20150607: Horror Review--Taking of Deborah Logan

The Taking of Deborah Logan

1. Fundamentals.
1. Title: The Taking of Deborah Logan
2. IMDb: Users rated this 5.6/10 (5,435 votes)
3. Netflix: average of 3.5/5.0 (540,642 ratings)
4. Rotten Tomatoes:
   critics rating not found number of reviews too low
   47% liked it from 850 viewers ratings
   Critics Consensus: none yet


5. Status: Released
6. Release date: 2014-10-21
7. Production Companies: Millennium Films, Bad Hat Harry Productions
8. Tagline: Evil lives within you


9. Budget:  Budget estimate not available at review time.
10. Revenue: Revenue figures not available at review time.
11. Runtime: 90 minutes.
12. Genres: Horror, Thriller


13. Directed by: Adam Robitel; written by Adam Robitel, Gavin Heffernan


14. Starring: Jill Larson as Deborah Logan, Anne Ramsay as Sarah Logan, Michelle Ang as Mia Medina, Ryan Cutrona as Harris, Brett Gentile as Gavin, Jeremy DeCarlos as Luis, Anne Bedian as Dr. Nazir, Tonya Bludsworth as Sheriff Linda Tweed


15. TMDb overview: What starts as a poignant medical documentary about Deborah Logan's descent into Alzheimer's disease and her daughter's struggles as caregiver degenerates into a maddening portrayal of dementia at its most frightening, as hair-raising events begin to plague the family and crew and an unspeakable malevolence threatens to tear the very fabric of sanity from them all.


2. Setup and Plot


1. Mia, as part of her PhD thesis effort, arranges grant money to help Sarah Logan take care of her ailing mother Deborah.  The condition for Sarah to get the money (and save the farm) is that Mia has to complete a film.  The film is to document the sort of life that Deborah has because of her illness, and how Sarah is also affected.  Gavin and Luis are Mia's techies, who are put down immediately and repeatedly as sub-humans.  The representatives of medicine and law, Dr Nazir and Deputy Tweed, are both women.


2. The early part of the movie includes results of medical testing of Deborah, and brief discussions of aspects of the disease that we think we understand.  Some of the visual presentation here is fine.


3. Deborah's disease progresses more rapidly than expected.  The not so subtle horror cliches telegraph the general type of trouble to come.  Is there something other than physical disease at work here?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Passable shaky cam possession story.
2. Two stars of five


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 3/10 Most of the movie is shot in found footage style or shaky cam.  The plus three is for the visuals during the early discussion of Alzheimer's as a disease.  Most of the film is found footage level badness.


2. Sound: 5/10 Far better than the visuals.  On the other hand, I could have done without the use of overbearing noise to help produce jump scares.


3. Acting: 5/10 Jill Larson was the undisputed centre of the film, and she was rather good.  Then there was the rest of the cast. 


4. Screenplay: 2/10 The film was easy to disengage from, and the ending did not seem well connected to the rest of the film.