The haunting true story behind Netflix's possession movie 'The Deliverance'

The Haunting true story behind Netflix's Possession movie The Deliverance Lee Daniel's favorite movie of all time is The Exorcist but when it came to making his own possession film his mother was a hard no the Oscar nominated director wanted to tackle The Haunting true story of Latoya amons who claimed her children had been victimized by demons after finishing his 2009 breakthrough precious and my mom was like you bear your all and its on screen Spirits can jump on you and I don't want you to do the film Daniels tells USA Today while he moved on to other projects from the butler to TVs Empire Daniels never could shake Ammon Stranger Than Fiction tale which made Believers out of skeptical Witnesses in real life and inspired Daniel's new movie The Deliverance streaming now on Netflix I believe we are in a dark time Daniel says and instead of a horror flick he wanted to make a faith-based Thriller to help audiences connect with a higher power whether it's Buddha whether it's Allah whether it's Jesus Christ whether it's you learning to love yourself more we need to do that so that we can find peace tomorrow isn't promise for any of us Daniels breaks down the freaky facts from the fictionalized bitson Deliverance which centers on a struggling black mom wrestling with demons of the personal and also hellish kind D ammon's ordeal began with black flies swarm forming their rental house which gave way to inexplicable noises and appearances by a shadowy figure and that's how the Deliverance starts as well with seemingly innocuous bugs and bad smells from the basement leading to much worse things but Daniel spends a healthy amount of runtime investing in the dysfunctional dynamic between alcoholic ebony Andra day and her three children plus ebane ailen mother Alberta Glen close before the spooky stuff sets in that sort of was a problem for Netflix in the beginning because they didn't understand it Daniel says they wanted more jump scares I don't know how to make that kind of movie it has to be grounded for him more important was exploring a bigger picture of what defines abuse because eony definitely does hit her kids and the dysfunction that goes on in this family which was passed down you think it's precious but then it sort of makes a turn in the Deliverance Ebony's youngest son Andre Anthony B Jenkins shows signs of demon possession first followed by older siblings Nate Caleb McLaughlin and shantee Demi Singleton strange and violent incidents at school and home lead to them being hospitalized harrowing film moments were based on actual reported occurrences including one unnerving scene when Andre crawls up a hospital wall backward in the movie It's witnessed by Child Services agent Cynthia and and Monique in real life Em's mother saw her 7-year-old grandson do something unexplainable as did a nurse and the family's case manager not only did they see it but the social worker who was trying to take the kids from the mother said this actually happened to the judge Daniel says you can't make it up child services investigated Ammons for possible child abuse or neglect and while she was found to be of sound mind the agency took custody of her children with without a court order we'd already been through so much and fought so hard for our lives she recalled to the Indianapolis Star in 2014 that same situation plays out to an emotional degree in the Deliverance it happens says Daniels who raised his brother's children now 28 from when they were 3 days old there are so many children that are taken away from families and sometimes for good reason sometimes not for good reason and in this case it's not for good reason she's fighting the system for her kids as she's fighting the Demon that's in her house and what a unique story to tell because it's real making the movie Daniel's changed the names involved as well as the setting ammon's demon house was in Gary Indiana while Ebony and her family live in Pittsburgh the casting of close says Alberta also deviated from reality she has a history of friction with her daughter ebony found God and is trying to find some Redemption later in life but unlike ammon's mother Alberta is white I like giving voice to people that don't have a voice and a face to people don't really see often Daniel says there's so many white women that I knew growing up I wanted to pay homage to that a lot of African-Americans have never seen this character on screen before and will relate to her ebony ultimately gets a Kia sis from the Reverend Bernice James Anjo Ellis Taylor a Deliverance Minister a member of the CL lergy who cleanses a person or place of evil spirits rather than an exorcist who focuses on demonic possession the deliverer who worked with Ammons was a man Daniels recalls but I desperately wanted to work with aneno and I knew there were women doing this he says ammon's met with different types of healers including a Catholic Exorcist a scene with an exorcist didn't make the final cut of the film Daniels acknowledges he was initially skeptical of ammon's St until they spoke on the phone and he did his own research plus his mother told him about something that she'd seen this is stuff that happens in iiki says the filmmaker adding that he had a deliverer on set every day after reading articles and books about the weird goings on during the making of poltergeist and The Exorcist not