I was expecting a "so bad its good" movie .. kind of like an amateur-ish attempt at horror with bad effects, poor acting and run-of-the-mill story. What i got was a movie that both confirmed the bias/expectation and also exceeded it.

The acting is below average .. there is little to no subtlety. It is a ride of extreme emotions and a bit of over-acting. There are non-essential characters that .. sadly are also treated as such (red shirts) - a stereotype that could have been averted without harming the plot.

There is good .. what i think .. practical effects. and absolutely TERRIBLE!!! CGI that looks like it comes straight from the Playstation 2 (and i really mean it). This is especially sad because some of the practical effects are really, really well done. Had the director (or whoever decides that stuff) decided to use the lights/darkness .. and use practical effects (in that case silhouettes rather than to show everything..) it would have improved the movie significantly.

There is good pacing .. in what is otherwise a predictable and simple story.

The conclusion .. is a bit surprising - for the movie does not follow the usual tropes for an ending of that sort of movie.

All in all, this movie is well worth watching

This could have been an interesting story about an internet Exorcist who has to confront a real demon. Instead this movie is so poorly directed, edited and put together that you won't care about any of it. The acting is bottom of the barrel and so many lines are mumbled or spoken so quickly I had no idea what they were babbling about. There is nothing suspenseful or frightening in the least. It's poorly filmed nonsense. The most interesting thing in the movie is the excuses they come up with to get Ryan Guzman out of his clothes. Yes this is a horror movie where the only fascinating thing on display is Ryan's derriere. 2 stars for side-butt.

I expected very little, and while it possesses not only people but also faults and cliches, "The Cleansing Hour" (a.k.a. "The Devil's Hour") is a fairly entertaining and technically effortful exorcism horror romp.

The filmmakers here take up the good old possession horror shtick, with stereotypes and all & puts in our modern millenial all-internet world. A live-stream show about exorcisms, secretly a hoax, gets visited by an actual demon and the many confrontations can start. The story has layers, backstories, twists, but the problem with all that is that it all (including the characters) resembles seen and expierenced horror trappings, cliches & has a pretty high predictability factor. Too much familiarity. In the end, "The Cleansing Hour" proves to be less original (in almost all aspects of filmmaking) than it might appear in the beginning. However, I wish to compliment them on the visuals - the camera work is dynamic and interesting enough, there's enough gore and various enjoyable fx, both practical and cgi, none of which stand out as bad or effortless. The movie has its action side, without which it'd be even lamer. As for the acting, I thought it's quite okay, assuring enough, on the background of many other imperfections.

If I was you I would be weary of all the high ratings (and also the extremely low ones), "The Cleansing Hour" is sort of unique on the surface, but after spending the 90 minutes closely together with it, I can surely say that it's nothing much more than another mainstream take on the exorcism horror subgenre, just visually well enough done to appeal to the masses. My rating: 5/10.