The Deliverance Review: Horror Film is Silly

In this supernatural horror film, we see a family of five relocating to a new house and facing some dangerous situations. As these situations slowly escalate and get more and more deadly, matriarch Ebony must do everything in her power to save her three children from getting harmed by pure evil. The film is based on true events – the Ammons haunting case of 2011.

The Deliverance Review

At first, horror film The Deliverance feels like a social issues film where we see single mother Ebony struggling to take care of her cancer-stricken mother and her three young children. The struggles of fighting poverty, racism and class prejudice are horrifying enough but the movie’s insistence on going down the supernatural route is probably its biggest fault. For the first half of the film, hardly anything happens as we learn about Ebony’s drinking problem and her absolute need to hit her children whenever things don’t go her way. She also loves to blame her own mother but it’s shown that she has moments of empathy in between those two moods.

These moments don’t help you feel anything for her but it tries its hardest to do so. Either way, we soon go down the exorcism route which is a very tried-and-tested, standard-issue showcase of the devil coming out of the basement… or something like that. This could’ve been great if we tried to focus on a woman’s mental health deteriorating in light of the responsibilities on her shoulders because that’s what this movie feels like half of the time. Andra Day plays Ebony so well, it’s concerning watching her fight with everyone around her. The fights that she has with her mother Alberta are uncomfortable and scare you more than whatever else happens in the rest of the film.

But, this isn’t that kind of a film, is it? It’s an exorcism film that I had second-hand embarrassment watching. I don’t know whether it’s the ridiculous dialogue said with such passion or it’s the stark contrast between the first and the second half of the film but The Deliverance just goes off the rails the moment Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor’s Reverend Bernice James gets into the scene. It’s just one cliche after another and seems like it repeats plot points that we have seen in other movies.

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However, I guess my biggest gripe is that the film is painfully boring. It takes forever for something – anything – to happen and even then it’s a mild scare that does nothing. Most of the time the movie relies on silly jumpscares that do nothing to scare you. Considering the fantastic horror movies that have come out over the last decade, this one has nothing going for it. Going the drama route would’ve been a better-suited alternative for the subject matter that the film deals with and that, unfortunately, is not what we get.

Final Thoughts

I had second-hand embarrassment watching The Deliverance – probably because of the hilariously cliched dialogues said unironically or Glenn Close being unnaturally horny in shorts. Either way, the performances are fantastic but somehow that just makes it worse for the film.

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