Tuesday, October 18, 2016
2016 October Horror Challenge #53: "The Taking of Deborah Logan"
OK, here's what happened with this movie. I watched it a few years ago, and I was really tired, but I made it through without dozing off, and it was creepy, and I ended up liking it. Then I was talking with some people, and they were describing the ending, and I was like "...um...that's not what I remember happening." Whoops! I think I fell asleep and dreamed the ending of the movie. Uh oh. I decided to watch it again this year so I can see what actually happened, so I bought the DVD and here we go. I'll try to stay awake this time.
The movie has a creepy setup. A woman suffering from Alzheimer's agrees to let a crew if students come stay at her house and film her to document how her condition affects her. The longer they stay there, the more they realize that this isn't just a case of Alzheimer's, something much more sinister is going on here. The movie was good, I didn't fall asleep because it was bad, I was just exhausted and I sometimes have very lucid dreams that look and feel so real I don't always realize that I'm dreaming. Creepy, huh? I'd set up cameras trying to document this phenomena, but that never seems to end well when they do it in movies.
Alzheimer's is really frightening to me. The idea of losing your mind, having that taken away, it's really terrifying to me, so the idea behind this movie is really scary to me even without demons or spirits in the picture, so the movie really gets to me. This is how you do a found footage movie, folks. Have a back story that's actually interesting so viewers have something to care about while they're waiting for the spookiness to start.
This movie is determined to scare the shit out if me. It froze bear the beginning, and I had to restart it again ( damn demons don't want me to watch this movie). As things get weirder and weirder with Deborah's condition, it still makes sense that the people around her think it still might be her condition, since there's so much we don't know about Alzheimer's and how it affects people.
Once the crew and even Deborah's family start to think things might be taking a demonic turn, it's too late for them to really turn back. What I'msaying is that unlike other found footage movies where it's asinine that people kept filming through what is happening, it makes more sense in this movie, and I appreciated that. These people put actual effort into making this movie work, not just "hey let's throw together a found footage movie to make money."
There's a mystery here, and we get to watch the family and the crew try to figure it out amidst increasingly terrifying circumstances. The movie is creepy and the plot is intriguing and the acting is good and the mystery is enthralling. All in all, this is a really good movie. Great ending, too. Much better than the one I dreamed up.
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