Since William Friedkin’s The Exorcist in 1973, there’s been countless attempts to try and emulate the sheer horror and religious terror of his seminal work. Not even The Exorcist’s own sequels were able to achieve much success, but a mostly unknown horror streaming original has shown there’s life yet in the subgenre.
Enter, The Cleansing Hour. The small indie horror flick was picked up by Shudder shortly after its film festival debut, but has now finally starting to compel viewers to fans. Released in 2019 to strong reviews but languishing away in a huge horror backlog, a Reddit post has sparked a first proper appraisal online.
The Cleansing Hour is a very modern exorcism film, following young internet age entrepreneurs and their sacrilegious livestream series called “Father Max”. Their faked exorcism show eventually attracts the real of cases which might actually border on the otherworldly, although the fame-seeking protagonists aren’t any wiser.
Beautifully, the film doesn’t waste any time getting into the meat of it. The antithesis to the current trend of slow-burn, “elevated” horror films, this goes for the jugular early on and doesn’t allow much time to let up.
The cast is mostly lesser knowns, but does see consistent horror actor Kyle Gallner get another role where he can be witness to truly horrific scares. His previous films include Smile, cult hit Jennifer’s Body, and the mostly awful A Nightmare on Elm Street remake produced by Michael Bay.
The highest praise for The Cleansing Hour however should really go to its special effects team. Consisting almost entirely of practical work, it looks far more realistic than many of the CGI-heavy horror films. Sometimes simple just feels better than complexity.
The Cleansing Hour is available to stream on Shudder.
