The Setup: Another Found Footage Film Nobody Asked For
Let’s be honest: by 2014, the found footage genre was about as fresh as week-old guacamole left on a frat house counter. And then The Taking of Deborah Logan arrived, proudly declaring, “Wait! What if The Blair Witch Project… but with Alzheimer’s?”
The result? A film that tries to mix disease, dementia, and demonology—and somehow manages to offend all three.
Directed by Adam Robitel (who would later go on to direct Escape Room, proving improvement is possible through suffering), this was his debut feature—a kind of cinematic science experiment that asks: what happens when a filmmaker confuses tragedy with possession and shaky cameras with storytelling? Spoiler alert: nausea.
The Plot: Grandma Needs an Exorcist (and a Tripod)
We open with the standard found footage pretense: a film crew of ambitious, morally questionable grad students—Mia (Michelle Ang), Gavin (Brett Gentile), and Luis (Jeremy DeCarlos)—decide to document the struggles of Alzheimer’s through the life of sweet, fragile Deborah Logan (Jill Larson) and her perpetually exasperated daughter Sarah (Anne Ramsay).
Of course, because this is a horror movie and not a documentary on elder care, things start to go bump in the night. Deborah begins exhibiting strange behavior: wandering around naked, babbling in French, digging in her garden at ungodly hours, and occasionally attempting to swallow a child whole.
At first, everyone assumes this is just “aggressive Alzheimer’s,” which is apparently doctor code for “let’s not investigate this incredibly alarming supernatural behavior.” But soon enough, the grad students realize there’s more going on—specifically, the vengeful spirit of Henri Desjardins, a local doctor-slash-ritualistic child murderer (because of course) who tried to achieve immortality through a blood ritual involving the sacrifice of five young girls.
Now, before you can say “Resident Evil prequel,” Deborah starts growling, slithering, and doing interpretive dance with snakes. The film crew, instead of calling the police or an actual priest, just keeps filming—because in found footage land, “put down the camera” is not a survival option.
The film builds (and by builds, I mean crawls) to the infamous “snake-mouth” scene, in which Deborah attempts to unhinge her jaw and swallow a small child like a python. It’s unsettling, yes, but not in the “oh no, a demon!” way—more in the “how did we get from Alzheimer’s to The Discovery Channel: Reptile Edition?” way.
In the end, they burn the doctor’s corpse, Deborah is deemed “mentally unfit for trial” (shocker), and the little girl she tried to eat gives the camera a creepy smile, implying that the evil spirit is still out there. Presumably living its best life in a new, pre-teen host body.
The Characters: Dumb People, Great Cheekbones
Let’s take stock of our dramatis personae, shall we?
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Deborah Logan (Jill Larson): She’s fantastic, honestly. Larson gives it her all—screaming, twitching, contorting her face like she’s auditioning for The Exorcist: Geriatric Edition. She deserves an award, or at least a very long nap. Unfortunately, her powerful performance is trapped inside a film that treats mental illness like a Ouija board malfunction.
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Sarah Logan (Anne Ramsay): The perpetually exhausted daughter who spends most of the film alternating between crying, yelling, and asking strangers to stop filming her mother’s possession for content. She’s the only sane person here, which in horror logic means she’s ignored entirely.
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Mia Hu (Michelle Ang): The “documentary director” who reacts to supernatural horror with the same emotional intensity as someone who just ran out of oat milk. She claims she’s studying Alzheimer’s but seems far more interested in chasing viral YouTube views.
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Gavin (Brett Gentile): The camera operator who actually does the sensible thing halfway through the movie—he quits. Unfortunately, his absence removes the only character who made a rational decision.
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Luis (Jeremy DeCarlos): He’s there too. He mostly exists to hold the camera and occasionally whisper, “Guys, this doesn’t seem normal,” before immediately following Deborah into the murder basement anyway.
By the time the sheriff shows up to die uselessly and the child appears for her “snake buffet” cameo, you’ve stopped rooting for anyone and started cheering for Henri Desjardins just to end it all.
The Horror: Less “Supernatural Terror,” More “Snake Anatomy Lecture”
The film’s central problem—aside from everything—is that it can’t decide what kind of horror story it wants to be.
Is it a tragedy about a woman losing her mind to Alzheimer’s? Is it a supernatural possession movie? Is it an Indiana Jones snake pit spinoff? The answer is yes. All of them. At once.
For the first half, we get some decent creep factor: Deborah standing still for hours, playing the piano backwards, teleporting up walls—your usual demon grandma behavior. But by the second half, the subtle dread gives way to loud jump scares, flickering lights, and the aforementioned child-eating attempt, which feels like it wandered in from an entirely different movie.
And because it’s “found footage,” everything looks like it was filmed on a GoPro duct-taped to a blender. If you’re prone to motion sickness, bring a barf bag—though, honestly, that might enhance the experience.
The Theme: Alzheimer’s Awareness, but Make It Satanic
Perhaps the film’s most uncomfortable quality is how it exploits the horror of Alzheimer’s for cheap thrills. There’s real potential in the idea of a disease that blurs memory and reality—but instead of exploring that with depth or empathy, The Taking of Deborah Logan just shrugs and says, “Eh, maybe it’s a demon.”
It’s like the writers brainstormed, “What’s scarier than dementia?” and someone yelled, “A snake demon!” and everyone just went home early.
The result feels like The Exorcism of Emily Rose crossed with a PSA about elder neglect, directed by a film student who just discovered Blair Witch on VHS.
The Humor: Unintentional, but Frequent
You know a horror film has failed when you find yourself laughing at the wrong moments.
There’s Deborah’s attack scenes, which are terrifying until you realize she looks like a malfunctioning Muppet. There’s the “snake-mouth” moment, which is equal parts horrifying and absurd—think National Geographic: Hell Edition.
Then there’s the documentary crew’s dedication to cinema vérité while literal hell breaks loose. “Oh no, she’s levitating again! Quick, zoom in! Adjust the white balance!”
It’s as if these people collectively decided that demonic possession was less concerning than bad focus.
The Ending: Evil Never Dies, But the Audience Might
By the time the little girl smiles ominously at the camera, you’re not scared—you’re relieved. Relieved it’s over, relieved you didn’t throw your own camera across the room, and relieved that, hopefully, this crew will never make another documentary again.
The ending implies that Desjardins has transferred his spirit into the child, setting up a sequel that, thankfully, never happened. Somewhere in Hollywood, a producer probably whispered, “What if The Taking of Deborah Logan 2: Snake Kindergarten?” and was immediately escorted out of the building.
Final Verdict: When Found Footage Should Have Stayed Lost
⭐️½ out of 5
The Taking of Deborah Logan is what happens when you mix legitimate talent (Jill Larson) with a script that treats Alzheimer’s like a demon summoning ritual and still expects you to take it seriously. It’s occasionally creepy, occasionally funny, and frequently absurd.
The good news? It’s unintentionally one of the best comedies of 2014. The bad news? It wasn’t supposed to be.
If you ever wanted to see The Exorcist remade by medical students with GoPros, this is your moment. Otherwise, maybe let Grandma rest in peace—and leave the snakes out of it.
