The Cleansing Hour (2019)

(In French, On Cable TV, March 2021) As far as low-budget, few-locations horror films go, The Cleansing Hour is a bit better than most. The premise is charmingly 2019ish — what with its protagonists being involved in a webcast series of “live exorcisms” that are really staged events meant to sell merchandise. (Those sequences are accompanied by a chorus of far-too-authentic comments running in the bottom-left of the screen, complete with contemporary memes.)  The deception having being quickly made clear to us viewers, the fun begins when the latest of those fake exorcisms features the lead character’s fiancée, and she starts behaving in supernatural ways. Clearly, we’ve gone from fakery to real demonic possession, and a bunch of fakers are about to get schooled. Don’t worry — the absurdly hyped-up webcasting angle (reaching passional viewers worldwide!) and a subplot involving a young guest of the White House eventually play into the over-the-top climax. The Cleansing Hour is not that good, but neither is it dull or terrible, which is not a bad result for a low-budget effort largely distributed through streaming platforms. There are enough twists and turns in the film’s execution to keep things interesting even if most of it takes place in a dimly-lit recording area with a handful of characters. As far as possession stories, it doesn’t break a lot of new ground, and often relies on dubious plotting crutches (such as someone going crazy at the thought that his fiancé would have slept with his best friend years before they became a couple) and a menagerie of past traumatic experiences to keep its characters defined. Still, when it comes to horror films, writer-director Damien LeVeck’s The Cleansing Hour is a little bit better than most and that’s all it really needs to stick in mind a little bit longer.