Demonic (2015)
Yasmin Kleinbart
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Starring Maria Bello, Frank Grillo, Cody Horn
Directed by Will Canon
Known as the John Carpenter of our generation, James Wan has been responsible for a very diverse set of projects. From The Conjuring to Furious 7, everything he touches seems to turn to gold (or at least a huge box office hit). The stories that he illustrates are usually rich and vivid with everyone getting scared at every turn or crying hysterically over the loss of a character. Even when he’s not in the director’s chair, his influence shows throughout.
Such is the case in Demonic, a film that I didn’t even know existed until I happened upon it on Brazilian DVD of all things during one of my searches for flicks I haven’t seen yet. The film, known as A Casa Dos Mortos in Brazil, was produced by Wan and directed by Will Canon. I have no idea why this hasn’t made it Stateside yet, as it has all of the ingredients for a cliche horror film that Hollywood loves shoving down our throats: annoying characters, an interesting story that never gets fully developed, and a twist that provides more head scratching than awe.
Demonic starts out with newspaper headlines recalling a past murder: Martha Livingston suddenly went crazy and murdered all of her friends after attempting to perform a seance. Years later, Detective Mark Lewis (Grillo) gets a call about yet another bloody mess at the same crime scene. When he gets there, he sees three college students brutally murdered and eventually comes across John (Dustin Milligan), the only person alive after this horrible crime. After he gets cleaned up, the crime psychologist, Doctor Elizabeth Klein (Bello), tries to get inside of his head to find out what happened.
The storytelling is one of the most interesting aspects of the film. Canon overlays what happened leading up to the murders with the present. It was very interesting and fun to see the found footage mixing into a regular footage narrative. It was more fun to be able to piece together the film while being spoon-fed the information. We see that John’s girlfriend, Jules (Megan Park), wants to take a few of her friends into the Livingston house to try to communicate with the dead spirits that reside inside, and it just so happens that John’s mother was the only person to escape from the house while Martha was going on her murderous rampage.
But it isn’t complete without a little drama on the side. Of course, Jules’ ex boyfriend, Bryan (Scott Mechlowiz), has to come with as well, creating a rivalry straight out of a Lifetime Original. For the rest of the film, it goes back and forth between the present and the past and gives us a true definition for the term “unreliable narrator.”
Horror films are usually known for their extremely two-dimensional characters with nothing to them except a banging body and a stupid personality. The audience is in it for the scares; what do they care about characters that are most likely going to die? Unfortunately, this is very much the case in Demonic as well. Sure, this film was low budget, but did they have to act like they’re still in film school? The dialogue was cheesy, especially the childish banter between John and Bryan. There wasn’t even any chemistry between Jules and John; If anything, it felt like they were brother and sister and Bryan is the ugly middle child trying to get more attention from Mommy and Daddy. Every character was forgettable, with the film crew in the flashbacks standing out for having no standout qualities. When the detectives were viewing footage of them meeting their untimely deaths, I couldn’t even remember their names or I kept mistaking them for another character. Even the detective and psychologist acted like they were auditioning for “CSI.”
And while the overall acting and corny dialogue were pretty scary, the actual film lacked in that aspect. This story didn’t exactly scream originality, but it had some potential to make some sort of discomfort. But, unfortunately, just seeing a demonic circle and a moving chair here is not enough to constitute a horror film. In fact, it just made the film slow and boring.
And all of the overlay between the past and present ties itself together into an ending that I couldn’t figure out if I liked or not. It’s obvious that the writers were focusing on the twist ending as their big shebang. But instead of wowing me and making me worship this film over and over again, I’m just left scratching my head wondering what the fuck just happened. I do admit that it came out of left field, but there were more questions and plot holes left unanswered. I just didn’t feel satisfied enough by the end.
Even though the title begins with “James Wan Presents,” be sure to remind yourself that he didn’t direct this film. Even though his influences are present throughout, it feels like the director didn’t do enough with them. Wan is famous for providing vivid back stories in his films, and I felt that the lack of one in Demonic really hurt it. If he had directed it, then it might have been good. It was like Guillermo Del Toro’s situation with Mama; it was an okay film throughout, but if Del Toro had actually directed it, it would have been better.
But I don’t want to completely dismiss Canon’s work altogether. Demonic may not have had much story-wise, but it’s still fun to watch on a random Saturday if Netflix got rid of all of the better choices.
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Film
Categorized:Reviews
