The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Best movie ever!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Keen to learn more about the disease that led to her grandfather's death, a PhD student convinces an elderly woman with Alzheimer's disease to be the subject of a documentary, but the student begins to wonder whether something supernatural is afoot as the old woman's behaviour grows stranger in this mystery thriller. While the notion of making a horror movie out of a real serious medical condition sounds a little wrong, 'The Taking of Deborah Logan' gets off to a solid start with the characters only noticing occasional odd things about her. Jill Larson is very good in the lead role too - particularly in her more lucid moments as she expresses concern about being filmed. The movie falls apart a bit in the second act though as a clear supernatural possession element is introduced, subtracting from the mystery of why she is acting so weirdly at night. The third act though is where the film really trips up and becomes very repetitive with characters constantly shrieking and so much unsteady and unfocused nighttime camera-work that it is hard to become immersed in the action. Indeed, this is one of those 'found footage' films that may have perhaps benefited from a more conventional stylistic approach. The eccentric, unexplained behaviour of the elderly is a fairly decent movie theme, but this entry does not always feel like it achieves its potential.

You deal here with the new kind of cinema as you can find nearly everywhere around the world. And, believe it or not, it works. It makes creeps out of you, don't watch it alone at night...The usual horror story which will always work. But besides, you deal here with astounding Oscar winning worth performances. And this astounding little feature also focuses on the terrible aspects of the Alzheimer disease, especially the pictures shown in the first part of the movie. It is fiction, yes, but not only. It is very scary but also not destined to all audiences. a sort of mix up between THE EXORCIST - old influences, very vintage - and the new wave with the likes of BLAIRWITCH PROJECT or REC or PARANORMAL ACTIVITY...Don't miss it

I go back and forth between liking found footage films. I like about half of the ones I see, and the other half I don't like for the same reason I didn't really love this film: The shaky camera for this movie in particular did the opposite of feeling real, as a "found footage" film is supposed to. Something just felt overtly off. "The Taking" felt like an interesting premise in the beginning duration of its story. The whole Alzheimer's deal was actually the most disturbing aspect for me; something so real that was visually portrayed made me genuinely disturbed and saddened. It was around the time that all the funky supernatural stuff came into play - That's when I started becoming confused and distracted, and the film no longer had the potential to really be scary for me anymore. I think that they honestly could've used the Alzheimer's without such weird supernatural elements in addition. Basically, it just felt unnecessary, and left something to be desired. I think Deborah and her daughter, Sarah, were very well acted. However, even their performances couldn't really make up for the sloppy storyline. The second half of the story just left me disappointed and just no longer interested.

The Taking of Deborah Logan is another possession movie. In that regard you can expect to see the same possession type actions that you'd see in any other possession movie. The Taking of Deborah Logan is done in found-footage or documentary style. Again, you can expect the viewing experience to be the same as any other found-footage/documentary style film. Yet, I still found it entertaining.Deborah Logan (Jill Larson) is an elderly woman that is suffering from the onset of Alzheimer's disease. In order to help keep the house and pay for medical care her daughter agrees to have a team film her. Everything that happens after that is textbook possession stuff but somehow it was different with an old lady. I think the child possession was too overplayed so they went in a slightly different direction.There was a mystery element to it: who, why, how to stop it? Of course there were your jump scares, but there was an overriding creepiness to it that was directly linked to Deborah Logan's age. When someone so old, fragile and withering starts clawing at herself or disrobing it just looks so much more eerie. No one wants to see an old lady naked and no one wants to see an old lady peeling her skin off. Aah! I just got the heeby jeebies just thinking about it.Considering this movie wasn't very unique it was done well enough and it just separated itself enough to stand on its own.