The Taking of Deborah Logan

(2014)
****1/2

Scary shit happens to a poor old woman with the backdrop of Ph D candidate Mia Medina’s film thesis studying the progression of Alzheimer’s. If you’ve ever had someone in your life suffer from this depressing disease then you know exactly the type of crazy, sad, hurtful things to expect. In the new tradition of horror movies, something more is afoot as Deb’s symptoms become extreme and atypical of the disease, taking Mia and her film crew on a wild, disgusting, and disturbing venture.

Deb’s daughter Sarah has agreed to let Mia and her crew film her mother’s daily activities and interview her to document the mentally degenerative disease. In return, the Logans receive a handsome grant with which they will be able to keep their generations-old house. Sarah is the sole caretaker of her mother and with the assistance of their neighbor Harris, has been making it through alright until recently. Her mother sleepwalks and is hallucinating that someone is trying to break in, often resulting in hurting herself and being rushed to the hospital to up the meds. In the end the film presents so much more than I’m obviously revealing to you, without lagging too much to describe a backstory or exposing too much of what lies beneath.

Could I interest you in some meatloaf? It's an old family recipe.

At first I felt like this movie was going to be some paranormal activity formula, but with the help of Sarah this movie goes much deeper into Deb’s murky past. I don’t think I could have finished this film without all the lights being on in the apartment. Why did I choose to watch this before a weekend of camping in the woods? This movie has all the right elements of a 2014 good scary movie: it involves an unsuspecting geriatric and the realistic threats of aging, doey-eyed young idealists, unexpected plot twists, aaaaaaaaaaaaand shaky-cam!