9) Delivery: The Beast Within
Oh look, another found footage horror movie – I’m sensing a trend here.
While 2014 saw two films about demonic baby-bumps, Delivery: The Beast Within wastes the concept even more than Devil’s Due did. Another more low-budget effort, writer/director Brian Netto utilizes the format of a reality television show about expecting parents as a means of capturing one woman’s horrific pregnancy experience. The psychological horror is there, but unfortunately the tone is rather dead as scenes drag on and on with nothing but long-winded chats and knocks on the door.
Laurel Vail and Danny Barclay play the tortured parents, finding a strain on their relationship as Vail’s character may or may not just be going insane, but their chemistry just doesn’t gel properly. Barclay struggles to translate his paranoia into anger, Vail misrepresents her brooding predicament, and the graininess of Netto’s camerawork doesn’t exactly do the film any favors. This is the kind of psychological horror that puts me to sleep instead of keeps my fists clenched tight, resulting in a great pre-nap watch.
It actually did rather well critically for a film of its nature, so I guess I’m just in the minority on this one, as I concluded the following in my review:
Delivery: The Beast Within plays out like a fireworks display that hopes you’ll only remember the grand finale, and not the preceding hour’s worth of uneventful build-up material that you’re forced to sit through.