Item: Demonic
Rating: 5
Author: Lance Vlcek

Last Updated on July 6, 2022

PLOT: Carly has grown up and moved on with her life after the traumatic childhood experience of having her mother go on a murderous rampage. Yet old wounds are re-opened when she learns that her incarcerated mom is the subject of a high-tech experiment, and the company running it wants Carly involved.

LOWDOWN: I enjoy Neill Blomkamp as a filmmaker. I’ve always felt his ambitions are honest, and even though his stories don’t always land, I can appreciate that he never plays it too safe. Today we get his first theatrical movie in six years, Demonic. Also, for the record, I’m down with Chappie and love its tremendous amount of heart. After such a wait, how does his pandemic filmed Exorscisim-Esq horror tale hold up? It’s way more hit or miss than I would have liked, but I suspect I found a bit more enjoyment out of it than the rest of the reviews you’ll end up reading. So like a good Russian vodka, let’s go down quick, smooth, and have some fun in our discussion of Neill Blomkamp’s Demonic. There will be some spoilers ahead, so plan accordingly.

Carly (Carly Pope) has tried to move on from her childhood trauma caused by her mother, Angela (Nathalie Boltt). However, with recurring nightmares still keeping her up at night, it’s more than a coincidence that an old family friend named Martin (Chris William Martin) shows up with new information that takes Carly down a dark and twisted path. Blomkamp is no stranger to futuristic technology to drive his stories. With Demonic, the plot push here is a type of VR-scan technology that can put you alongside the consciousness of another in a virtual world. A nefarious group called Therapol, which does high-tech medical studies on certain incarcerated killers, tries to recruit Martian with the hopes of getting to Carly. But of course, the movie needs to happen, and she gladly volunteers to check this “non-suspicious group experimenting on her mother” out.

With some strong Ghost In The Machine vibes happening, Demonic starts off on the right foot. Though almost foolishly trusting, Carly’s descent into the virtual world via a digital avatar is a wacky and pretty unsettling visual that hooked me in. Angela has been calling her daughter from inside the system, and since Carly wants closure, she obliges. This scene is a strong start with a semi-realistic video game esthetic, yet off enough to get under your skin. You see, Angela hasn’t been the one calling for her daughter. Even though Carly just dropped in to tell dear old ma off, we learn that an ancient demon has been in control of Angela, and it’s this entity that has set the trap and called Carly in. Things are kept vague enough as to what exactly is going on, but Demonic is most effective in the bizarre virtual land where the rules of the natural world are out the window.

The experiment, the futuristic tech, and the two guys running it, Michael (Michael J. Rogers) Daniel (Terry Chen), are the main draw here. Though the trailers made it seem like this virtual world would be more of a prominent feature (we only dive into it a couple of times), I fell in love with its uncanny valley effect and the weird bird-like demon that has inhabited it. Blomkamp knows his way around a story, and his choice of using technology to insert a story about possession is a cool idea and adds a bit of freshness to the sub-genre. For the first act, he succeeds in getting me invested in such a ’90 idea. Like a good whiskey on a cold night, there’s a bit of comfort in the little nods to past movies that have traversed similar roads when it comes to mixing tech with horror.

Carly Pope handles herself well and has the look of horror down pat. Still, Blomkamp is far more interested in Carly’s relationship with her mother than the idea of a demon using technology to possess. I’m sure its purpose is to produce a more heartfelt story, but it just falls flat. The uniqueness that came before gets switched out to a generic haunting tale with one of the goofiest fakeouts I’ve seen in years. Nobody, and I mean nobody, knocks on your door in the middle of the night to hang out. Get your damn gun. Demonic has a strange habit of introducing exciting ideas and then immediately jumping right back into the safe and calculated jump-scare horror like Annabelle, which is fine, but there are more engaging ideas here. I wish Carly Pope could have been given a different arc or character as I think she nails it as an actress but has the unfortunate luck of being part of the least engaging story beat.

By the third act, we get into what Therapol is actually doing ( I won’t spoil it here) with their convict-specific experiments and who Michael and Daniel are. It is both insanely ridiculous and somehow awesome. Terry Chen and Michael J. Rogers give off a far better command of the screen, and that’s because they get the characters that are far more interesting. The reveal of our “scientists” made me wonder why we are dealing with a family drama when Demonic could have been John Carpenter’s Vampires mixed with The Exorcist and The Lawnmower Man. I know it’s an odd complaint, but Blomkamp’s side story should have been the main focus. This introduces a bunch of different story ideas yet solely focuses on the least interesting one. It would have been less dramatic and more action-oriented, but I hope we eventually get a spinoff framed around Therapol.

GORE: Things get somewhat gory at the end with CGI blood spatter and a few decent yet quick kills. Nothing too intense, but I didn’t feel cheated either.

BOTTOM LINE: Demonic swings broadly at first, and even when some ideas are more laughable than intended, I had some dumb fun for the first chunk of the movie. Technology that can connect two consciousnesses is my kind of flick, and one that the ultimate evil can haunt is a road I’d love to go down. But Demonic uses it as a springboard to tell a far more generic story and plays it safe when it should have gone wild. Demonic has some fantastic ideas, like demon possession being behind most of the gruesome mass murders, and if it leaned more into that, I think this would hit a lot harder. It’s not great, but I’ve also sat through a lot worse.

Demonic Hits Theaters and Everywhere You Rent Movies August 20, 2021