“The Taking of Deborah Logan” (2014): Horror or Drama? Film Review.

“The Taking of Deborah Logan” is not here because it will scare you. On the contrary, as a horror movie, it didn’t evoke any emotions at all (God, send me a horror movie that will finally scare me), and it was sad rather than horrifying. Sad not only because I wasted an hour and a half of my life again, but also because the following interpretation of it occurred to me: this is not a movie about demons wanting to break free from the underworld, but the horror and despair of a man faced with the inevitable. And the main character here is not at all a mysterious old lady with Alzheimer’s, but her daughter, experiencing all the stages of acceptance of her mother’s incurable illness.

After all, if you think about it, it is in her position that people, watching the impending loss of a loved one, go through a real personal hell: nursing the sick in the most difficult conditions, seeking money for treatment in every way possible, scouring the past for clues that provide an answer to the question “Why is this happening to me?”.

And most importantly, it is in this position that many turn to religion, to alternative therapies or ancient rituals, begin to believe in the paranormal, call in exorcists, and so on down the list. And when you look at “The Taking of Deborah Logan” from this point of view, the film takes on a very different tone and turns into a reflection of Sarah’s difficult journey — herself on the brink of grief madness — from all sorts of attempts to fight her mother’s illness to accepting the inevitable and deciding to finally let her go.

But if you don’t take my ingenious and yet completely out of touch interpretation into account, then I don’t know what else to add here. Let me put it this way: don’t believe Instagram’s recommendations of movies that give you advice. And don’t believe ratings on streaming services, because then you’ll be asking yourself with Sarah-level despair, “Who, who’s giving these ratings?!”