The Review: The Deliverance

 

The Deliverance 3/10

There is a special spot in hell for movies like this. You may be wondering why I didn't give this a 0/10 based off of that statement. Well, there is a scene in this that made me laugh one of the top five laughs in my life. I lost my shit for minutes and could not stop laughing and now L will randomly think of the scene and cry tears laughing. At home and in the In & Out drive through she will start laughing. So two of the points go for that laugh and the other is because we finished it cause I for sure wanted to stop at a certain point because this movie feels way longer than it actually is.

This lady named Ebony Jackson is a single mother with three kids. They all seem pretty normal except for the youngest one named Andre that has an imaginary friend. Oh, and the father of the children is in Iraq. There are so many questions about this father I will try to get to. A lot of nonsense happens in this movie and it is hard for me to recount it all. Okay. The oldest son is Nate. He seems pretty normal and gets punked by neighborhood kids. Shante is the daughter who also seems normal. Their grandmother and Ebony's mother Alberta also lives there. Right. Alberta is white. It is a white woman that acts Black. It is baffling as fuck considering Ebony does not look mixed that way. And her name is Ebony?! A white woman named her child Ebony?! Oh, god. That just clicked in my head. Let me move on.

Alberta has cancer and goes to get treatments and this dude working there is trying to fuck. Like...no! Be professional! She not even a fly old lady like Helen Mirren or something! She is a dying old lady that wears a wig and talks Blacker than me! Alberta's insurance has stopped paying for her treatments so her daughter Ebony has secretly been paying for it. This is surprisingly because Alberta treats her like shit. Ebony got every bill collector coming for her but still takes care of her children and her horrible dying mother. She sounds like a pretty awesome person.

Lies!!!

Ebony ain't shit and is up there with Mommie Dearest and Charlie Baltimore as one of the worst mothers in cinema. This woman mentions she has not drank in three weeks but every scene with her is her hungover or drinking. Everyone thinks she beats her kids and there has to be some history to it because people assume she does before the demon starts fucking her kids up. Yeah. Demons. There are demons in this movie. So Andre is talking to someone no one else can see and there are flies appearing in the house. There is a basement that has flies leaking out of it and Andre keeps on going down there but Ebony will not just go and check the shit out. The door just opens. Her son just stands in there like a zombie and she is just like “Hey. Stop being weird.” Andre says that there is a boy named Tre that lives in the basement. Totes norms!

CPS shows up at her house to interview her and it seems like they are gonna start fighting at any moment. I thought they knew each other back in school or something with the way they go at one another. One day they call animal control because of a funk in the house and it is a dead cat. One night after drinking too much there is a banging sound. Ebony finally goes in the kids room and next thing you know Alberta comes in and there is a hole in the wall and a baseball bat in Ebony's hands and her kids are against the wall like “This bitch gone crazy!” Ebony can not remember how any of this happened.

CPS shows up again and asks about all the bruises on the kids. None of them know how they got them but won't say “My mother didn't do it.” CPS leave and there is a woman just staring at the house from across the street. At school all the kids start doing weird shit. Andre pulls down his pants, starts eating his own shit, and throws some at the teachers face! L's reaction to this was priceless! Shante has a period and whispers something to the choir teacher and standing in blood. Nate starts laughing because AIDS is the funniest joke he has ever heard. All the kids end up being checked out and everyone thinks that Ebony is the cause of this. I mean...kinda. Yeah, there is a demon influencing them but these kids weren't gonna be normal with her as a mother. As someone who grew up with an angry mother and an alcoholic father some shit bleeds into your adult life forever.

The lady that was watching from across the street earlier finds Ebony after she leaves a bar and takes her to a restaurant. She explains that the house has a demon she tried to fight years ago and that a nice family lived there until they went crazy and all kinds of murder occurred. She is nailing everything beat for beat that is going on in Ebony's house and Ebony is like “Stay away from my family!” instead of “Wow. Thank you for offering help because I sure as shit am not doing anything about it!” Ebony heads home and Alberta is dead cause Andre choked her out while possessed. A crucifix on the wall is on fire. All the kids get taken away now because there is no explaining all the manner of bullshit going on here. Ebony gets checked out to see if she is crazy and the CPS lady Cynthia convinces them not to lock her in the loony bin. Later on Cynthia goes to visit Andre who is strapped down to his bed. She goes in and he is talking like a demon, breaks free from his shackles, and starts poplocking on the ceiling. Her reaction is to stare. Mine would have been me evacuating every solid and liquid in my body and screaming like a bitch on fire.

The lady that was telling Ebony about the demon helps her kidnap Andre from the hospital. Its super easy. Barely an inconvenience. (source: I worked at a hospital). They decide to perform an exorcism on Andre and it goes about as well as you would imagine. The demon put the literal Beats By Dre on her and kills her. She hands Ebony some holy water and tells her she gotta believe. In other news Nate wakes up in his church bed scratching his clothes off and tearing bits of his own skin off. Shante floating above the bed and getting stigmata. No one sees any of this! So while this demon was going at Ebony and the exorcist lady it turns from looking like Andre into Alberta. Now while in this Alberta form is starts sniffing and then says a line that will live in cinematic infamy until the end of time.

When I say I could not stop laughing I mean it.

So Ebony and this demon are going at it in the basement. It does the whole “I'm scared, mommy” routine and then Ebony starts speaking in tongues. See, the exorcist lady doubted herself and her faith which is why she got her ass kicked. Ebony, who never goes to church, is an alcoholic, shitty mom, and liar suddenly starts speaking in tongues and splashing holy water on the demon and is able to defeat it. By the way, she shouldn't be able to stand after the way the demon was launching her all across the floors and bending her body in ways that would make you rich on OnlyFans. She defeats the demon and all is well. Six months later she got her kids back and they moving to Philly to maybe get back with this missing father who could not afford to take care of his kids somehow but was sending cash to Nate so he could move out.

I have so many questions. So after seeing the crazy shit with Andre on the ceiling did no one go “We need to research this further”? Why didn't the father have custody of the kids? Surely their abusive, alcoholic mother wasn't option B. I know family is family but I would never let my abusive dying mother live with me and shit talk me the way Alberta did. Why was Alberta a white woman? Was she there for star power or something? Why wouldn't you take your child in for a checkup of some kind after finding him in the funky basement beating his head against the door? Why wasn't Ebony forced to get counseling or go to AA for her drinking issues? How was she allowed to move houses without letting CPS or someone know considering her history? Why was she not jailed on multiple occasions? This was a weird ass movie I never need to see again and could not suggest it to anyone I know. It had no directorial flavor to speak of. It was just....filmed. I am sure I left a lot of stuff out (like how Ebony kicked a boy in the dick in public and it was never mentioned again) but this has been far longer than I intended for such a raggedy ass movie. I see people online scared of this and saying how much they liked Alberta's character. Stop.

Andra Day as Ebony Jackson

Glenn Close as Alberta Jackson

Anthony B. Jenkins as Andre Jackson

Caleb McLaughlin as Nathaniel "Nate" Jackson

Demi Singleton as Shante Jackson

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as Reverend Bernice James

Mo'Nique as Cynthia Henry

Omar Epps as Melvin

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