Demonic review: Better than most of of your Direct-To-Video horror films.
Demonic review
Director: Will Canon
Cast: Dustin Milligan, Frank Grillo, Maria Bello, Scott Mechlowicz, Aaron Yoo, Cody Horn
Certificate: 15
Running Time: 83 minutes
Synopsis: A pair of detectives try to find a missing person after a group of college students go ghost hunting.
James Wan brought us Saw and Insidious. Now with his producer hat on he brings into life Demonic. Originally pegged as James Wan’s Demonic, somewhere along the line his name was dropped from the proceedings. The tale follows John (Dustin Milligan) the sole survivor to a vicious massacre in a house with a history.
The cast is interesting, featuring several old hats at this type of film, however anyone other than Milligan, Grillo or Bello is barely given the time of day. So much so that there are at least three, if not four, cast members that could easily be culled, they really wouldn’t be missed.
Frank Grillo takes time out from his work with Marvel to play the hero of the piece, Detective Mark Lewis. Lewis is a small time detective who finds himself dealing with the fallout of a catastrophic event. He’s joined by Maria Bello as a therapist tasked with getting to the bottom of things; that all hinges on the information they can extract from John.
Demonic review
Dustin Milligan shows great range as the viewer gets to experience several versions of John. You see, the story isn’t a linear one. Jumping back and forth in the timeline we get to meet John before the murder of his friends, back when they’re all cocky and naive. We then jump into the the main narrative as the friends explore the house and of course perform a seance, that’s exactly what you’d do in a house that had a spate of murders connected to a seance right? The most interesting side of John however, comes in the aftermath of events as he tries to string together exactly what he has experienced. As admirable as Milligan is, he is deserving of much better to sink his teeth into.
The story has been done way too many times before, and anyone familiar with the genre will know exactly how events will end before they’ve even truly begun. The direction is a little lacklustre also, with all the usual tropes and scares bundled into the predictable formula.
Better than a lot of straight-to-DVD horror’s, Demonic might have benefited from taking a little longer time to cook. Despite great production values and interesting characters it unfortunately doesn’t quite live up to expectations.
Demonic review, Kat Hughes, August 2015.
Demonic holds it UK premiere at Frightfest on Friday from 6:30pm and is released on Blu Ray and DVD on 7th September.
