The Deliverance
A dysfunctional family gets more than it bargained for when it moves into a new house in Pittsburgh – in a horror film inspired by real events.
The Ammons Horror: Anthony B. Jenkins
Image courtesy of Netflix
It’s been a bumper year for horror, if not in quality, at least in quantity. And now we have the Oscar-nominated director Lee Daniels trying his hand at scaring the bejesus out of us. And Jesus is the operative allusion, as He alone would seem to be able to save a dysfunctional family that moves into a new house in Pittsburgh with a smelly basement. To be fair, Ebony Jackson (Andra Day) has more than her hands full, raising three kids on her own while their father is away fighting in Iraq. The year is 2011, a year after Lee Daniels got his Oscar nod for directing Precious, and Ebony Jackson is a rough approximation of Latoya Ammons, the focus of the so-called ‘Ammons haunting case.’
While Ebony is struggling to pay her bills and keep her kids in line, she is battling with her own alcoholism and spiteful mother (Glenn Close), who has ostensibly moved in to help while popping into the local clinic for chemotherapy and a flirt. This is the sort of household in which the typical term of endearment between women is “bitch” and a slap across the face at the dinner table a not infrequent event. No wonder, then, that Ebony hasn’t even thought to go down into the basement where that smell is coming from, along with all those pesty flies. And as the strangest occurrences start to mount up, this is the sort of family that wouldn’t dream of discussing the oddness of it all among themselves. The youngest, Andre (Anthony B. Jenkins), adopts a spooky imaginary friend, the smell of intestinal gas permeates the house at night and the children acquire mysterious bruises that nobody can account for.
Few actresses can do anguish as convincingly as Andra Day, who was nominated for an Oscar for Daniels’ The United States vs. Billie Holiday. Here, she is to the manner born, whether beating up a neighbour’s kid or bad-mouthing her own, or just spending her son’s savings on a boozy night out. For a while, The Deliverance feels more like the horror domestic than anything remotely demonic, but then Daniels has been saving his big guns until we are truly invested in these poor souls. As Grandma, Glenn Close gives her all, tapping into the excesses of Norma Desmond – whom she played on stage – in a performance of startling self-effacement. And the sympathy vote is supplied by Anthony B. Jenkins and, as his sister, Demi Singleton (Serena Williams in King Richard). All this is played out as broad melodrama, in the tradition of the stage work of August Wilson and Tennessee Williams.
Then, over halfway in, Lee Daniels gets really serious. Whether or not one actually believes in Lucifer, Daniels is a skilful enough filmmaker to ramp up the goosebumps and the later scenes prove genuinely unnerving. This is grim viewing and one wonders what on earth is the point of such untrammelled horror, particularly as it is meant to be based on actual events (Daniels himself prefers to call this “a faith-based thriller”). Like Ellen Burstyn in The Exorcist, Andra Day turns in a more than credible performance for the genre (horror), while such stalwarts as Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and Mo'Nique add heft to the thespian quotient. However, on a personal note, I don’t know any fifteen-year-old that I would let anywhere near the film.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Andra Day, Glenn Close, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Mo'Nique, Anthony B. Jenkins, Miss Lawrence, Demi Singleton, Tasha Smith, Omar Epps, Caleb McLaughlin.
Dir Lee Daniels, Pro Lee Daniels, Todd Crites, Jackson Nguyen, Tucker Tooley and Pamela Oas Williams, Screenplay David Coggeshall and Elijah Bynum, Ph Eli Arenson, Pro Des Steve Saklad, Ed Stan Salfas, Music Lucas Vidal, Costumes Paolo Nieddu, Dialect coach Thom Jones.
Lee Daniels Entertainment/Tucker Tooley Entertainment/Turn Left Productions-Netflix.
112 mins. USA. 2024. UK and US Rel: 30 August 2024. Cert. 15.
