Director: Kelton Jones
Year: 2022
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Exorcism
Plot:
Concerned about their son’s health, a mother and her husband try to combat their son’s cancer diagnosis with an experimental procedure recommended to her by a friend, but after undergoing the procedure his demonic change of behavior it forces them to try to rid the spirit controlling him.
Review:
This wasn’t too bad of a genre effort. One of the better features here comes from the rather tragic and heartbreaking setup that comes across as quite heartbreaking and relatable for some families. Given the situation involving the young kid being given such a debilitating prognosis and condition that stresses her to the breaking point, her decision to fight for her child’s life in the face of such horrific conditions offers the kind of intriguing setup that puts everything into perspective rather nicely. The lead-in to the possession that occurs from this setup as a means of the advice given to try out the experimental treatment to save him has a solid setup that also involves the demonic cult and the bizarre behavior exhibited by the cult once he unknowingly shows up at their compound to engage in the procedure.
That setup allows the supernatural action here to come off quite well even within a series of cliched antics. The scenes following the surgery at the cult compound featuring the series of enhanced encounters within the house involving his newfound torturous behavior toward animals or the disassociative attitude towards his parents provide the perfect building blocks for later showcase setpieces. The bird attack on the house where they start flying at the window breaking their necks or the aborted prayer session where he supernaturally affects the religious paraphernalia around him to set up a big finale that revolves around the exorcism attempt to finally free the son from the conflict between them. These factors are what hold this one up overall.
There are some problematic aspects that show up here. Among the biggest issues here is the somewhat cliched and unoriginal setup that provides for a series of familiar sequences and plotlines. The genuinely supernatural outbursts and animal-killing that the kid participates in would’ve been more than enough to set people in motion to find help which is ignored here for underwhelming motivations at keeping her son undiagnosed. It’s so late into the film that this all occurs as well that there’s little time to build up to any kind of impressive setup for the exorcism to take place which is the film’s lowest point. Rather than build to anything logical and exciting, it just features a few blurry camera tricks and then ends without any sense of what’s going on and no explanation, leading to the biggest issues here.
Overview: ***/5
Fine enough for what it is, that this one skips out on its biggest selling point by shortchanging the actual exorcism makes this come down a bit from what it could’ve been. Those who appreciate this kind of film will be the main target here, while most others who aren’t into this kind of feature should heed caution.
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