Day 4: The Taking of Deborah Logan
Via: Netflix
Release Date - 2014
Synopsis: Mia records the daily lives of Deborah and her daughter Sarah as part of her thesis. As the days progress, strange things happen around Deborah, and it becomes apparent something has taken control of her.
SPOILER ALERT - If you have not seen the movie do not read.
Right away we know this is a found footage/documentary style of film, very reminiscent of The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity except the cameras aren't crappy.
The film begins slow and steady creating a sense of fear just by the content, alzheimer's.
We are introduced to a PhD student (Mia), who is shooting footage for her thesis/documentary regarding alzheimer's. She is hoping her subject will be Deborah Logan, a woman who is in the beginning stages of the disease. Deborah's house in the midst of being taken away for financial reasons and the documentary offers a solution to the problem at hand. Deborah's daughter, Sarah, knows that without their participation in the film, their chances of keeping the house is slim. Deborah is hesitant at first, but with a little convincing from her daughter, the documentary is underway. We are introduced to the main characters Sarah, Deborah and Mia. The only other secondary characters that will matter are Deborah's neighbor, Harris, and Deborah's personal physician, Dr. Nazir.
The explanations and effects of alzheimer's given by Mia's documentary plus the initial footage of Deborah set the tone for the entire first half of the film. Deborah appears to be a traditional, gentle, sweet, courteous woman who is trying to cope with her disease with the help of her daughter. It isn't hard to feel sympathy for Deborah. She seems frail and fragile but we can see her kind eyes and heart as she tells her story and reminisces about her life.
We find out Deborah used to operate a switchboard from her home that catered to the local townspeople. We also see Deborah's disease affect her more and more as the days go by. She begins to forget faces and can't recall memories such as a visit to France years ago. The film focuses on Deborah's struggle and the impact it has on Sarah. As Deborah's condition suddenly worsens, there comes a new factor into play that turns the film into an actual horror movie. Footage taken from the house by various cameras installed by the crew, record Deborah's every move throughout the house. As her state of mind declines, her behavior and actions appear to take a turn towards the unnatural and bizarre.
The first account of this behavior is seen when Deborah unexplainably jumps from the floor of her kitchen to the counter without actually moving. One moment she is walking around, the next she is suddenly standing on the counter. The film crew shows this to Mia, but she brushes it off at first.
Deborah's paranormal behavior and symptoms of alzheimer's increase exponentially by her screaming uncontrollably, walking outside at night to dig holes, ripping her skin off, attacking others, and having weird skin legions on her back. It gets to be so bad that after a self-harming incident lands her in the hospital, Dr. Nazir suggests she stay for observation. At this point of the movie, Sarah, Mia and the film crew know there has to be something more to Deborah's condition. It has to be of a paranormal nature. They seek help from a priest, an anthropologist and dig up information regarding Deborah's past. We find out that years ago when Deborah was a small girl, she was almost the fifth victim of some diabolic killer by the name of Dejardins. He had killed four young girls and Deborah would have been his fifth in order to finish his ritual.
Deborah kills him with her gardening trowel and buries the evidence. The evil spirit surrounding those events are to be the culprit for the erratic behavior of Deborah, which we now know is really just a possession. While we find out all of these new details, Deborah escapes the hospital and kidnaps a small girl who has pretty advanced cancer. The fully possessed Deborah kills and injures various people during her escape and the (wo)man-hunt is on.
At this point of the movie, I lost interest. The first half was so well done. The narrative was very adult and somber, while the second half turned into a cheesy, predictable creature feature. The special effects were OK once we see Deborah possessed. The dramatic but very obvious ending, falls short to what could have been an amazing thriller. They took a good, real-world subject matter, alzheimer's, and paired it with an overdone genre. As soon as Deborah kidnapped the little girl, I knew the spirit would somehow transfer to the girl. Oh wait, that's exactly what happened.
Yet another great start to a movie that fails to finish as great as its first half.
No comments:
Post a Comment