Movies
[Review] ‘The Taking of Deborah Logan’ Is Creatively Bankrupt
There are a few great movies that have “Taking of” in their title. For instance, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) is a gritty crime classic and The Taking of Beverly Hills (1991) is an angry little thriller directed by action wiz Sidney Furie. The Taking of Deborah Logan is not one of the greats. It tarnishes the “Taking” titles with a miserable stab at found footage that starts off with an interesting angle before abruptly devolving into trope territory. Aside from a gruesomely nightmarish moment at the end and Jill Larson’s ghoulish performance, The Taking of Deborah Logan is hopelessly bankrupt of fresh ideas.
When they say Deborah Logan is “taken,” they mean she’s possessed. It could’ve also just as easily been the “exorcism” of Deborah Logan. I guess director Adam Robitel and producer Bryan Singer (Apt Pupil) didn’t want to be thrown in the landfill of movies with “possession” and “exorcism” in the title, so they went with “taking.” Regardless, they do build up to the full blown demonic presence in an interesting way. The first half of the film is a medical documentary about elderly Deborah Logan’s (Larson) struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. Here the movie is very grounded, as medical student Mia (Michelle Ang) documents Logan for her thesis. They talk about the disease for a while and Logan’s daughter Sarah (Anne Ramsay, who played Ellen Wolf on season 3 of Dexter) explains how it’s crippled all of their lives.
The film never really does more than flirt with the topic of Alzheimer’s. It just uses it as a springboard for the “taking.” Physically, Logan’s akin to Zelda from Pet Sematary, so right off the bat I wanted to dive under the covers. When the film shifts into full blown horror, Logan is transformed into a skeletal terror. It’s a scary mutation for sure, but as the film shifts to horror, it also sinks deep into the aspects of found footage that most fans hate: shaky cam, nauseating cam, and their evil cousins, dark cam and static cam. And, like you probably guessed, the climax is shot so deplorably, you can’t see what the hell is going on most of the time.
There’s some folklore and mythology mixed in to liven up the possession tale. It’s pretty silly how Mia, a highly educated med student, buys into all of it so quickly. One minute she’s having a discussion with a neuropsychologist, the next it’s demonology and exorcisms. When we meet her, she seems strongly rooted in logic, so the sudden shift in her supernatural beliefs feels like bullshit.
The best part of Taking of Deborah Logan is one single moment during the frantic climax. It’s a shot that lasts about four seconds or so and hot damn is it something ripped straight out of a nightmare. Aside from that single shot, the film brings nothing new to the table. Avoid, avoid, avoid.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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