Deliver Us from Evil 2006

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Watching Amy Berg's powerful documentary Deliver Us from Evil is a wrenching experience; her subjects reveal to the camera almost unbearable levels of anguish, and its audience walks away feeling both numbness and rage. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Deliver Us From Evil has a few things wrong with it, including an egregious musical score, but without resorting to sucker punches, it takes your breath away while making your skin crawl. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: A literally stunning documentary. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: One of the best and most important documentaries you'll ever see. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: In a major coup, director Amy Berg convinced O'Grady to appear in [Deliver Us From Evil], and his testimony reveals a man who's chillingly divorced from the full weight of his actions. Read more

Bill Muller, Arizona Republic: Deliver Us Evil is more terrifying than any horror movie, because it's about something that really happened. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Grander statements aren't needed when the specific indictments are so plentiful and so horrifying. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Most powerfully, [Berg] also films a number of O'Grady's victims as they recount their trauma and, in some cases, loss of faith. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: What truly sets Deliver Us from Evil apart from other documentaries is interviews with the monster himself. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Deliver Us From Evil shows us how the business of saving souls can rationalize the obscenity of selling them. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Even people who reject the idea of inherent evil may be shaken by Berg's scrupulous yet passionate recounting of the story of Oliver O'Grady. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: Berg, a veteran of both CBS News and CNN, carefully and calmly assembles a devastating case against church officials' mendacity. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: O'Grady appears in the film, his face showing no sign of shame even as he acknowledges and describes the awful things he did. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: After watching this film, you will believe that evil exists on earth. That the movie deals in truth and established facts makes it all the more disturbing. Read more

Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle: The church declined to comment to Berg. Her film speaks volumes about its silence -- and about a wrong that can never be righted. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: It's a howl of rage and a keen-eyed study of a subject that, unfortunately, never stops being news: the way institutional power acts as a shield under whose cover the strong can abuse the weak. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: A stunning indictment of institutional betrayal. It plays like a Catholic Watergate, going right to the top with hard evidence that stuns, dismays and sickens. Read more

Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine: It cries from and for the hearts of victims and leaves its viewers moved, shattered, outraged. And impotent in the face of the ugliness visited on the souls of good and innocent people. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Deliver Us From Evil will shake you to your marrow. It should be seen by people of all faiths and by anyone concerned about the wellbeing of children. Read more

Robert Koehler, Variety: It's hard to imagine even devout Catholics coming away from the film without a sense of rage at a religion that appears to value members of the priesthood over the well-being of children. Read more

Ella Taylor, Village Voice: Berg by no means excuses Father O'Grady, but she offers evidence of a devastating childhood that explains his pathology. For the ambitious creeps who allowed him to indulge it, and who still sit in office, there's no excuse. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: Works best when it concentrates on O'Grady and the ever-rippling effect of his transgressions. Read more