The Deliverance

With how many haunted house and stories about possession that came out, The Deliverance isn’t any different and decided to stick to a generic plot. They tried to make it more interesting by adding a mash-up of problems for the family, internally and externally. A broken family who’s struggling financially. An alcoholic mother. Civil service trying to take away the kids. And to top it all off, a demon trying to take over the kids. With a hurricane of problems being thrown at them throughout the film, it’s hard to keep track of what the story was all about.

Excessive use of demonic tropes

Excessive use of the usual demonic, possession signs/symbols made the story feel like a cheap compilation of the usual horror supernatural gimmicks. Nothing stood out and was very forgettable. They even went with using foul words to add shock value but even that felt forced. There wasn’t any jump scares in my opinion, at least I think they did try, but failed to do so. The eerie/creepy music they tried to incorporate didn’t do anything for the film, it even felt distracting and took away some moments of the film.

It was annoying when they started using the word “Deliverance” instead of simply saying it’s an exorcism. And they had to mention the word for a number of times. It was repetitive and it sounded like an advertisement for the title of the film. It was an unnecessary detail that they had to add.

Characters

I get that child actors are the future of films and its good that they’re trained early, but at least have them train some more, or have them go to drama classes or stage performances. The young casts in the film had no emotions and barely connected with the audience. The result of that was when they were in pain and suffering, the audience felt nothing for them, it’s like they were just there to add some more shock value. All three of them were easily forgettable and replaceable in my opinion.

With so much unnecessary additions for additional shock value, it’s hard to keep the focus on the demonic entity that’s inside their house. Most of the characters involved have their own personal problems and its shown in the film—another layer that you have to ignore just to focus on the real problem. None of the cast stood out or carried the film. This is the kind of flick you put up in the background while ironing clothes or something.

Glenn Close‘s performance here, even as a supporting character, I’d say carried this film.

Conclusion

The one redeeming factor of the Deliverance is that it was inspired by the story of Latoya Ammons and her family who lived in a haunted house in Indiana. Without this fact though, I doubt it will get the buzz that it did on Netflix.