Netflix presents Lee Daniel’s Deliverance… or The Deliverance if you are doing the bare minimum to not remind people of squealing like a pig. I get it, I get it… a lot of people don’t know Deliverance and it’s not like that flick has a monopoly on the word… but if you are playing in similar thriller/horror genres, maybe don’t?

But this isn’t a movie about bad choices in canoes… it’s (yet another) exorcism movie. In this case, a low income black family moves into a house that comes complete with a dead cat… and demons. Soon the kids start acting crazy… and social services are called.

Yeah, the most interesting thing about this exorcism story is its setting and themes (at least for the first two acts). It’s not about an affluent family, it’s not about a suburban family, and its not about an Appalachian family. It’s set in a low income area where the only thing scarier than the demons is Child Protective Services. Yes, when this demon leaves bruises on the kids, they show up instead of a Catholic priest.

That and a few other things give a decent twist on the genre. The cast is doing their level best to play into the socio-economic plight they are in. The most surprising cast member is (very not black) Glenn Close who plays a dirt poor parent of a black single mother. And, at one point, a snarling, snorting, cussing demon (what sharp teeth you have, grandma).

Unfortunately, once the film starts to get down to the business of exorcizing demons, it goes off a cliff. It loses the more interesting themes and twists and just does a boring version of all the stuff the other exorcism films have already done. I guess there’s more of a personal relationship with Jesus angle as opposed to calling in some Catholics priests to save the day.

But it’s not enough and a perfectly ok flick slips sadly into pretty mediocre territory. I liked its ideas and its twists on the genre, I liked its cast and setting, but I hated hated hated how it reverted back to the same ol’ same ol’ in the end.

Score: 74