For a movie to combine the fears of old age, Alzheimer's disease, child abduction, and murder must have been a nightmare to pull off. The Taking of Deborah Logan manages all that and more in spades.
In honesty, I was perusing Netflix last night, just aimlessly looking but especially focusing on horror movies that may or may not be crap. I almost watched Event Horizon again. But the image and synopsis for Deborah Logan drew me in. Now, after being able to watch it kid-free, I am quite glad I stumbled upon it.
At first, I was dismayed at the "found footage" nature of the film. After all, since The Blair Witch Project came out almost two decades ago, almost every other horror movie has used that effect in one way or another. But surprisingly, it works well here. Sarah Logan, tasked with caring after her mother who is showing symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease, is approached by a group of students studying the disease to help and film the progress.
Of course, not all of the titular Deborah Logan's problems stem from Alzheimer's but director Adam Robitel takes his time to establish the normal struggles of Deborah's deteriorating condition and the other nefarious things going on. But the suspense is drawn on long enough to keep you guessing whether Deborah's late night gardening sessions or awesome command of opening nailed windows is something evil or just another benign explanation from her disease.
As the time counts down though and it becomes apparent that something supernatural is happening, the tension ratchets up quite a bit even though Deborah spends most of her time confined to a hospital bed. And from the start of the film to that point I believe something close to two months have passed. So the old complaint about found footage movies "drop the camera and run the fuck away" is assuaged since these folks have become invested in Deborah as well as figuring out what is going on.
There are quite a few plot turns in the story keeping it fresh beyond a simple 'possession' tale of a weaker mind as we've seen countless times before. When the finale actually comes, the story has transformed from a simple medical documentary about a mental disease into a murder mystery almost flawlessly.
Anne Ramsay deserves much of the accolades as well playing the worn-out daughter dealing with her mother and her condition as she can not only maintain calm in crises but sheer panic when the time comes for it.
Unfortunately, The Taking of Deborah Logan likely won't reach many viewer's radars with the myriad of other entertainment choices, not to mention found-footage based horror movies even though in this movie the constant filming really makes sense. But I definitely recommend the film for Ramsay but also the care that writers Robitel and Gavin Heffernan employ to escalate this film above all those other ones.
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