Neill Blomkamp is best known for his work within the science-fiction world. His debut feature District 9 took the world by storm, even managing to get a Best Picture nomination. Blomkamp followed it up with Elysium and Chappie, and whilst neither fully captured the imagination of audiences in quite the same way, they further proved him to be a very talented filmmaker. In his latest film, Demonic, Blomkamp moves away from science-fiction as he changes focus and tackles the horror genre. Filmed in secret during the pandemic, Demonic stars Carly Pope as a young woman, handily also named Carly, who unleashes a terrifying demon as she enters the mind of her comatose serial killer mother.
Although venturing into a new genre, Blomkamp does keep the safety net of science-fiction to hand. The form of the machine that Carly uses to access her mother’s subconscious, as well as the set-up of the Therapo building and experiment itself, is all heavily coded as sci-fi. The digital representation of the comatose landscape into which Carly is transmitted is also straight out of several works of science-fiction. Once in this place though, Blomkamp begins to push the horror elements to the forefront and events start to get weird and eerie. With the introduction of our malevolent being, the film firmly shifts into a recognisable tale of potential demonic possession and Blomkamp demonstrates a keen talent for getting under your skin.
Visually, Blomkamp tells the story of Demonic through three distinctly different worlds. The real world setting is kept completely natural, at least initially, the digital plain has a disarming otherness to it, and the world of the bad dreams that plague Carly are dark and deeply disturbing. As the narrative interchanges between these settings, it’s very helpful that each is easily identifiable, making the film that much easier to follow. Blomkamp has always been fantastic at dreaming up interesting non-human characters, and the work here on the demon that is tormenting Carly and her mother is adequately nightmarish – part bird, part something other, the creature makes a striking visage.
Stories of possession, good versus evil, and innocent versus evil, almost always have to include religion in some guise. In Demonic, Blomkamp packs in plenty of religious iconography, from bodies strung up in varying stages of the crucifixion pose, to a less than conventional set of priests. Somehow Blomkamp has created a very unique and quite literal take on the soldier of God, adding some playful and fun concepts in place of the righteous church that usually features.
Canadian actor Carly Pope is a classic example of an underused talent. Having first come to fame playing the character of Sam in teen drama Popular, Pope has popped up in several high-profile television shows over the years, as well as Blomkamp’s 2013 movie Elysium. The filmmaker clearly recognises talent when he sees it, having cast Pope in many of his short films. Here he places her in the thick of events, granting Pope the opportunity to show her ability to inhabit every facet of the character. Her on-screen Carly is a troubled and damaged young woman desperately trying to cling onto normality when her difficult past comes looking for her. Pope conveys so much of Carly’s plight in a simple look that the audience can’t help but be drawn into the character and the circumstances she finds herself in. With Demonic having been made adhering to strict Covid-19 protocols, Pope spends most of the film either alone or apart from others, and yet through her performance, one would never know that the reasons for this isolation were external forces rather than integral to the plot.
The pacing of Demonic’s story is pretty slow, it plods along in a sedentary fashion. It’s unclear quite why Demonic takes so long to arrive at its final destination, and as pretty as the film looks, and as great a performance as Pope gives, in places it becomes a struggle to remain focussed. We know that the project was rushed through by Blomkamp, with him mashing two earlier ideas so that he could create something to keep himself occupied during the long lockdowns. With such a short turnaround from script to screen, imperfections like this were bound to arise. Whilst this doesn’t affect the overall enjoyment of the film as a whole, it does leave it incapable of ascending to the heady heights of some of Blomkamp’s previous works of fiction.
Signature Entertainment presents Demonic at UK Cinemas and on Premium Digital 27th August.
Demonic
Summary
A new direction for a filmmaker more comfortable in the sci-fi arena, Demonic remains an impressive attempt to inject the demonic possession / broken family trope with some new ideas. This is a film that surreptitiously works its way under your skin whilst confronting you with a very nightmarish new foe.
