The Deliverance

The only reason this gets two stars is because the actors are really trying to do some thing with this material. I'm all for a slow burn in a horror movie, but it takes far too long for them to get to the point. They could have taken less time setting up the family trauma and you would still understand that it's this fracture in the family that opens them up to evil. And then comes the "deliverance" and the sorry attempt at ripping off of the brilliant and classic "The Exorcist". It's laughable. The dialogue is poorly written the special FX look terrible, and not in a good way, and it fails on every level to deliver (yes I used that word deliberately) any impact, fear or semblance of a satisfying movie experience.

The worst thing about this movie was how good it started. It pulled me in, led me to believe it was going to be original and interesting.

Production value is decent, acting is good. Story seemed to be developing well.. All of a sudden it switched into a completely different movie, full of absurdities and suddenly awful writing! I honestly feel that they changed writers half way through. In fact I'd place a bet on it.

So of course having invested time into watching it, I had to see it through to the end.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry from the ultimate disappointment.

Bottom line - I could have done without!

Otherwise, it lacks everything else. I understand the interest in black horror right now. And everyone wants to cash in on the Jordan Peele effect. But Lee Daniels needs to stick to Oprah's coattails and make fluffy biopics for her OWN network.

First of all, Andra Day is entirely terrible and her character Ebony is played in such a way that she deserves and earns no sympathy from the audience. I felt bad for the kids. But then I realized that they were just awful as well but in the opposite (under-developed) way.

There is your standard denial of all the weirdness happening. There is an overload of social commentary with all the doubters, "ambiguity" and disbelief over the family's plight . There is the stock Van Helsing. There is Mo'Nique ruining every scene she touches, trying and failing to undo her post-Oscar diva status.

Everything is just so overwrought with Insidiously Get Outie-ness with zero nuance. Other than Glenn Close and her ripped grandma jeans, the movie is both bland and annoying.

Was really looking forward to this one and I must say what a let down it is. Nothing original. A rehash of all the demonic possession films we have seen before.

The story has a promising start in the first 15 minutes, establishing characters and their struggles. After that you just wait for something dramatic to build up and set this film apart from other entries of the genre. It never happens. The film wastes the talented cast it had to narrate its story through.

I actually felt sorry for Glenn Close, doing such absurd films. She was the only good thing about thus film.

Avoid and save precious time.

I don't know what happened to Lee Daniel's. Precious this ain't. As refreshing it is to see Close in a way we have seen before. And she's excellent in whatever part she plays. Audra Day and Mo'nique are both solid. I just wish someone had made a completely different film with the material laid out in the film's first half: a gripping family portrait of a struggling black mother, her kids and her mother.

The way this initially gripping film drifted off into laughable horror territory breaks my heart. No matter how often they tell us "based on a true story", it doesn't redeem what the director did. In the end it became its own parody. Close, Day and Mo'nique deserve better. And shame on Lee Daniel's. I expected so much more of you.