Demonic (2017) Movie Review
Written By: FR
Edited By: Grave Reviews Staff
Film Information
Director: Will Canon
Writers: Max La Bella, Will Canon
Producers: Max La Bella, Doug Simon, Will Canon
Date Released: July 27, 2017
Cast:
Maria Bello as Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Frank Grillo as Detective Mark Lewis
Cody Horn as Michelle
Dustin Milligan as John
Megan Park as Jules
Scott Mechlowicz as Bryan
Aaron Yoo as Donnie
Tyson Sullivan as Luke Elton
Rating = 2/5 Graves
***May contain some spoilers***
Synopsis
Demonic (2017) follows the story of Detective Mark Lewis (Frank Grillo) as he investigates a crime scene at the Livingston House. Upon arriving at the estate, Detective Lewis finds three dead bodies and one survivor, John (Dustin Milligan). When John is placed in a room, a psychologist begins to question him about the events that transpired in the house. It is later revealed that the group who traveled into the Livingston House performed a séance in order to summon the owner of the house, but at a deadly cost. The story is told through flashbacks and video footage from the group, which were stored on hard drives.
Gore Factor
The film contains some scenes that are disturbing and frightening. Some of these scenes include visuals of murders and blood scattered throughout the house. In addition, there are scenes which also depict an axe in a girl’s body as well as a boy who hangs himself. Furthermore, there are a few suspenseful scenes, not much on jump scares.
The Grave Review
Demonic (2017) is one of many films that focus on a séance that went wrong. As such, the plot of the film is nothing original. The film executes the plot by using a mix between found footage and traditional cinematography. By using the found footage, the hope was to add a realism element to the story. However, the impact was not as significant as I am sure the producers intended. Nevertheless, Demonic does include some jump scares throughout the film. But they are far from impressionable.
The plot creates two separate but semi-related stories. The first story focuses on the investigation, itself, which is directly about John and why he was strangely the only survivor. The second story has to do with the séance and what the events that occurred with the paranormal investigators. Although, the two stories create a little more depth to the film overall, it was difficult to be engrossed in any one portion of the film.
In respect to the acting performances, each character did as good of a job as they could given the nature of the film. However, the dialogue may have diminished the performances as a whole. In addition, at certain points in the film, the camera work was unstable which most likely was intentional. However, this too may have taken away from the effectiveness of the film as a whole.
Another interesting point is that in one scene, birds start to emerge from the mouths of the characters. It is unclear whether this was a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Overall, Demonic (2017) is entertaining but will quickly be forgotten.
For the foregoing reasons, Grave Reviews give Demonic (2017) two graves out of five graves.
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