Delivery, 2013.
Directed by Brian Netto.
Starring Laurel Vail, Danny Barclay and Rob Cobuzio.
SYNOPSIS:
Delivery tells the story of Kyle and Rachel Massy, a young couple who agree to document their first pregnancy for a family-orientated reality show. Unfortunately, the production begins to change in tone after a couple of upsetting incidents leave the couple thinking that something may be a little different with this pregnancy.
Another found footage film? Surely producers are attempting to squeeze blood from a stone trying to think of new ideas for this sub-genre, you may well ask. Well, I have good news: while this film isn’t entirely original, it’s also not entirely terrible.
The film starts out with an oddly cheery tone as we see the opening ‘pilot’ of the latest reality TV show, Delivery, a show that follows couples on the journey of their first pregnancy. With talking head interviews, jolly music and multi-coloured graphics, this is exactly what you’d expect from an MTV reality show.
As different as this is for the beginning of a horror film, it does help set an oddly sinister tone for the rest of the film as it makes everything else seem so much darker, especially as we get to the last few scenes where things really begin to get ghastly.
There are of course several issues with this film as you can imagine; the biggest issue being the fact that if you’ve seen Mama, Rosemary’s Baby and Paranormal Activity, you’ll pretty much see every plot-point coming. However, despite the obvious signposting, the standard jumps and the routine camera work, you don’t find yourself getting as annoyed as you might think and you may actually become engaged with what’s on screen.
It also has to be said that, as a chap who doesn’t overly enjoy modern horrors (due to their complete inability to even make you jump, let alone give you a proper chill), Delivery seemed to have a little more oomph to it that most. This may be because the idea of some sort of devil baby is truly horrifying or it could have been the fact that a neighbour’s baby was intermittently crying throughout viewing. Either way, this film stayed with me a little longer that I thought it would and that has to be commended.
The film builds to what you would assume would be a fairly simplistic conclusion but managed to surprise me in a way that I didn’t think it could – best left for you to see for yourself.
All in all, while I normally hate found-footage films, I enjoyed this surprisingly unsettling, yet not at all terrifying, attempt at a horror film – cheap and cheerful though it is.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Ozzy Armstrong is a Stargate and Rocky superfan. Follow him on Twitter.
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