The Cleansing Hour

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Damien LeVeck directs. Jean-Philippe Bernier behind the camera. Damien LeVeck cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in Spanish, Latin, Arabic, English, Korean.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

• 1Released 7 years ago.
• 2Dialogue crosses 5 languages: Spanish, Latin, Arabic, English, Korean.
• 3Lean credit list — fewer than 30 people officially credited.
• 4Directed by Damien LeVeck, shot by Jean-Philippe Bernier. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
• 5Editor Damien LeVeck shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
• 6Ryan Guzman and Kyle Gallner and Alix Angelis carry the top of the cast.
• 7Marketing tagline: "The perfect internet hoax just went to hell".
• 8IMDB entry: tt8009906 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
• 9Classified under 9 themes, including "exorcism", "demon", "demonic possession", "found footage".

The technical file

Cinematography

Jean-Philippe Bernier

Editing

Damien LeVeck

Runtime

91 min · 1h 31m

Aspect ratio (typical)

1.37:1 (Academy)

Status

Released

Box office

$139,355

Original language

EN

Certification (US)

NR

IMDB

The Cleansing Hour (2019) ↗

Also by

Damien LeVeck

• 
  The Cleansing Hour

  2016 · ★ 7.2
• 
  Asylum: Twisted Horror and Fantasy Tales

  2020 · ★ 5.9
• 
  A Creature Was Stirring

  2023 · ★ 5.5
• 
  Dark, Deadly & Dreadful

  2018 · ★ 4.9

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

Full-resolution frames — open one to save it as a wallpaper.

Wallpaper Wallpaper Wallpaper Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

• 

  ▶
  The Cleansing Hour - Official Trailer [HD] | A Shudder Original

  Trailer · Official

Community reviews

What people are saying

• Wiccaburr2020-10-08
  ★ 8/10

  What a ride this was. Pretty clever and well paced. This movie gives you what when a secret comes back to haunt in the worst way. The effects are quite good in this as well as the deaths. The things we do to get verified on social media platforms. This felt like some next level exorcism here but yet keep it from being an official one with how this is a hoax show. I mean even demons want some time in the spotlight, right? I can see this paired well with media invoked supernatural event type movies like <I>Grave Encounters, Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum, or The Last Exorcism</I>.

  Read full review ↓
• Tomas Tom2021-01-31
  ★ 6/10

  I'm very disappointed with the film. The film takes place in only one place, and with time, the film becomes more and more crap, but on the other hand, I have to highlight the film effects of those there were many. Unfortunately, the plot and story of the film were a bit like a parody of horror, and the end of the film only confirmed it. There is a lot of disappointment from the high expectations of this film, but at least I didn't get bored as with other horror movies and sometimes I laughed, because certain passages of the film were more ridiculous, mainly because you were amazed at what screenwriters can do for bullshit. It's just a shame that with a movie that could have been good it has become more of a farce.

  Read full review ↓

Production companies

Who made it

• 

  Skubalon

  US

Key crew

• EditorDamien LeVeck

Themes & keywords

What it's about, really

• exorcism
• demon
• demonic possession
• found footage
• hoax
• social media
• screenlife
• livestream
• found footage adjacent

Release history · US

When it landed

• Premiere2019-09-19NR· Fantastic Fest

Also known as

International titles

• Година очищенняUA
• Exorzismus 2.0DE
• Hodina očištěníCZ
• A Hora do ExorcismoBR
• Час дьявола [The Cleansing Hour (2019)]RU
• Час очищенияRU