bana was drawn to the role of Ralph Sarchie in because he saw something in director Scott Derrickson’s previous work which transcended the horror genre. “Scott’s movies, like `The Exorcism of Emily Rose' and `Sinister,' are really incredibly written and performed character films that are set in genres. And when I met with him, I felt that I just had to do the film. He has total respect for the genre, knows more about it than anyone I’ve ever met, but understands the importance of character and story.

“I was also attracted to the character of Ralph Sarchie,” continues the actor. “I was very much intrigued by the genre and subject matter that was wrapped around the story, but when I read the script, what jumped out to me the most was a brilliantly written, intense and fascinating character who I thought would be a really great challenge to play, and the kind of character that I like to go to the movies to see.

“I liked the fact that Sarchie was this really tough, experienced street cop in the Bronx, who ends up being exposed to a world that’s so far removed from the practicalities of police work. At the beginning, we have a character whose belief system is founded purely on facts and physical things. Ralph’s journey is what makes it so intriguing. This is the one time in his career where procedure is blocked because of inner demons and his past doings, and he has to deal with that. In this case, Ralph has to deal with something very dark from his past, and deal with it in a very dramatic way in order to move forward as a person. It’s a very relatable theme for people who are carrying secrets and things they’ve done in the past that they’d like to shake off. I like to believe that we don’t. We pay for it eventually, somehow, some way.”

Bana spent considerable time with the real Ralph Sarchie, but rather than talk about the film, “We would just sit around and chat. It was very helpful for me to meet Ralph prior to production because there was a certain physicality to him that was very important. Ralph would be very important to us throughout production as an adviser regarding the police work, but outside those parameters it was two guys chatting. He’s a really great guy.”

The subject matter of “Deliver Us From Evil” raised questions to be pondered not only by audiences, but also by the cast members. “During pre-production,” says Bana, “I was exposed to some materials and tapes about exorcism which, on the one hand, were beyond fascinating, beyond interesting and beyond scary. They are materials not for public consumption, so I had mixed feelings about seeing some of them…one in particular did have an effect on me, and I found it extremely difficult sleeping and being in a room by myself for a week after seeing it.

“My thoughts are that there is definitely something that exists which, unfortunately, leads to a very large amount of human suffering,”concludes Bana. “However that’s described or diagnosed is actually completely irrelevant. At the center of it is a massive amount of suffering and pain. Ralph Sarchie, in doing what he calls ‘The Work,’ goes and helps people deal with these things. I have no doubts that there will be moments when audiences will be truly scared, but it’s really something truly different, which is always exciting. I think that a lot of Sarchie’s journey in the film, whilst sometimes brutal, is fascinating, entertaining and thought-provoking.”

Opening across the Philippines on July 02, “Deliver Us From Evil” is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International.

Based upon the bestselling non-fiction book “Beware the Night” by Ralph Sarchie and Lisa Collier Cool, the supernatural thriller “Deliver Us From Evil” brings together the dynamic talents of actors Eric Bana and Edgar Ramirez, director Scott Derrickson (“Sinister”) and producer Jerry Bruckheimer (“The Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise).

In the film, Sergeant Ralph Sarchie (Bana) of the NYPD has seen his share of darkness on the mean streets of the South Bronx. Assigned to the 46th Precinct in one of the toughest neighborhoods of the country, Sarchie has witnessed behavior on the outer edges of inhumanity, and it has begun to darken his soul, to the point of affecting his relationship with his wife, Jen (Olivia Munn), and their young daughter, Christina (Lulu Wilson).

But when the increasingly troubled Sarchie and his police partner Butler (Joel McHale), a sardonic ex-Army Ranger always ready for a fight, are summoned to investigate a bizarre incident, the events which follow will test the pragmatic Sarchie’s beliefs and understanding. He finds himself in a tenuous alliance with Joe Mendoza (Ramirez), a renegade priest whose own faith has been tested more than once, and who tries to convince a skeptical Sarchie that the increasingly horrifying occurrences are nothing less than an encounter with several cases of demonic possession.

Together, the policeman and the priest uncover layer after layer of evidence that what Mendoza describes as primary evil has taken root, and Sarchie is forced to question his entire belief system as they attempt to do battle with the malignant forces threatening the city, and even those he loves the most…his family.

Derrickson, who by nature is drawn to themes which are both spiritual and “supernatural”—and sees strong links between the two—was immediately drawn by the compelling tales which Sarchie described in his book. “In the book,” says Derrickson, “Ralph talks about his experiences as a cop in one of the most dangerous crime districts of New York, but also his gradual involvement in investigating cases of the paranormal, which eventually led him to become an assistant to an exorcist.”

“Jerry’s idea from the very beginning,” explains Derrickson, “was to blend the police and paranormal genres, which I thought was an extraordinary concept that people would want to see. Which I would want to see. The movie is not based on a true story in the full sense of the word, but rather inspired by paranormal cases in Ralph Sarchie’s book, strung together in a single narrative. The storyline that ties the different pieces together is fiction, but the scary sequences that you see in the movie are all based on real things which happened to Ralph.”

Although the film’s protagonist, Ralph Sarchie, is quite real, Derrickson invented the character’s counterpart, the unconventional priest, Joe Mendoza. Explains Derrickson, “Mendoza is an amalgam of two real people who were instrumental in Ralph Sarchie’s life in helping him recover his faith and take seriously what he was experiencing and investigating,” explains Derrickson, “and then ultimately train him to be an assistant in the rite of exorcism. One of them was a bishop who actually performed the majority of the exorcisms that Ralph was part of, and the other was a Catholic priest who wrote books on the subject. Rather than try to pick one of them, we blended the two into a single character, and then gave him his own fictional backstory.”

Derrickson, whose “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” was highly regarded for its serious treatment of the phenomenon of demonic possession and exorcism, now found himself plunging even further into research for “Deliver Us From Evil.” “Monster movies are based on things that are not real phenomenon,” he observes. “Exorcisms are real. They happen often. And no matter what you think about them, they’re fascinating and they’re frightening. I’ve read a lot of documentation of cases and seen a lot of case videotapes, and they’re incredible disturbing and compelling. I think that there’s an inherent interest and fascinating in the connection that these kinds of films have to a real phenomenon in the world.

“I’m not really interested in trying to propagate people’s belief in the reality of demons or not,” concludes Derrickson, “but I do think that the phenomenon of exorcism is something that people need to take seriously. Religious faith is a subject that a lot of people don’t want to talk about, because it raises questions of morality, ethics, the afterlife, how we’re supposed to live, all the great questions.”

Opening across the Philippines on July 02, “Deliver Us From Evil” is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International.

Columbia Pictures presents the supernatural thriller “Deliver Us From Evil” from Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Sinister) and starring Eric Bana and Edgar Ramirez.

“Deliver Us from Evil” tells the story of New York police officer Ralph Sarchie (Bana) who, struggling with his own personal issues, begins investigating a series of disturbing and inexplicable crimes. He joins forces with an unconventional priest (Ramirez), schooled in the rituals of exorcism, to combat the frightening and demonic possessions that are terrorizing their city.

The film is based on the book Beware the Night, written by the real Ralph Sarchie and journalist Lisa Collier Cool. The collection detailed the most incredible cases of the inhuman kind Sarchie faced and solved during his career as a cop. The book was optioned by producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates of the Caribbean, National Treasure) in 2004, who initially brought Derrickson on to write a script. But as his reputation for directing grew, Derrickson claimed this supernatural thriller as his next vehicle.

“When I first met Jerry about the film he said, ‘I want to make Serpico meets The Exorcist’,” Derrickson recalls. “I thought, ‘That’s the greatest idea I ever heard’. And to combine a police procedural with action and a possession story - that’s pretty fresh and new. There’s a lot of scary moments, but it really rides the line – right in between.”

Sarchie’s real-life experiences not only make up the backbone of the film, but he has also been the film’s on-set advisor, bringing emotional authenticity to the extraordinary stories these characters encounter.

“The book is a compilation of some of my profound cases with some police anecdotes in there,” Sarchie explains. “I was trying to show that there’s a correlation between primary evil and the evil that men do. It’s not as profound when the demonic are active at home compared to when you have someone out there doing robberies – there’s a different type of evil that we have to deal with.”

The demonic forces Sarchie refers to are not your usual big screen baddies. Says Derrickson: “The possessed characters in this movie are different things than we have seen in (other) possession movies. They are more calculated, more purposeful; which I think is pretty fascinating.”

Also interesting is that most of the film is actually shot on location in the Bronx; a borough of New York that the real life Ralph Sarchie worked as an undercover Sergeant.

“There’s no place in the world like the Bronx,” reasons Derrickson. “It has its own textures and history. There is a dangerous quality to it – it’s dark and dank and there’s a kind of menace in all the labyrinth alleyways and fire escapes. The 4-6, where Sarchie was a cop for many years - the FBI called that the most dangerous square mile in America.”

The director concludes, “This story is not so much about the typical drug dealer or serial killer. There’s a lot of decent people who are being victimized by this thing which has a paranormal edge.”

Opening across the Philippines on July 02, “Deliver Us From Evil” is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International.

Columbia Pictures has just unleashed the new, domestic (U.S.) poster art for supernatural thriller “Deliver Us from Evil” starring Eric Bana and Edgar Ramirez, and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.

The studio has also brought online a viral video on the real-life NYPD sergeant, Ralph Sarchie, who inspired the film. You can check the video out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ajDgSQDw9Q.

Directed by Scott Derrickson’s (“Sinister,” “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”), “Deliver Us from Evil” tells the story of New York police officer Ralph Sarchie (Bana) who, struggling with his own personal issues, begins investigating a series of disturbing and inexplicable crimes. He joins forces with an unconventional priest (Ramirez), schooled in the rituals of exorcism, to combat the frightening and demonic possessions that are terrorizing their city.

Based upon the 2001 book titled “Beware the Night” which details Sarchie’s bone-chilling real-life cases, the film also stars Olivia Munn, Joel McHale and Sean Harris.

Opening across the Philippines on July 02 2014, “Deliver Us From Evil” is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International.

Columbia Pictures has just released the creepy, international trailer for director Scott Derrickson’s (“Sinister”) supernatural thriller “Deliver Us from Evil” which can be viewed here athttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56_dT3eQFMo&feature=youtu.be.

In the film, New York police officer Ralph Sarchie (Eric Bana), struggling with his own personal issues, begins investigating a series of disturbing and inexplicable crimes. He joins forces with an unconventional priest (Edgar Ramirez), schooled in the rituals of exorcism, to combat the frightening and demonic possessions that are terrorizing their city.

Based upon the 2001 book titled “Beware the Night” which details Sarchie’s bone-chilling real-life cases, the film also stars Olivia Munn, Joel McHale and Sean Harris.

Opening across the Philippines on July 02 2014, “Deliver Us From Evil” is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International.