True Stories of the Unknown and Supernaturally Terrifying; The Deliverance

When I went in to watch The Deliverance, I knew that it was a movie pertinent to a real story that took place in Gary, Indiana. I knew that the topic was both a deeply disturbing one, and that the movie would not just be a delving into cinematic escapism or bliss like many other movies tend to be. Not that it deterred me, as I have a interest in true crime and situations relevant to the paranormal and always have.

The movie focuses on Andra Day in the lead role of Ebony Jackson; a struggling single mother who has just recently relocated for the umpteenth time. We meet Andra along with her mother, played by the legendary Glenn Close, and her children around the dinner table after they've moved into their new home in Gary, and it is this time that we begin to gather that there were some issues that Ebony was dealing with as a mother and with her children's father being deployed continually and the challenges of financial woes due to the restraints on the family due to this fact. Things seem rather normal on the surface - it seems like the functionality of the family is a bit disrupted but that they still hold close to each other and the one scene that exhibited that to me most was when Glenn's character is doing Andra's character's hair while she sees to her daughter's and the boys watch a movie that the whole family seems to know line by line. This normal scene sets that pace for the movie feeling more like a drama than what it becomes.

When strange occurrences begin to happen in the house, Ebony's children become violently ill at school and they are subsequently sent to the emergency room for evaluation. Once evaluated, the medical professionals cite that nothing seems away and assures Ebony that her children seem fine otherwise. Ebony displays that she is a strong mother bear sort and she even bucks up to her mother who seems less than supportive when confronted with the test results after the children's evaluation. Once more, we get a glimpse into how Ebony feels isolated, unsupported and challenged when she and her mother exchange vulgarities due to their differences in opinion.

Soon, Ebony's woes become that much more pressing when not only do the children display strange ailments, but weirder things begin to occur within the house. Due to the issues with her children, the State of Indiana has Children's Protective Services send out a caseworker and that is when things really begin to turn for the South because Ebony's children's experience is not only continual, but the state begins to question Ebony's ability to care for children and her sanity within the scope of the ongoing bizarre occurrences she claims are happening in her house.

What happens after this, is nothing short of paranormal and supernatural history not unlike the stories associated with the Amityville Horror or the true story about the little boy who became the inspiration for The Exorcist (watch Possessed with Timothy Dalton, 2000) - and while I would not say that The Deliverance is as terrifying as The Exorcist I'd wager it is a bit more because names were not changed, and the identities of those who were terrorized is clear in this movie and we can easily decipher from many reports from various authorities that the incidences that occurred in The Demon House and the experience the family has a long with others who went to visit the home that there is far more to this world than we can see, and much of it we may never understand.

I recommend The Deliverance to those who want to believe in more - or for those who already know it's real.