Want to see something really scary?

The Taking of Deborah Logan is one of those lesser known gems that often enter into that “really scary ” conversation. It is a film that has left an impression on those who like found footage horrors or are looking for really good scare. I dare say that the film has even, over the years, manage to garner a bit of a cult following. 

Directed by Adam Robitel, The Taking of Deborah Logan follows a three-member documentary team that has been granted permission to record Deborah, who is living with her adult daughter, as she struggles with Alzheimer’s disease. However, the more time the crew spends in the house, the more they start to suspect that more might be wrong with Deborah than lapses in her memory.

When I first drafted The Midnight Selections, I almost left The Taking of Deborah Logan off because I am aware that its use of Alzheimer’s as a horror device can be seen as insensitive and exploitive. Ironically, it was after watching Relic, a horror film that handles the onset dementia with a great deal more sensitivity, that I had my main change of heart. And I am glad I did because I am well aware that The Taking of Deborah Logan is one of the genuinely scariest films I have seen, so leaving it off the list would not felt right. 

The Taking of Deborah Logan is a found footage film that shares quite a few similarities to the Japanese film Noroi: The Curse. Both films are shot from the perspective of a documentary filmmaker and both films also end up following a seemingly paranormal investigation to increasingly troubling places. Both also involve children that are abducted. But the most significant similarity The Taking of Deborah Logan has with Norio is that its best scares also result in horrific images that stay with you. (Guillermo del Toro even tried to help promote Deborah Logan after it was re-released in 2019.)

But it is hard to think that this film would end up as memorable as it is if Jill Larson had not committed so much to the part of Deborah. Larson goes all in with a performance that is both physically and mentally challenging. She switches from vulnerable to chilling so fast that I’m surprised she didn’t get whiplash, and often conveys so much with just a look. And watching her body continually deteriorate into something less human is fascinating. This is an absolute monstrous performance that truly is up there with some of the modern horror greats. Robitel asks a lot of Larson and had she been a younger actress, I would had worried a bit about about her mental health for having agreed to do it.

Robitel’s script also takes time to develop many of its minor characters. Ann Ramsey, who plays Deborah’s daughter and Michelle Ang, who plays the film’s director, act and talk like real people instead of simplistic one-dimensional caricatures. One of the films sub-plots involve how these two very different women form a bond strong enough to see things through to the end no matter how bad things gets. These little touches of humanity throughout elevate this film above so many other found footage films that aim to simply aim to scare.

For anyone who is worried that they might be bothered by the film’s incorporation Alzheimer, I will say that the film starts to separate itself from the disease’s actual symptoms around the 14-minute mark. Unlike Relic, which intentionally raises serious questions about our own relationship with aging parents, The Taking of Deborah Logan uses the common fear of watching our parents decline as inspiration to make particularly nasty, little found footage horror. This film has spoiled me from enjoying a lot of other found footage movies.  Whether they are set in an old insane asylum or a Halloween house, or some other should-be-frightening  location, I often thinking….meh after their credits roll. There is not much that is more terrifying than being alone in a normal house while Jill Larson lurking about, with or without her clothes on. On a night when you are hoping for a good scare, put this one on.