Parents' Guide to The Deliverance

Inspired by true events and well cast, this exorcism creeper maintains the suspense and provides the jump scares, but it also gets bogged down in its own embellishments. Lee Daniels' The Deliverance could easily be read as a parable about Black oppression, and specifically the impossible situation Black women find themselves in caring for families while barely scraping by under constant suspicion from "the system." It could also be seen as a story about the role of the church in the Black community, or the power of Jesus, or the otherworldly strength of mothers.

Day infuses the suggestively named Ebony with grit and vulnerability, showing her at her weakest and her strongest. Close puts in an especially memorable performance as Ebony's ailing but tough-as-nails mother. But Daniels has the female leads get unnecessarily nasty with each other (and their children), and the coarseness of their foul-mouthed, below-the-belt bickering can be off-putting. Some of the possessed behavior is also intentionally gross. Still, it's hard to turn away from either the drama of the first half or the scares of the second, and this film will have no trouble finding a willing audience.