Emily’s new case, funnily enough her 39th one, is with the Sullivans and their daughter Lilith. On the surface, the Sullivans are a dysfunctional family who have it drilled into their heads that Lilith is some demon spawn that needs to be sent to hell. One scene in particular, where the Sullivans barricade their daughter into a large oven, is quite harrowing and really highlights the sadistic nature of child abuse. However, this is one of the films only saving graces.
After a rather dramatic rescue, workaholic Emily manages to get the Sullivans checked into a first-class psychiatric facility, leaving Lilith in her capable hands. Obviously it becomes clear all too quickly that Lilith isn’t all sweetness and light as originally observed and Emily soon finds the people closest to her dying bizarre deaths; most notably the supposed suicide of love interest and child psychiatrist Doug, played by Bradley Cooper. Confessing earlier in the film to Lilith that he has a fear of hornets, rather fittingly Doug finds himself locked in his own bathroom with hornets flying out of every orifice. Not pretty. Although Doug’s death is suitably disturbing, the film fails in making him a worthy love interest for Emily and also struggles in introducing the character effectively to the viewer.
As things get progressively worse, Emily resorts to working longer hours than usual, leaving Lilith home alone, hiding all her case files so Lilith can’t contact any of her case targets, and even putting deadbolts on her bedroom door. It soon becomes apparent however, that it’ll take more than a few locks to keep Lilith at bay, and Emily resigns herself to the fact that she needs to kill the child, or the demon inside of her. Despite several attempts to get rid of Lilith, Emily soon discovers that she is able to survive more deaths than Jason. Eventually she resorts to driving them both into a river, finally killing the beast (we hope!) and nearly fatally harming herself. Sadly for Emily, by this point she has already lost her best buddy, potential boyfriend and has no home to speak of. Bummer.
The film left me with one lingering question: why had the Sullivans never thought of drowning Lilith in the first place? If it was really that easy, then why the hell not? The ending was a bit of a cop-out for me, after all, would a bit of water really kill a little girl who can murder people with a mere thought, survive a house fire and who is insusceptible to sedation?! Don’t think so…
Case 39 succeeds in offering up several tense and supernatural moments but these are short-lived, meaning it gets a perhaps over-generous 5/10 from me. Unfortunately it’s a storyline that has been rehashed too many times and it’s unsurprising that Paramount delayed the release for so long. Worth a Blockbuster rental but I won’t be adding it to my DVD collection anytime soon.
My recommendation, if you want a real spine-tingling ‘creepy kids’ TV spot, is Supernatural’s ‘The Kids Are Alright’ – Season 3, Episode 2. Scary shizzle.
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