The Deliverance Parent Guide

Ebony (Andra Day) has just moved her three children, Nate (Caleb McLaughlin), Shante (Demi Singleton), and Andre (Anthony B. Jenkins), to a new home in Pittsburgh. Their lives are messy and complicated. Ebony is an alcoholic with a short temper and a quick hand, and although she’s tried to quit drinking, the temper and the violence haven’t disappeared from the children’s lives. Her mother, Alberta (Glenn Close) has moved in to help, but she’s still getting chemotherapy treatments, and to be fair, wasn’t a phenomenal mother herself.

As if the women’s personal struggles weren’t difficult enough, something seems to be wrong with the house. There’s a terrible odor and a constant stream of flies from the basement, and Andre has started acting very, very strangely. Ebony doesn’t believe in anything as far-fetched as demons, but as she, her mother, and her children all begin to have inexplicable experiences, she thinks there might be more to this than she could have imagined…

Most exorcism movies see an evil entity somehow emerge into this world, but these characters are in such a dreadful state it feels like they’ve moved directly into Hell and are just meeting the neighbors. Ebony is, rightfully, being investigated by Child Services, and although her kids keep lying to cover for her, she hits all of them on several occasions throughout the film – and that’s before we get to the demonic possession stuff. Clearly, The Deliverance is the opposite of a feel-good movie. The dark stew of domestic misery that our characters are stuck in is horrific, and accordingly, an interesting place to start with a supernatural horror flick.

Unfortunately, every single other part of the movie is an absolute mess. The more you get into the actual plot, the more bizarre everything gets. I’ll say this: This flick does things with the genre I’ve never seen another movie do. The catch is that there’s definitely a reason for that. It’s incredibly hard to take any of the supernatural plot elements seriously, and therefore nearly impossible to be scared at any point in the film – not a great thing in a horror movie.

Not that this was going to be a big hit with our readers to start with – apart from the constant child abuse, there’s also heavy drinking, swearing, and a grim sequence depicting child sex abuse. Ultimately, The Deliverance can’t decide if it wants to be a disquieting and unpleasant family drama or the worst exorcism movie you’ve ever seen, and unsurprisingly the mix of those elements is not a winning one. And don’t even get me started on the “based on a true story” claims here. We’d be here all week.