‘The story of Alzheimer’s is never about one person…’
The most effective horror films are often the ones with the simplest concept. House is haunted by vengeful ghost. Teenagers are murdered in their dreams. Spiders are trying to get in your mouth. The last one isn’t a horror film as such, but it is something that I wholeheartedly believe to be true. Little bastards. Anyway. Woman is struggling with Alzheimer’s while also possibly being possessed by the ghost of a French murderer from the past who also sometimes turns into snakes is not a straightforward concept. All of that combined with a faux documentary and a found footage framing device makes for a plot that is incredibly dense for a 90 minute horror film. Too ambitious? Maybe…
Deborah Logan (Jill Larson) is sick. In the first of many strains on credibility, her daughter Sarah (Anne Ramsay) agrees to allow a film crew headed by Mia (Michelle Ang) to capture her mother’s descent into a terrible degenerative disease.
I may have come across as a little sceptical thus far but I did mostly enjoy Adam Robitel’s film, despite the fact that it is genuinely nasty in parts. Some of the body horror was a little too rich for my blood and the storyline is almost incessantly grim. Having said that, Larson throws everything into the titular role and ends up with a performance that carries the whole movie. This could so easily have been hokey or melodramatic (and it is in some places) but Larson helps ground the film with a, quite frankly, shocking turn that is genuinely difficult to watch at times.
The Taking of Deborah Logan doesn’t really offer anything new to this subsection of found footage movies (see also As Above, So Below and Grave Encounters among others), but it is definitely unsettling and there are moments that will stay with me beyond this viewing. One for the horror aficionados.