Delirium is a 2018 thriller/horror film about a man recently released from a mental institute who inherits a mansion after his parents die, coming to believe it is haunted.
One of the more positive trends in horror these days is the wider evolution of the psychological angle, something where most of the genre got its start. Think back to Psycho and even further to classics like Nosferatu and you can see how it was mind games selling the story rather than straight up butchery. These films invented the jump scare and introduced the notion that real horror spawns from things like skewed perceptions and uncertain realities. Today, after decades of slashers and cabin-in-the-woods-esque chillers dominated the landscape, we are finally getting more challenging efforts, such as The Babadook and Get Out.
Now comes Dennis Iliadis‘ curious Delirium, made by the producers of Get Out, and featuring a few plays from that book, in a film that is packed with mental mazes, but can’t quite reach the same gut-punch level of revelation. This is a movie that tries very hard to keep its audience guessing but does so by having its premise hinge on the fact that this is exactly what we’re supposed to be thinking and reminded of such throughout, lessening the impact as it trudges on. There are a few good ideas here and certainly some good twists, but it’s all too obvious and sadly, a little lethargic, to make it significant.
It centers on Tom (Topher Grace), a guy just out of a psych ward, after spending two decades under care, sent home after the suicide of his father (Robin Thomas Grossman). Overseeing his release is parole officer Brody (Patricia Clarkson), a woman not so keen to the man’s inheritance of a vast estate where he hasn’t lived in twenty years, a placed packed with triggers. Now on his own, in a home he used to share with his mother (Daisy McCrackin) and brother, Alex (Callan Mulvey), he explores his past while hoping to move forward, popping prescription drugs meant to keep him stable. However, he’s soon plagued by ghostly visions and the return of his brother, beginning a slow spiral that leaves him questioning if any of it is real.
Set mostly in a gargantuan mansion, at least Delirium has plenty of nooks and crannies for Tom to drift about in, offering myriad opportunities for frights and hallucinations. As he’s under house arrest, a lock on his ankle and machine that calls him twice a day, he is restricted to the halls and rooms of his youth, inciting all kinds of traps and nightmares. He soon meets the pretty Lynn (Genesis Rodriguez), a local grocery delivery girl who naturally becomes interested in the odd man, who sees some hope in her in keeping himself sane.
As such, there’s more than enough here to make this a smart thriller, the mystery of his childhood and the secrets of the estate packed with potential in uncovering a twisty brain-teaser. However, the film insists on retreading tired tropes that never truly mesh as they should. Tom is constantly meant to question his surrounding and is visited by what appears to be supernatural horrors, including his dead father, his face gnawed on by the family dog after the suicide. These keep Tom in confrontation with his past but there’s a general lack of momentum and a slew of numb performances, including Grace, who never seems to embrace the instability with any conviction.
Delirium is standard stuff, a rote and formulaic effort with a few well-directed moments that offer some hints of better but is overall, simply filler in a long line of familiar and forgettable fare.