- Director: Damien LeVeck
- Writers: Damien LeVeck, Aaron Horwitz
- Stars: Ryan Guzman, Kyle Gallner, Alix Angelis
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 34 Minutes
Synopsis
We open on an exorcism, with a man tied down to a hospital bed and a priest dripping holy water on him. The demon makes weird things happen and he laughs at the priest. It’s all very dramatic and exciting. Then the man screams and is freed of the demon. The whole thing has been streaming online. The show is called “The Cleansing Hour,” and the priest does this every week. “And cut!” Shouts the director. It’s all fake, every bit of it.
They still don’t have enough followers. “Father Max” whines that he has 50,000 followers and still can’t get Twitter verified. He and his whole crew go out drinking after the show, and he likes his fans, especially the ones he takes home and sleeps with. He has a weird vision with this latest girl, and it freaks him out.
Producer Drew’s actress girlfriend, Lane, wants him to consider quitting and doing something else. Drew, on the other hand, is loyal and doesn’t want to quit. We see some strange people or creatures moving around outside. We also see various people around the country getting ready to watch his next broadcast in a few minutes.
The actor for tonight’s possession was eaten on the way to the studio, so Drew asks Lane to play the part. They start the show with 257,000 viewers. She asks for help, and Max begins the “exorcism”. Cameraman Chris has been acting sick all night, and now he throws up. He sees something terrifying and runs out.
Max interrogates “The demon” in Lana, and then it knocks him down. Oops. She’s really possessed. She sets one of the crew on fire and it goes badly for him. Social media goes crazy, and Max sees his viewer count start to spike. The demon gives Max 49 minutes to perform the exorcism or she’ll kill Lane and all of them. Taunting him, she makes him strip naked and do the Hokey-Pokey while standing in broken glass.
Drew thinks the demon wants Max to tell the truth about the show, and obviously, Max isn’t going to do that easily. He finally comes clean about his lies and the fakeness of his show, but that’s not enough for the demon. She bites off several of his fingers. Drew has to admit that he’s been taking money from the show. Drew thinks they need to confess some more.
We get several flashbacks to Max and Drew in Catholic school and how horrible that was for both of them. The viewers are in the tens of millions by this point, and then the demon says it wants Max to hang himself. He confesses much bigger secrets than those about his show.
Finally, Drew figures out the name of the demon, Aamon, and looks up the proper rites to exorcise it. Before they get the chance, it demands one more confession…
And in the end, Max finally does get Twitter verified!
Commentary
It looks good. The set looks like what you’d expect from a mid-level streamer, and the characters feel right as well. Max is a scumbag in need of redemption, and Drew needs a wake-up call to see it. Lana is the innocent here, and she’s the one in the most danger as well.
The gore and special effects are really good. There are some tense scenes here, but there’s a little bit too much focus on the confession aspect of the situation. The bulk of the film is about Max and Drew being forced to confess various things.
The final ending, on the other hand, was really well done. She did tell them repeatedly to disconnect the live feed…