The Cleansing Hour ~ Movie Review By MOVIE MONKEY
I am Movie Monkey and am a true film addict.
Hope you enjoy my reviews. May contain spoilers.
The Cleansing Hour
- Genre: Horror
- Release Date: 3rd January 2020
- Director: Damien LeVeck
- Starring: Ryan Guzman, Kyle Gallner, Alix Angelis.
Max And Drew have made a living by creating an online show where live stream fake exorcisms to their worldwide audience and followers.
Max (Guzman) plays the part of 'Father Max' and Drew (Gallner) takes charge of the tech side of the operation.
Max is obsessed with their viewer count with his soul mission being to finally be classed as a verified user and receive his little blue tick on his account as his grand reward.
Their online followers are duped into believing that the exorcisms that he performs are real and they are totally hooked with both their content and merchandise.
When the hired actress for their next show fails to arrive, Lane, Drew's girlfriend steps in to play the part of the possessed person instead.
Courtesy of YouTube
They soon settle into the performance but it's not long before things start to go awry.
Lane starts acting strangely and both Max and Drew, along with the other staff members, start to worry.
She speaks in a distorted voice and seems to 'over act' the part that she is supposed to be portraying.
Tommy, a crew member, suddenly bursts into flames, screaming in pain and staggering around in shock as the intense flames and their heat overcome him.
Blankets and a fire extinguisher both fail to help and only exacerbates the flames even more.
Lane looks at Max with a sense of both hatred and mischief and calls him by the name Maxy. He is taken aback as to why she called him that.
Drew tries to call 911 on his mobile but the call does not connect through.
They all start looking at each other and collectively reach the realisation that Lane is possessed for real and is not acting.
Lane, in her distorted demonic voice, tells them that if Drew cuts the feed for the internet and takes the show off air or if Max steps foot off of the set then she will kill the girl (meaning Lane).
She claims that this is a defining moment in their lives and they can either pay penance or die as martyrs.
Max starts reading out his usual bible verses to try and exorcise the demon from Lane, but Drew tells him that in real life that will not work.
They need to find out the name of the demon so that they can read the specific rites for that specific demon.
The demon tells them that the online audience needs to decide what happens next to Max.
The viewers start typing in a string of obscene requests, with the majority voting for him to strip naked. As he shamefully removes his clothes the view count increases.
The demon forces Max to endure a series of humiliating and painful tasks whilst the viewers look on wincing and shocked (but happy that he's naked).
Max has to step forward onto broken glass; cutting deep into his bare feet and causing him to cry out in great pain.
Max has a memory of when him and Drew were young schoolboys in the same Catholic school.
They were subjected to abuse and ridicule by a sadistic Nun who taught them.
The Nun used to call Max, Maxy. Can all this be related to her?
Lane starts choking and with Drew panicking that she could die, he tells Max to try and clear her airway.
Max puts his fingers in her mouth and slowly starts to remove something from her throat. It's one of their prayer cloths that they sell online.
They realise that they need to start telling the truth to their viewers in order for this all to stop.
Max reluctantly faces the camera and tells everyone that the merchandise that they sell is not authentic. The 'holy water' is just water from his bathroom and the prayer cloths are just cheap mass produced cloths that they purchased from China.
She starts choking again and so Max puts his fingers in her mouth once more, expecting to pull another obstruction free, but the demon has tricked him.
She viciously bites into his fingers as he screams in pain, eventually biting them clean off and spitting them out on the floor.
She then also spits out an old coin in the direction of Drew.
The demon knows all their sins and in order to pay their penance they need to confess to all of them.
Max confesses to killing the Nun whom had tormented and beat them both when they were younger.
He killed her in retaliation during an abusive encounter as she was harming Drew.
A secret that they had both kept for years.
Drew uses an online demon encyclopedia called 'The Devil's Demons', to narrow down the identity of the demon to which they are speaking to.
The result is that it's name is Aamon.
He finds the specific rites to cast out Aamon and Max starts reciting it.
However, before he can finish, Lane breaks free from the chair that she has been bound to and leaps on top of Max, pounding and beating at his chest.
He manages to get her off of him and completes the rites. They visually see the demon being expelled from Lanes body.
She falls to the floor and Drew holds her in his arms with relief that it is all over.
But then Tommy's charred and crispy body starts to rise and awaken. The demon has but entered his body instead.
He speaks to the three shocked people before him and tells them that he is not Aamon and he is in fact the Devil himself.
His burnt flesh splits open to reveal the Devil in his true frightening form.
He then looks into the camera that is still filming and speaks to all the 17,915,033 enthralled viewers around the globe in an unfamiliar language.
Then aggressively bites the power cables so that the online connection is lost and the show ends.
The movie goes on to show that all the people who were watching the live stream and who had listened to the Devil's words have been possessed, revealing the Devil's true intention of the whole orchestrated saga.
The possessed masses proceed to kill anyone within their vicinity in brutal and bloody methods, carrying out the Devil's work for him.
Back at the film set, the emergency services are seen to be in attendance and are caring for Louise and Drew.
Max gets a notification on his mobile which shows that he has gained and abundance of followers, has been made a verified user and has finally been awarded with the all important blue tick that he has been striving for for so long.
During the credits, different news outlets tell of the sudden and unexplained outbreak of violence by 'white eyed crazies' that has occurred around the world, including the massacre of the American President by his own Son.
I loved this movie! Everything about it was brilliant.
The storyline was great, the acting was superb and the special effects of the demons and events were on point.
The content was made modern and believable with the presence of current technology, social media and the obsessive behaviours that it can create in us if we become too consumed.
The gore factor was there; it positively made you wince at certain points and the overall entertainment value of the collective performances by the cast was excellent.
I would definitely recommend The Cleansing Hour as a must watch movie for any horror fans out there!
Movie Monkey Rating: 5
