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Title: It’s Coming (2024) Director: Shannon Alexander Studio: Early Autumn // Freestyle Digital Media IMDb Plot: A Brooklyn wife and mother who’s been beset by supernatural entities attempts to rid her house of malevolent spirits now afflicting her children. Joe Says: A quietly unnerving documentary that, yes, could have been scarier, but that’s the real howl of it: this is all real.

Shannon Alexander has conjured up a quietly unnerving documentary. It’s Coming is intimate, authentic, and raw. And yes, it could have been scarier, but that’s the real howl of it: this is all real. There are no CGI phantoms, no creaking orchestral strings. Merely a Brooklyn family in crisis, staring down what they believe to be the demonic.

It’s Coming feels like an indie cousin to the found footage horror film Paranormal Activity or even a doting descendant to The Blair Witch Project: shaky cameras, dimly lit corners, whispered anxieties. That cinéma-vérité style has obvious advantages, particularly for fans of true-life horror and real-life haunting docs like The Enfield Poltergeist. The flip side, though, is the question of credibility and the absence of overt scares. Alexander leans into a slow-burn, real-life horror, anchored by the recognizable devotion of a mother trying desperately to protect her children from something she can’t see.

Alexander embraces lo-fi textures that feel tailor-made for the YouTube generation. Handheld shots hard cut into iPhone video and laptop camera angles. This is a style millions of viewers are accustomed to and Alexander makes perfect use of these tools. The mother at the center of this strange vortex is Ashley Rowland, a wife and mother of five living in her husband’s family’s Brooklyn apartment. Over the years, she’s reported uncanny activity: slamming doors, whispers in the dark, fleeting shadows. But when her children begin experiencing similar visions, especially her young son Javier, who has befriended a spirit he calls “Kitty”, the ordinary fear of bad dreams starts to take on something almost Biblical. Ashley’s saintly patience turns to desperation, and she reaches out to a medium (Soledad Haren) and, more dramatically, to a husband-and-wife team of exorcists (Chris and Harmony DeFlorio).

It’s Coming feels more like a family drama dealing with a much-more grounded issue, like home invasion or noisy neighbors. Alexander focuses much of the camera’s attention on Ashley and her kids eating pizza, playing games, laughing… only to be interrupted—and often momentarily—by the uncanny. Little Selena Vega is scratched by an unseen hand. Javier sketches a faceless shadowy figure that could have stepped straight out of The Conjuring. Alexander punctuates these domestic rhythms with small, unnerving ruptures, just enough to keep unease gnawing at the edges.

The spiritual interventions range from the gentle (both Soledad’s patient reassurances and her aromatherapy) to the theatrical: the DeFlorios showers of holy water and a crucifix the size of a broadsword, all compelling with the power of Christ. This is The Exorcist by way of a Brooklyn walk-up: less pea soup and spinning heads, more whispered prayers and Amazon-purchased Ghostbuster gear.

If anything, It’s Coming could have benefited from a few more jolts—some constructed set pieces or even slight fabrication, anything to ratchet up both tension and nerves. As it stands, the supernatural activity is sparse; the tools of proof unconvincing. Ashley and her children are compelling subjects, and their distress feels real. The documentary tells a complete story but the creeps are merely PG ghost stories. It’s Coming is less about cheap shocks and more about the enduring dread of a mother who fears she cannot shield her family—not from burglars or bad neighborhoods, but from something darker, something unholy, creeping in through the cracks.

Maybe it’s time for James Wan to take note of Shannon Alexander.