Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Redemption.

It opens with a title card stating that the story is “inspired by true events”, The Redemption chronicles the plight of the Jackson family from Pittsburgh, who struggle with a demonic possession that threatens to destroy them from within.

Directed by Lee Daniels (Wonderful, The Butler) from a screenplay he co-wrote with Elijah Bynum (Dreams Magazine) and David Coggeshall (Be: First Death), the new religiously inspired horror film, which had a limited theatrical release on August 16 and didn’t hit Netflix until August 30, is a dramatization of the alleged ghost hunt of the Ammons family that took place in Gary, Indiana, in 2011.

The film stars Andra Day as Ebony Jackson, a fictionalized version of Latoya Ammons, a mother of three who began experiencing what she called supernatural occurrences — from infestations of flies to the sounds of footsteps and doors opening at night — after moving herself, her mother (played by Glenn Close) and her children (played by Caleb McLaughlin, Demi Singleton and Andre B. Jenkins) into a rental house in Gary that has since become known as the Demon House of Indiana.

What was the Ammons ghost case?

An investigation into the alleged ghostly apparitions of the Ammons family, published in 2014 by the Indianapolis Star described in detail how Ammons allegedly came to believe that she and her children, then ages 7, 9, and 12, were possessed by demons residing in their newly rented home on Carolina Street in Gary. While Ammons was living with the Star On condition that her children not be interviewed or named, she signed statements allowing the newspaper to review medical, psychological and official documents that were not made public and were described as “not always flattering.”

Ammons claimed the strange occurrences at the Carolina Street home began in December 2011, when the family noticed that, despite the winter temperatures, swarms of black flies were invading their screened-in porch. “This is not normal,” Ammons’ mother, Rosa Campbell, told the Star“We killed them and killed them and killed them, but they kept coming back.”

Things reportedly escalated over the next few months, with Ammons describing increasingly bizarre and dangerous episodes in which the children were said to be levitating, thrown across rooms, and speaking in deep, unnatural voices. The Gary Police Department, Indiana Department of Child Services (DCS), and the local hospital all became involved in the case, with officers, medical staff, and social workers reporting seeing incidents of the nature that Ammons was perpetuating.

Others were skeptical that the problem had paranormal origins. In April 2012, an anonymous complainant filed an official report with DCS asking the agency to investigate Ammons for possible child abuse or neglect. The source said they believed Ammons was suffering from mental health issues and that the children were acting out for their mother and that she encouraged the behavior. Shortly thereafter, DCS took emergency custody of the children without a court order. The agency was then granted temporary custody of Ammons’ children.

After evaluating Ammons’ youngest son, a clinical psychologist concluded that the child’s accounts of possession were “bizarre, fragmented, and illogical” and changed each time he told them. “This appears to be an unfortunate and sad case of a child who has been led into a delusional system perpetuated by his mother,” she wrote. Another psychologist reported similar findings for the two older children.

Finally, in June 2012, the Reverend Michael Maginot, the priest of St. Stephen, Martyr Parish in Merrillville, Indiana, performed three major exorcisms on Ammons at his church and blessed her new home in Indianapolis. After moving into the new home and working to meet the goals of DCS’ case plan for her family, Ammons regained custody of her children in November 2012.

The landlord of the Carolina Street home said there were no problems with the house before or after the Ammonses lived there. However, the home later became the subject of Zak Bagans’ 2018 documentary Demon House and was demolished in 2016 as part of the film’s production. Bagans is best known as the host of the Travel Channel series Ghost adventures.

How The Redemption changes the story

Like most horror films that involve possession and claim to be based on real life events, think of The Incantation And The Exorcism of Emily Rose—The Redemption takes considerable liberties with the facts of the case, especially when it comes to the exorcism or deliverance portion of the story. However, in an interview with the Hollywood ReporterDaniels made it clear that he approached the film as a “thriller about faith.”

“We had never seen this story, through the lens of this African-American woman, on screen, and I just felt like we live in such dark times, and I don’t think people really understand how dark the times are that we live in. And I felt like I needed to reconnect with my higher power,” he said. “I make you afraid of Jesus—of me. It can make you afraid of Allah, it can make you afraid of Buddha, it can make you afraid of whoever you believe in, but it makes you afraid of a belief.”

When asked by the Reporter Whether or not he spoke to Ammons during the making of the film, Daniels said he spoke to her “once or twice” early in the process. “It’s my interpretation of her life story. I didn’t want to meet her on purpose because I was nervous,” he said. “But I spoke to her… And she’s sweet. She was at peace.”

The director went on to elaborate on specific details of the Ammons case that he had adapted. “What I changed a little bit is I made her mother white because I have so many mixed friends and (I wanted to talk about) what it’s like to have a white mother and live in a black girl’s body,” he said. “And the liberation figure was actually a man and not a girl (like Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor’s Rev. Bernice James in the film). But there are so many women who do this work as well who aren’t recognized, so I changed that a little bit. And of course their names and things like that.”

The film also changes the setting and nature of the religious ritual that took place, changing it from an exorcism in a church to a so-called deliverance in the family’s home. What the difference is between the two rituals, Day told the Boston Herald that, in her view, deliverance is “less about simply casting a demon out of someone.”

“It’s more about the whole liberation of the person,” she said. “Not just getting rid of the demon, but actually bringing them into a relationship with God. Or with Christ. It’s a whole transformation.”