#the taking of deborah logan review

[toomuchlovereviews]

The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ .5

I’ll be the first to say: she ate that!!!!

I’ve already declared on this blog that I don’t think I’m a found footage fan, but this film caught my eye because of the plot about dementia. I recently had my last grandparent diagnosed with mixed dementia and some days are very good for her, while others cause violent outbursts, irrational phobias and barely any English to express herself. I’ll be the first to admit that I never liked my grandmother before or after her diagnosis, so I guess the demonic aspects of this film was also fitting.

This film did a good job showing how gradual the changes in dementia occurs, I was honestly very intrigued by the informational aspects at the beginning of the film. The editing in the documentary parks may have been a bit cheesy, but I think that it led to a more successful and frightening impact.

Watch this for:

absolutely stellar special effects

very suspenseful POV shots

the helpful information about dementia

Similar titles:

Talk To Me (2023) (very cool supernatural horror, teens decide to not take a summoning ritual seriously)

The Descent (2005) (similar pathos surrounding grief, creature feature, horror in spelunking, you liked the last twenty minutes of this movie, you will live The Descent)

Hereditary (2019) (more family grief, cult horror)

[spookiest-little-guy]

Film 2/100

Second movie of the year and my first (and certainly not my last) found footage film! I love this film! It's not everyday that you get to see a woman unhinged her jaw like a snake! Having an old woman as the main character is rare in horror movies, especially in possession film, where the possessed is usually a young girl. I also like how they didn't play into the regular possession tropes and instead subtlety implies her possession.

The only thing keeping me from rating this 5 stars is the fact that the ending of the film is just ten minutes of shakey cam, which is my least favorite found footage trope.  But don't let that stop you from watching what I would consider one of the best found footage films ever made (it's in my top 10 F.F. films, for sure).

Also, I would like make note of two things:

1. Both of the films I've watched this year have featured lesbians, which is interesting.

2. This film was made in North Carolina! 

[scaredy-cat-cinema]

The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014)

i don’t have many thoughts about this movie, because this movie doesn’t really know what it’s trying to say. it started out interesting and mysterious, with a hint of existential dread sprinkled in. and then it just went off the rails!

deb, the old woman who becomes possessed, has dementia. it would’ve been so much cooler to tie her possession to this dementia! like in the babadook, where the scary monster is a representation of grief, this movie could’ve explored dementia and how it affects both the patient and caregiver. feelings of being out of control, helpless, and angry would’ve been a great starting point for a possession movie!

i do appreciate the fact that all the main characters are women. finally, a horror movie that passes the bechdel test!

[james-stark-the-writer]

a delightfully creepy little found footage horror romp. exactly the palate cleanser i needed after the last movie i saw.

My ★★★★ review of The Taking of Deborah Logan on Letterboxd

[spewagepipe]

Shocktober 19: The Taking of Deborah Logan

This film was pretty fuckin' stupid. I'm actually at a bit of a loss to try to describe how it's so stupid, because there's no clear pattern – just a whole lot of silly bullshit distracting constantly from what was frankly a pretty simple plot. I'm not sure what about it was supposed to be scary, either – it succeeds at being laughably goofy more often than it manages to build any eeriness or suspense.

See my Shocktober 2023 movie list here.

[ruruumin]

Hi Kiri! I hope you've been well these days, and also I love all of your masterpieces! Can I send a request where reader were getting jumpscare while watching horror movie together with Kazuha? Thank you and feel free to ignore if you don't like this request 🙏

₊˚ ᗢ kazuha x gn! reader, modern au.

⤷ what is he like, when watching horror movies?

When it comes to watching movies, the last thing you could expect is Kazuha at the front of your door. He smiled at you as he lifted a few copies of popular horror movies, with the other hand carrying a bag of take-out food. Your favorite take-out food. The one that you and he always get after classes. Or the one you always talk about going to whenever you’re hungry. Whatever it is, he has it. And it’s also been on his mind to watch a few movies with you. 

He’s always been a sucker for adventure movies. The kinds with the cheesy plot twists but amazing fight scenes. Maybe that’s why he’s so adamant about having you watch all the Dwayne the Rock Johnson movies with him last summer. Tomo dropped out after watching his third Fast n Furious movie, Heizou couldn’t stomach the cheesiness that came from a few of his older films (however he had to applaud his role in Central Intelligence), and Scaramouche gave up after watching Toothfairy (Kazuha called him a wimp under his breath). 

He’s not one for slashers because he thinks the art of gore has been pushed too far to enjoy. Watching Terrifier 1 and 2 left him with a bad taste in his mouth. How could you stomach all of that excessive violence? It takes someone with an iron gut just to sit through the first 10 minutes of the movie. It’s not to say he doesn’t like horror. The only slasher he liked was the Fear Street trilogy, and he can appreciate the classics like The Conjuring.

One thing is consistent though: Kazuha chooses the weirdest films. Not entirely weird, per se, but he has some questionable choices. He always finds good movies. He also finds the worst ones. He has with him Ethan Hawke’s Black Phone, The Taking of Deborah Logan, and Winnie the Pooh's Blood and Honey. Why does he even have the last one? He shrugged and placed the take-out food on your coffee table, saying it sounded funny. 

He doesn’t get scared when he watches these films. Mostly because you know in his head, he’s most likely thinking about what goes on behind the scenes. How did they shoot this shot? How many hours did the actors spend on makeup? Why is Winnie the Pooh such a god-awful movie? Who approved of this? 

You try not to giggle when you see him intensely staring at certain scenes, his hand covering the lower half of his face as he squints his eyes. He’s focused on analyzing every part of this movie. It’s a cute habit. He loves to rave about his favorite movies (even to the point of calling you after leaving the theater to give you his review). 

When you get to parts where the scenes grow dark, and there's that unsteady playing of the violin, he wraps his arm around your waist, pulling you to his side. He nibbles on the tip of his thumb, his fingers padding against you as he holds back a small gasp. He’s not a screamer but he’s certainly the kind that flinches at jumpscares. He’s also a lot more touchy when you watch horror movies. Whether or not it’s because he’s scared or just looking for an excuse to hang onto you is up for debate. 

If you are scared by the movie, he would tighten his hold around you, peering down at you with a cheeky smile. He would tease you for a little bit before resting his head against yours, pressing a short kiss on your crown. He’ll put both arms around you this time, holding you tight as the movie continues. When things get a little too intense, or too gory, he will place his hand over your eyes, whispering a few of his poetry to distract you from the sound of a chainsaw. 

“Why is Winnie the Pooh covered in honey, but at the same time, is starving?��� He mumbles, narrowing his eyes at the screen. “What is going on in this movie? Do you like this?” “You’re the one who chose the movie…” 

[mx-piggy]

i'm trying to get used to the idea that i can have my own opinion of a movie even if people think it's kinda shit, so here's my little review of Grave Encounters, which i watched just now late at night/in the wee hours of the morning.

i loved this movie so much, way more than i anticipated. i've seen my fair share of found-footage horror movies, and i was expecting to like it well enough alongside films like Cloverfield and As Above, So Below, or think it was not very good but enjoy it nonetheless like most of the Paranormal Activity movies or the Taking of Deborah Logan, but i unironically enjoyed it and thought it was unironically good, too. it's definitely not as good as found-footage movies like the Blair Witch Project, Creep or Rec, at least in my opinion, but i'd say it's one of the better ones for sure.

it had plenty of slightly cheap jumpscares- like i expected it to- but was really good at building a sense of tension and dread throughout. it's like if you take the last 20 minutes of a Paranormal Activity movie and extend it out to feature-length.

unlike with most found-footage movies, i really actively liked the characters, or found them entertaining at the very least. i found it way funnier than i should have when the characters would tell Houston to shut the fuck up whenever he said anything at all.

i also really liked how the film crew had to experience the sense of entrapment and mental decline that the patients must have felt, and how you only really get to sympathise with Lance when he's gradually isolated and psychologically tortured by the hospital. the first thing that comes to mind when looking for a comparison to this movie is the Taking of Deborah Logan, which i feel could have been way better if they went down the route of her possession better reflected the gradual decline experienced by Alzheimer patients, rather than 'ooo she's possessed by the ghost of a child predator' or whatever it was. like, with Grave Encounters, you get to see a group of people who are cut off from the world and tortured by a mental hospital like the people who were once thrown in there.

so yeah. good movie. i've been watching quite a few horror movies recently, so follow me on letterboxd so i can feel like my opinions on movies matter.

[gruesomehertzoggpodcast]

The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014) #review #elderly #woman #alzheimers ...

[simplylove101]

2023 Horror Challenge: [10/?]

↳“Survival is a choice.” Escape Room (2019) dir. Adam Robitel

Plot: Six strangers find themselves in a maze of deadly mystery rooms and must use their wits to survive.

Starring: Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Deborah Ann Woll, Tyler Labine, Nik Dodani, Jay Ellis & Yorick van Wageningen,

Okay, it has been entirely too long since my last watch for the challenge (somewhat nearing 3 months) and I felt like getting back into it with an easy double feature helping of the Escape Room movies just because. lol I never really felt drawn to them in the past tbh but I saw Hulu had the first one available and I figured why not. And you know, maybe it got me in the right mood that I didn't mind it for what it was. It's like a not-so-gory version of Saw and it's messy and far-fetched but I do think it was able to build some tension. Helps it had a good cast with some familiar faces, which is always nice. The opening is definitely attention-grabbing imo. The puzzles are very well-done. But it does get into being predictable as the story goes along and hmmmm about that ending. Especially since I've already seen the second one by the time I'm writing this review. And I'll get to why that's interesting when I write that one, but for this one, I actually don't think it was that bad. I've definitely seen worse. It mostly had my attention so there's that. If you can go in with low expectations and take it for what it is, it can be a fun watch I'd say.

[biscuitdoeshorror]

The Last Exorcism (2010) - Directed by Daniel Stamm "A disillusioned evangelical minister agrees to take part in a documentary designed to expose exorcism as a fraud. However, as they film his final exorcism, he has his faith restored by pure evil." The first part of this review will contain spoilers, but only up to the mid-way point of the movie. The rest can be watched by you, as it is quite horrific. Spoilers start here: This movie has troubling themes. A minister who has always believed exorcisms to be a thing of film/media and not real, just a cash-grab, is tasked with finding out why the daughter of a country father is experiencing signs of possession. Reverend Cotton uses tools such as speakers to mimic demon noises, low-voltage electronic rings to make the person he's "exorcising" shake, and has push-activated smoke pellets inside of a crucifix that he activates after finishing his tasks to make it look like it's steaming/burning. He admits that he uses strong nickel in his tools, as a lot of people actually have a nickel allergy if the percentage is high enough. Later that night when the crew are at their hotel room, they find Nell arrive, visibly sick. The crew take her to the hospital to run some tests, but those say she is in perfect condition. After performing the fake exorcism, things seem to be going better for the family. Although Nell (the victim) is chained to her bed with her door locked after she slashed her brother in the face with a knife. Cotton and his crew break into it and help her out of it. Spoilers end here: All in all, this movie was surprising. I didn't particularly enjoy the first 30~ minutes simply because it felt low budget and lazy. But this movie made $68 million off a $1.8 million budget, so go figure. I'm not the biggest fan of exorcism movies, I like the original three Exorcist films, and others such as The Taking Of Deborah Logan (although that could be classified as more of a demonic movie). For a movie this "old", it does feel a lot more modern and honest than the last few 'The Conjuring' films. Oh, and apparently there is a sequel to this film. I don't think I'll watch that as it was rated a LOT lower. 8/10.

[facelessoldgargoyle]

Man, The Taking of Deborah Logan really fucked me up. It also didn’t make a lot of sense. On one hand, you have to genuine horror of Alzheimer’s. On the other, there’s the possession of this old woman by the ghost of a occultist child-murderer that she killed decades ago. I was expecting there to be some thematic resonance where the thing possessing Deborah would be like, a ghost representing her failings as a parent. There’s a huge potential in a flipped parental dynamic that the movie didn’t do anything with.

There’s some freaky body horror, where Deborah’s jaw unhinges like a snake. There’s also the regular discomfort of seeing an old woman with dementia move her body in strange ways, and the move really tries to escalate that into horror too. It felt kinda ableist.

I feel like this movie would have benefited by dropping the documentary framing. It was extremely disconcerting to jump from “woman teleports onto the oven” to “expert doctor discusses the progression of the disease.”

I dunno. This movie made me sad and it wasn’t super well constructed, but it was pretty scary. 3/10.

[cipheramnesia]

if you have the time and desire, do you have any truly terrifying horror movies to rec that might be a little of the radar please? i really love your horror movie commentary and your movie commentary/reviews in general and i've just been having a hard time finding something that's gonna scratch my "gotta be scared for at least a week" itch. regardless i love your blog and i think you are cool as da bee knees.

I don't watch a huge amount of horror for scares, more for things that are unsettling, strange, weird, or emotionally intense. There aren't many movies that are intensely frightening, but there are movies that viscerally upsetting I can recommend.

His House always goes at the top of these lists. It's on Netflix so it might not be under your radar, but if you passed on it when it originally dropped, go watch it immediately. There's so much going on and it's beautiful and heartbreaking and I'm never gonna let it go.

Excision is my second pick. Everything about this movie is built for the express purpose of fucking you up, from the protagonist being a high school loser having sexuality wrapped up in violence to messed up emotional parental abuse. The final scene for this is seared into my brain, it hurt me so so bad.

The Company of Wolves isn't scary per se but it is deeply, deeply peculiar. The bizarre images will probably stick with you awhile, even if you're bored watching the movie itself.

The Taking of Deborah Logan remains my favorite found footage movie, which does a wonderful job of wrapping up the painful story of dementia and alzheimer's disease with the story of possession. It veers a bit into more standard scare territory later, but for a lot of the movie it's about the sadness that comes with decaying cognition and not knowing what will happen.

Found is just this awful thing and I'm not sure how to describe it. Absolutely wouldn't watch it twice, but it's essentially the story of how a kid being around his violent, murderous, neonazi brother completely destroys him psychologically and probably leaves him in a place where he's going to carry that legacy forward. It's raw and honestly I don't know what the goal was but it exists.

Z is something that did actually scare me, and I don't think it's well known. It's very much a slow burn but has both the emotional core of trauma that I crave and frightening moments that I will never be able to unsee.

Bliss is not precisely scary but it is definitely a drug filled hallucinatory heavy metal vampire movie, a sort of counterpoint to The Hunger being a goth vampire movie. It didn't do it for me, but it's intense and might for you.

Ms. 45 is also not scary but personally I find it one of the most upsetting rape revenge movies ever made. Unlike many others in this particularly sleazy subgenre, it doesn't use the assault for gratuitous content, which lends it a sense of realism that hurts a lot. The protagonist is also mute, which you can imagine how that hurts. She has a certain progression from revenge to just unfocused violence which feels very expressive of deep down hurt. It's hard to hold it against her when the whole world is hurting her.

Anyone not looking to get really fucked up, probably don't watch these!

[ghoulcandy]

i zoned out thru most of 'smile' bc i was having my cool breakdown but i rly dont feel like i missed out on a lot whatsoever. the mirror i got had hangul subtitled baked in which was a little distracting but it beats the camrip i was about to watch last week

quick review and spoilers for a 5/10 horror movie

tl;dr if ur gonna watch something that has a Very Long Woman in it and ends with an old song just watch barbarian instead

suicide being a driving factor in horror never really squicks me out but they did go hard on the sound design in this film, esp since it starts with a girl slicing her face and neck (ineffective method starting on her cheek, too much room for error) to kill herself. the blood was very watery

can't believe in the year of our lord 2022 that "is she just CRAAAZYYY? NO ONE believes her!!!" was the main struggle

mild points for having mentally ill characters that weren't outright demonized, but damn that bar is low!!

the reverse deborah loganing at the end was a little freaky, but i think they should have had her cheeks tear as long as the big guy was unhinging her jaw so much. anyway *crawls in ur mouth but is like 12 ft tall*

they really were restrained with the body horror overall, i wish they'd gone a bit harder on it, especially since the jumpscares were pretty lame

the entity's design was pretty cool, i wish we had gotten to see more of it instead of normal people going >:) every 20 minutes or so

it takes the form of her mom and then she got Long. then tears off her face and u see the Big Man in action.

the fact that there was an "it was a DREEEAM" fakeout 3/4ths of the way in actually got me, i was about to be super pissed at the main character for stabbing one of her patients. during this scene the entity tears off its face for the first time but it's just a normal human skinless face beneath

the mom's suicide traumatizing the main character is like, yeah. duh. obviously that would scar a kid. but the thing is that the big guy is a really sloppy metaphor for trauma because OOOO you cant get rid of it but u can always. like. traumatize other people??? i guess? like. ok

it's not like it's supposed to be a deep avant-garde a24 horror flick or anything but they go out of their way to talk about it and use therapy lingo all throughout, so it was worth mentioning they did so poorly. not even in an offensive way either

the credit sequence rolls with "lollipop" for no reason other than they rly said "let's use a SpOoOky old song ooooo"

uhhh then it ends with her passing on the curse because of course it does

serviceable, good for people just past entry-level who might not have a ton of experience with horror

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | X (West, 2022)

This review contains spoilers.

So, this is not a problem that I think most people will have with this movie, but it’s one that annoyed me pretty thoroughly thanks to my questionable viewing habits as of late. The characters here are supposed to be making an arty porno movie. Fine. But I’ve seen my share of arty porno movies over the last two years, and what we see here doesn’t feel anywhere close to the real thing. If anything, it looks like what most people who haven't seen any vintage pornos imagine what they look like, deliberately cheesy and low rent. If the characters had just been making a porno for purely mercenary reasons, I probably wouldn’t have minded, but there’s something kind of lazy about how the trope is handled. Quite frankly, the crew here (director, assistant and three performers) seems big enough for maybe a one-day wonder, but certainly not the actual arty pornos that would have been made at this time. And I would assume that had the director been believably written, he would have been able to tell what he was shooting was nowhere near as arty as he was intending, but the whiny discount Kieran Culkin we get here shows no such indication. Again, none of this will likely matter to at least ninety percent of viewers, but to me, it seems obvious that Ti West has no real understanding of vintage pornography and is using it as a lazy setup for the sexual tension that’s supposed to drive the movie.

That tension is supposed to be compounded by the snippets we see of a televangelist throughout, but West’s handling of it is so obviously kitschy that it never really adds to the atmosphere. Even worse is that the eventual source of horror ends up being the sexual desires of old people. Listen, I don’t need the underlying worldviews of my horror movies to be politically correct, but there’s something about the trope here that feels both lazy and demeaning. We don’t get any real sense of interiority for the villains, so the effect ends up being less about whatever sexual repression or trauma they might be coping with and more just that old people are gross. For the record, I think you can use aging as a source of horror in a respectful way. The found footage movie The Taking of Deborah Logan has issues, but I found it was able to generate dread from the titular character’s mental decline while still affording them a certain dignity. It helps that the character is played like an actual human being and not a movie monster. And if I can return to my earlier thread, if West really wanted to horrify with sexual content, he would have done well to brush up on his knowledge of pornographic horror films. Those movies are especially disturbing because they choose to put the viewer on the side of evil when delivering the genre goods, yet West is happy to maintain his distance.

And if I can keep ranting and offering complaints that I expect most people won’t share, Mia Goth elsewhere has had a pleasingly off-kilter presence that I’ve quite enjoyed. (She’s one of the few things I enjoyed about the Suspiria remake, where she manages to seem both alien and deeply empathetic.) As far as vintage pornstars go, she would have been perfect casting for Terri Hall, who also has a pleasingly off-kilter presence. Yet West casts her as a generic Southern sex kitten, and saddles her with a cocaine habit and delusions of stardom, the latter of which provides fodder for the movie’s most obnoxious line.

All of this is stuff I could ignore had the movie worked for me as horror, but there’s something too distancing, too studied about West’s style here. He most obviously references Tobe Hooper, but lacks Hooper’s commitment to atonal shrillness and ability to use that quality to unnerve, so that the references just make you wish you were watching a better movie. (If you want horror directors who homage while still making their movies tense on their own terms, Rob Zombie is an obvious one given the Hooper connection, but I thought Jordan Peele made a certain Spielbergian spectacle totally his own in this year’s Nope.) I remember quite enjoying House of the Devil, but while it’s been a few years since I’ve seen it, I think it understands the sense of dead air endemic to the first wave slashers it’s referencing and particularly the way that dead air can covertly transform into dread and leave us less prepared for when the violence hits. The gore moments here feel too blatantly telegraphed, although as West is still a capable visual stylist, we do get a handful of decent images. (I particularly liked a scene where a scene is bathed in red lighting by blood spattered on the headlights of a car.) And I liked the performances by Martin Henderson, Kid Cudi and Brittany Snow, although I was mostly wishing they were in a much better movie.

[thefilmfatale]

The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014)

This was probably one of the more creative horror films I’ve seen in recent years. Fair warning, though: this is not for the faint of heart.

The movie is shot in found footage style and revolves around a documentary team filming an elderly woman who has Alzheimer’s Disease. Their intent is to show the degenerative effects of the disease over time. And because, according to horror movies, few things in life are as genuinely creepy as children and old people, this film is all about how creepy old people can get. 

Now take that and multiply it by a hundred, and you have a really scary fucking movie. 

What makes The Taking of Deborah Logan exceptional as a horror film is that director Adam Robitel demonstrated a lot of patience in unfolding this story, building the mystery of what’s causing Deborah’s odd behavior to intrigue the audience. It’s not quite clear whether it’s the sickness or something else, and Robitel paces the story cleverly, expertly revealing things at just the right time so viewers keep wanting more.  

The film also manages to be super creepy without relying on cheap scares. Found footage films aren’t for everyone, and to be honest I was never much of a fan of them, but Deborah Logan is a masterclass on how this style of filmmaking can be a totally immersive, unique experience. I doubt that this movie would have been as terrifying without the use of this approach.  

Deborah Logan also features some seriously disturbing imagery that can get seared into your brain for days. I had to watch several cat videos after this just so I could go to sleep.

The film also must get special mention for having a pretty diverse cast. An Asian woman plays the leading character (Mia, the documentarian), and one of the main characters is a lesbian, but they don’t make a big deal about it (and shouldn’t). Jill Larson, who played Deborah Logan, was phenomenal.

Overall, a surprisingly good horror movie that revitalizes the found footage genre.

[asianhappinesss]

The Medium (2021)

Summary

A horrifying story of a shaman's inheritance in the Isan region of Thailand. What could be possessing a family member might not be the Goddess they make it out to be.

Review

A true genre-hybridAs mentioned above, The Medium is shot like a documentary. This means it’s both in the POV category and could also be described as “found footage”. However, more than anything, this plays out like a horror movie.Think The Taking of Deborah Logan for a reference in terms of genre-hybrid and storytelling style. If you’ve watched that movie, then you’ll know just how brilliantly this approach can work. If you haven’t, then you seriously need to remedy that. For your own sake, because you’re robbing yourself of an awesome horror movie.For The Medium, I can’t help but mention that I found it to be a tad too long. However, there is quite a lot to unpack, so it makes sense. Imagine a true-crime documentary series that has been rolled into a longer film instead, and you get the gist.

The burden of being a shamanInterestingly with The Medium, is the fact that the main character is a shaman. She’s being interviewed about how she became a shaman and it’s apparently something she’s inherited.In fact, her sister should have been the shaman for the Goddess, she’s connected with. The entity she essentially works for as a shaman. However, her sister wanted no part of the shaman business and converted to Christianity to avoid it. What happens next is the core subject of the movie, so I won’t get into it.Let’s just say that it gets pretty damn dark fast!

Basically, we follow this female shaman, who does not hold back when it comes to critiquing all the “professional shamans” who put on shows. Who knew the shaman business was such a competitive area?! In any case, the shaman in our movie is named Nim and she’s all kinds of amazing and no-nonsense. She’s great!Sawanee Utoomma portrays Nim and has to do so in a very natural and relatable way. Particularly because this is shot like a documentary.

At many different times throughout The Medium, Sawanee Utoomma took my breath away with her intensity and heartfelt portrayal.Banjong Pisanthanakun is the director of The Medium and he also took part in writing it with The Wailing director Na Hong-jin. Even if Banjong Pisanthanakun’s name doesn’t sound familiar, you might know one of his previous movies, if you watch Asian horror films. Banjong Pisanthanakun co-wrote and co-directed the 2004 horror movie Shutter (2004), which you’ll definitely want to check out as well.You may know the US Shutter remake from 2008, which starred Joshua Jackson and Rachael Taylor, but the original is the better of the two.

And no, I don’t always think originals are better than the remakes as some sort of rule. I watch all movies objectively – though obviously a remake will be compared to the original.