Horror Review: Case 39 (2009)

I just watched Case 39 (2009), starring Renée Zwellweger and Jodelle Ferland (Five from Dark Matter). I knew reviews weren't good, but I was hoping it would at least be entertaining. It wasn't. Warning: SPOILERS (and for Frailty (2001), too).

Emily is an overworked social worker who takes in one of the kids she's supervising, Lily, after her crazed parents lock her in the oven and try to burn her alive. When people close to her start getting harmed, Emily begins to suspect Lily's parents may not be crazy and that there's something very wrong with their daughter.

That Lily is some sort of demon spawn becomes obvious as soon as Emily goes to her house to get her things and finds out her parents had bolts inside their bedroom door, along with a cross and a bible. Now, it's only a matter of time before she starts to show her demonic side to kind, well-intentioned Emily. First, one of the kids whose cases Emily is overseeing goes crazy and kills his parents. After answering a phone call from Emily's home number! Gee, who could it possibly have been? Lily denies making the call, but Emily's cop friend, Mike, sees she's lying and tells Emily. So, Lily can't fool a regular human cop? And now, only a couple of days after taking her in, her new mum already knows she's not so innocent after all. That wasn't smart.

Then, it's therapist Doug's turn. He's smitten with Emily and leads group therapy sessions for children, one of whom is Lily. She acts like a little sociopath and gets him to tell her his fear: wasps. Dumb move, Doug. Guess how he dies, that very night, after he's already told Emily of his suspicions regarding Lily? Yup, wasps. They come out of his ears and his eyes and make him trash his bathroom and bash his head against the toilet. Of course, there are no wasps when it's over because it was all in his head! So, I guess Lily is Mastermind? Or, more accurately, like one of his daughters, because Jason Wyngarde couldn't get inside people's minds. Here's the thing, I hate bugs. The sequence of Doug losing it while wasps, which are bugs, come out of his own body should've freaked me out. It didn't. There's even a close up of a wasp climbing out of his eyelid, but it never looked real enough. I also felt Doug's death happened too soon, and Lily's timing was terrible. Did she really want Emily to start suspecting her so quickly? After all, not only did she stay with her parents for a whole decade, but also being with Emily gives her access to a bunch of other potential victims.

But, what is wrong with Lily? According to her father, she's got a demon soul and likes to turn people's lives into their own worst nightmares. So, since Emily told her her mother died in a car crash and that she had been in the car, too, it's obvious how this is going to end. It doesn't explain why she's doing everything so quickly, though. Or why she waited until after her father had already told Emily what he knew before killing him, and her mother, with her telepathic illusion powers.

Lily screws up some more by calling Mike from Emily's mobile phone and trying to get him to kill his family. It doesn't work because... I don’t know, Mike's religious (even though he didn't believe Emily about Lily being possessed)? Really, there's no explanation for this. These should be separate from the illusion powers, right? I mean, she's not making him see his family as violent intruders, she's just ordering him to kill them. And how does this work, exactly? The kid, Doug, and Mike all got calls, but her parents didn't. Does this mean the calls aren't necessary? Then why do it and leave evidence? Lily is a really dumb demon. When she gets Doug to tell her his fear, she sounds smarter and older, but then the movie has her making stupid mistakes like that. When she finally kills Mike, she does it by making him believe he's being attacked by a dog, which causes him to shoot himself. Hmm, how? If he's aiming at the non-existent dog, why would the shot hit him? Whatever, what matters is that Emily is out of allies.

Emily puts bolts on her bedroom door just like Lily's parents did, and she barricades the door with furniture. This doesn't stop Lily from breaking down the door. So, she has super strength? Remember that, because the movie won't. Lily tells Emily to do everything she wants and all will be fine. But Emily decides to follow the demon's father's advice instead, and kill the little monster with the inconsistent powers. She manages to drug Lily (or at least, believes she did) and sets her house on fire with her in it. Of course, it doesn't work. And why the hell didn't Emily throw gasoline inside Lily's bedroom? She knows what she's capable of, so why just tie the door shut and pour gas in front of it? But of course, Lily can't die in a fire because Emily's trauma is linked to her mother's death in a car crash. The big showdown happens in Emily's car, when she decides to follow her mum's example and kill the demon child (and possibly herself, too) by crashing it. Lily tries to mess with Emily by making her relive the suicide/accident as her mother. But Emily realises it's all an illusion and doesn't fall for it, thus making herself useless to demon Lily, who uses her powers of persuasion to force her to stop the car and then crushes her skull with the same super strength she used to tear down Emily's barricaded bedroom door. Oh, wait, apparently she doesn't have those anymore, so all she can do is seat there as Emily drives the car into the river. Good thing Lily lost her super strength, or Emily would never have been able to leave her trapped in the car boot and free herself when the demon's now enlarged hand broke through one of the taillights and grabbed her ankle. There's no post credits scene that shows Emily in a straitjacket and Lily with a new family, so I guess this is it for Lily, the demon. Pazuzu would be very disappointed.

As for the horror, there are several jump scares when an illusion of Lily's burned mother jumps at Emily, but it's only scary because it's sudden. I already mentioned the wasps. Mike and the dogs happens too fast. Really, the whole movie feels rushed despite its length because it's pretty obvious what's going on from the start. Lily shows her hand too soon, and the possibility that Emily might be losing her mind never feels believable. Which is a shame. I think Case 39 would've been better if Emily really was going crazy and Mike's initial opinion of Lily as a troubled, lying, manipulative, yet human child was correct. I had the same problem with Frailty (2001), which starts as a movie about a kid seeing his father turn into a serial killer convinced his victims were really demons, and then goes supernatural in the end, revealing the crazy father was actually right and that kid was himself a demon. I love supernatural horror, but in these two cases, psychological horror would've worked better.

Verdict: boring. There are much better, or at least more entertaining, demonic horror movies out there. I suggest you find them.

By Danforth