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.

20131123: Horror Review--Area 407

Area 407

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film 2012, NR, 89 minutes, horror.
2. IMDB: 3.6/10.0 from 2,239 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet,' and 14% from 682 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.6/5.0 from 176,752 audience ratings.  Spoken word is in English.
5. Directed by: Dale Fabrigar, Everette Wallin.
6. Starring: Abigail Schrader as Trish, Samantha Lester as Jessie, James Lyons as Jimmy, Melanie Lyons as Laura Hawkins.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Trish and Jessie travel by jet from New York to Los Angeles for New Year's Eve. Trish is video recording. Trish's high-pitched elf voice is incredibly irritating. The new year arrives during the flight; this was quite the anticlimax until the heavy weather hits.


2. The plane crashes in a desert area. Trish and Jessie survive.  Jessie takes over filming after Trish is incapacitated.


3. After seeing this film, not hearing the word 'okay' for about 8 years would be fine.  The characters kept repeating 'okay' while examining bleeding, broken limbs, no food, no shelter, missing people, and so on.  The anger at the intrusive camera seemed quite understandable.  The only use I could see for the camera was as a torch (flashlight).  Jessie, who is even less skilled at operating it, took over.  Jessie zooms almost continuously, concentrates on bloodied faces, and almost never focuses well.


4. Something goes bump in the night, kills several survivors, and routs them from the leftover fuselage.  Six survivors find a nearby cabin.  Eventually a car comes by.  The surviving air marshal has a conversation with the driver, who proceeds to drive away.  The bump in the night returns and scares them out of the cabin.  The ever-useless, petulant Trish holds half of them back.


5. They find a working two-way radio in the second cabin.  The initial 'replies' are indecipherable.  They keep trying and eventually contact someone who will try to triangulate their position.  The voice tells them to go back to the plane where the bump in the night killed people.


6. They obey this direction.  Will anyone survive?


3. Conclusions
1. This is yet another found-film, hand-held camera, cheap, bad production.  Why does a US air marshal have an Aussie accent?  Why does the blood on everyone never dry, never run, nor change colour as it must?
2. One line summary: The worst in found film; lots of closeups of bloody faces; not much plot.
3. One star of five. Two black holes for cinematography and acting.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 0/10 Hand-held nonsense.  All the usual failures are there: continuous and unnecessary zooming, bad focus, bad framing, settling on a subject who is doing nothing other than zoning out.


2. Sound: 5/10 Varies wildly.  Trish's high pitched voice rates a good minus four.


3. Acting: 0/10 The hand-held camera trumps acting.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 Is there a story here?  Way too much time is spent on the camera zooming and re-zooming and focusing on characters who are basically not moving, not talking.  So far it is: plane crash, deaths, scramble, hope for rescue, then hopes dashed.  Looks like a nice ten minute short.