Delivery (2013) poster

Delivery (2013)

Rating:

aka Delivery: The Beast Within


USA. 2013.

Crew

Director – Brian Netto, Screenplay – Brian Netto & Adam Schindler, Producer – Adam Schindler, Photography – Andrew Bates, Music – Daniel Cossu, Visual Effects Supervisor – Cullen Wright, Production Design – Mike Starr. Production Company – Type AB/The Collective.

Cast

Laurel Vail (Rachel Massy), Danny Barclay (Kyle Massy), Rob Cobuzio (Rick Lucido), Rebecca Brooks (Barbara Grant), Consuelo Bingham Mira (Sairey Barton), Peter McGlyn (Dr Peter Shore), Elizabeth Sandy (Jenny Ackerman), Colter Allison (Kevin Matthews), Lance Buckner (Geoff Burroughs), David Alan Graf (Dr Bob Daniels)


Plot

Footage is screened from ‘Delivery’, an unaired reality tv show that was made in 2009 about the pregnancy of Rachel and Kyle Massy, a married couple in Glendale, California. After some difficulties with fertility, Rachel became pregnant. However, as the team documented, the pregnancy soon began to affect her, making her both physically and mentally ill. With the outbreak of mysterious and unexplained phenomena around the house, Rachel became certain that her unborn foetus was possessed by an evil spirit.


Delivery – referred to as Delivery: The Beast Within on the end credits and some promotion – is a Found Footage treatment of the Satanic pregnancy film. This has a long history that goes all the way back to Rosemary’s Baby (1968). Delivery was the first Found Footage film to attempt to take up the theme of the diabolical pregnancy, prefiguring the more high-profile cinematically-released Devil’s Due (2014). Also around the same time, released a few months later, was a further such Found Footage diabolical pregnancy entry with The Devil Incarnate/Copiii: The 1st Entry (2013).

To split hairs, Delivery is not specifically a Satanic pregnancy film. The Devil is never specified as the father of the baby, while the spirit inhabiting Laurel Vail is identified as someone or thing called Alastor about whom we are told nothing more than that, least of all any clues as to its nature.

A pregnant Laurel Vail in Delivery (2013)
A pregnant Laurel Vail

That said, Delivery draws on the basics laid down by Rosemary’s Baby and its numerous imitators in all essential regards. The plot follows all the cliches – the pregnant woman who becomes progressively more ill and mentally disturbed; the ominous signs and psychic disturbances; the husband who remains oblivious to everything and keeps insisting on a rational explanation. All that seems to be missing is the revelation that the neighbours and people around Laurel Vail are part of a coven.

There is nothing here that feels original in its treatment. Even the climax of the film become a big letdown – the opening tells us how Rachel was killed during the events, only for the end credits to then inform us that she subsequently killed herself, weaselling out of the build-up of expectation.

Delivery has been the only directorial outing so far for Brian Netto.


Trailer here


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