I know the found footage style of Horror movie can be overdone and copy after copy after copy. However, we wouldn’t watch them if there weren’t some good ones in there, or better yet, GREAT found footage movies. I honestly lean on the side of loving found footage films.
The Taking of Deborah Logan is one of the better takes on the documentary-style Horror movie, even if it does follow several of the typical horror tropes involved with movies done this way. There are scenes that just downright give the spine-tingling chills! Especially one in particular.
Mia (Michelle Ang) is a student planning to do her thesis about Alzheimer’s disease through documenting an elderly woman who has the awful disease, Deborah Logan. Mia and her team travel to where Deborah and her daughter, Sarah (Anne Ramsey), live. Which is in a relatively large estate located in a remote woodsy area of Virginia.
Upon meeting Deborah, she is only in the early stage of the disease which slowly deteriorates a person’s mind and memory. At first Deborah declines to do the documentary for Mia. But we find out that they are on their way to losing their house if they don’t accept the money from the students for the recorded video.
In the end, Deborah agrees to move forward, and we have our scary movie!
Deborah Logan’s physical and mental states begin to fray at first, and then completely unravel as the movie moves along. At first the doctors tend to poo-poo her activities as mere symptoms of the disease with which they’ve diagnosed Deborah. Even when she attacks a film team member, and eventually causes harm to herself, it is something that can happen with Alzheimer’s patients. But, by the mid-point of the movie the Deborah’s actions become unexplainable and more severe.
And that’s when the creators of The Taking of Deborah Logan really start to have fun.
Some back story begins to seep to the surface in the movie to add depth. Mia, and her crew, discover that there was a physician, Henri Desjardins, that disappeared after the cannibalistic murders of four young women occurred in the area many years prior. They also find that Desjardins was trying to perform an ancient ritual that would give him immortality. It involved blood sacrifices and eating body parts of the victims, thus the four dead girls. Snakes were a major symbol and aspect of this ritual as well. Snake poison was found in the victims’s bodies, and a snake was carved into their foreheads. In the movie, the ritual came from the Native American tribe of the Monacans, a local tribe recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Bear in mind, this is not a true documented ritual from the real Native American Monacan tribe, or any for that matter, as far as information on the internet. But they certainly sell it well in the movie and it gives a very good base for the horror story within The Taking of Deborah Logan. Isn’t fiction fun?
Deborah’s actions become more and more aggressive regardless of the sedatives and treatment being provided by doctors. She acts more erratic and violent, and strange events begin happening around her. At the same time, we start to wonder more about Desjardins and if he is trying to finish the ritual, which he may have been interrupted years before.
As it is, the ritual calls for five blood sacrifices, not just four.
What do Deborah and her daughter have to do with this Desjardins fella? Is she just in the horrific throes of a deadly disease? These are questions you’d have to see the movie for the answers.
Overall, the beginning of The Taking of Deborah Logan does drag on a little before things start to get good. But, once it starts to pick up speed, the ride becomes one you don’t want to get off up to the climactic ending. It is full of great jump scares, which are done very well and timed perfectly throughout the movie, some predictable and some not. And there are scenes that are creepy as hell, as I’ve already mentioned.
The acting was great by most parties, unfortunately Michelle Ang excluded. Her character didn’t seem to act like a normal person would in a situation as this one, so it took away from the believability in parts of the movie with her. And, being a found footage movie, believability is important to the overall effectiveness of the movie.
Of course, there are the usual ingredients of most documentary-style horror movies. Yes, there are some parts of the movie where the characters did stupid things that normal people in real-life wouldn’t do in these situations. However, The Taking of Deborah Logan rises above the others though with everything I described with the acting, creepy factor, jump scares, the wild ride through the hell these characters go through.
There’s a particular scene alone in The Taking of Deborah Logan that makes the movie worth a watch. I’ve seen the GIF floating around on Facebook, and the internet, and wondered what movie it was from and desperately wanted to see it. Could be called the "child monch"?
Yeah, It’s from this one.
You must see it. If not just for that scene, I highly recommend The Taking of Deborah Logan. It is definitely a hidden gem. Go watch it!
Enjoy!
The Taking of Deborah Logan
Released: 2014
Rating: R
Director: Adam Robitel (Escape Room)
Writer: Adam Robitel & Gavin Heffernan
Stars: Jill Larson (All My Children), Anne Ramsay (Planet of the Apes, League of Their Own), Micehlle Ang (Fear the Walking Dead, Triple 9)
IMDB Rating: 6.0 out of 10
Rotten Tomatoes: 89%
With Subscription to as of Blog posting: Prime Video
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