After the death of his son, a grieving father tries to come to terms with the outcome of the situation by himself against the wishes of those around him, only for the experience to be even further complicated by his insistence that a demonic spirit is targeting him for his actions.
This was a pretty frustrating and difficult effort to get into. The main feature to enjoy with this one is the massively intriguing setup that provides this one with the kind of exploration of grief that manages to work its way through the storyline. With the whole experience discussing the effects of his mental state deteriorating in front of others, starting from the opening encounter with his grandmother to the fateful incident with his son that sets everything in motion, there's a fine detail of his turning point into being wholly able to be tempted by the demonic entity. Seeing the different incidents bring everything within him to a head as he undergoes the series of changes that the demon starts to feed on, including personality disorders, hallucinatory visions, whispered taunts threatening his mental sanity, and other outbursts that those around him start to interpret as slipping mental deficiencies rather than demonic possession. When it starts to get more involved and serious that he has something wrong with him, there's a lot to like here, featuring the effects of the demon's influence slowly turning into a darker encounter. Starting with the generic haunted house whispers and reliving of the moment that everything happened, the move into more overt and dangerous, with it manifesting itself as a genuine physical threat, there's a lot of fun to be had with the encounters here, showing what's potentially haunting him with these encounters around the house, trying to pile on his grief during the process. This leads rather well into the big finale where the full-bore possession has turned into a manifestation of a physical entity that manages to interact rather nicely with the family there trying to help him so that it gets the fun notion of bringing several different formats together involving both the tormenting physical presence and the psychological warfare going on, which is what makes this one fun enough. There are some issues here holding this one down. The main drawback with the film is a generally bland build-up involving the psychological build-up of the mental deterioration, which ends up making everything far more dramatic than expected. With a majority of the film taking the slow-burn build-up of what's going on and exploring his grief to the point of forsaking anything else, it causes the first half to feel far too dragged out without much to show for it. The idea isn't the problem since it effectively gives him the groundwork necessary for the finale to mean what it does, but there's just not enough action to counteract the continuous need for grief and loss that so many other efforts have also employed. The other factor against this one is the rather disappointing finale that runs on too long for the type of content it's aiming for, with little reason for it to be that way, making this one come off weaker than it should despite the emotional catharsis implied, all of which hold this one down.
Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Violence, and themes of violence-against-children.
