Ralph Sarchie is not your average cop.The retired police sergeant, who worked some of New York City's toughest areas, also served night duty performing what he calls "the work." He's a self-described demonologist assisting in spiritual exorcisms.
Sarchie's book chronicling many of his paranormal experiences, Beware the Night, is the foundation of the upcoming horror film Deliver Us From Evil, opening July 2. It's the type of "true" work that can lead to significant skepticism as Sarchie, 52, has seen.
"I often come across people who don't believe me, and they have the right to feel that way, they have free will," Sarchie says with a thick New York accent. "All I can do is tell people what I've experienced, and what my beliefs are. If they don't believe me, it doesn't make a difference."
Clearly Sarchie's work has its share of big believers, including writer-director Scott Derrickson, who wrote a draft screenplay based on Sarchie's work in 2003. Derrickson says he found the no-nonsense police officer, with his deep Roman Catholic faith, highly convincing.
"Ralph is a person of enormous integrity," says Derrickson. "He's a compulsive truth-teller."
But Derrickson would go on to make another horror film, 2005's The Exorcism of Emily Rose. This was based on the true story of Anneliese Michel, a young German Catholic woman who died after exorcism attempts in 1975. The director still owns 43 of the original audio cassettes from the exorcism attempts, which he calls "horrifying."
Likewise, it was the videos of Sarchie's work that brought Derrickson back to complete the screenplay and the film on Sarchie, starring Eric Bana. Derrickson calls the videos "mind-blowing."
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