Netflix has dropped the first photo from its upcoming Lee Daniels film, The Deliverance, which stars Andra Day, Glenn Close, Mo’Nique, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Tasha Smith, Caleb McLaughlin, Omar Epps and more.
Release dates for the film have also been set. It’ll be in select theaters on Aug. 16 and will bow Aug. 30 on the streamer
Anthony B. Jenkins, Miss Lawrence and Demi Singleton also star.
The film is written by David Coggeshall and Magazine Dreams director Elijah Bynum.
Here’s the official description of the movie, which is inspired by a true story.
Ebony Jackson, a struggling single mother fighting her personal demons, moves her family into a new home for a fresh start. But when strange occurrences inside the home raise the suspicions of Child Protective Services and threaten to tear the family apart, Ebony soon finds herself locked in a battle for her life and the souls of her children.
Daniels, Tucker Tooley, Pamela Oas Williams, Jackson Nguyen and Todd Crites are producers, with Jackie Shenoo, Hilary Shor, Greg Renker, Gregoire Gensollen executive producing.
The long-gestating project, once konwn as Demon House, has long been in the works and once had Octavia Spencer set to star in the Mo’Nique role. Before Mo’Nique joined the film in 2022, Shadow and Act last wrote about it in 2014.
It is inspired by the story of Gary, Indiana-based Ammons who, in 2011, claimed that her children were being attacked and possessed by demons.
Relativity Media was initially the studio behind it and Ammons optioned her rights. Daniels collaborator Tooley then retrieved the rights after Relativity went into bankruptcy.
Zak Bagans of Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures, filmed an episode at “The Demon House” as it was called, which is the Gary house in 2014.
The mother of three told police that she witnessed her children walking up walls, levitating and speaking in different voices. She further claimed that she once found her seven-year-old son inside a closet talking to another boy only he could see. When she asked what they were talking about, Ammons claimed that he told her the unseen presence was describing what it felt like to be killed. The young boy was also reportedly thrown by a “malevolent spirit” out of a bathroom, and her 12-year-old daughter required stitches to her head after an attack.
When two psychics later visited the terrified mother, they told her there were more than 200 demons haunting the house. Even official reports from a 2012 document on paranormal activity within the house supported Ammons’ claims, as psychologists stated on-the-record that they witnessed her 9 year-old speak in “different voices” and walk “up the wall backwards.”
After visiting the house and interviewing Ammons, the local police chief himself admitted that he was a “believer,” according to the Indianapolis Star.
