November 6, 2024

DEMONIC (2021) – Unremarkable effort in horror by District 9 director

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Rating: ⭐ 1/2

The main thing going for this movie is its Director Neill Blomkamp from South Africa. Neill has earned some level of respect in the industry having directed and written some impressive films such as District 9 (2009), Elysium (2013) and Chappie (2015). Demonic sadly displays none of his visionary style and ends up looking and feeling like a low budget and bewildering attempt at horror.

Apart from its uninspiring directing, Demonic has also several other factors working against it. First and foremost, is in its storyline which involves a reconnection between a damaged mother and daughter relationship that somehow triggers a demonic power to reemerge. The involvement of a technology that allowed someone to enter the minds and dreams of another person is ridiculous and served only to be used as a plot device. Even more ridiculous was the eventual reveal and twist as to the who and why’s of what was happening to the woman. I feel that at least for me, I failed to be sold on the whole premise even though we normally would leave logic behind in most horror movies.

Then there was the appalling design and make up of the so called demon which looked more like a silly Halloween monster costume. All the time this was shown in darkness and flashes making it even less scary.

The only thing remotely interesting about the movie was in the beginning which introduced us to our main character Carly (played by Carly Pope). Her disturbing nightmares and how she was asked to be part of an experiment to enter the mind of her comatose mother. When things become “clearer” they also revealed the silliness of the whole premise and illogical motivations of the protagonists against the demonic power that was residing within the mother. That’s when the movie started falling apart for me. I would recommend giving this a miss for horror fans as well as fans of Neill Blomkamp’s works.

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