FRIGHTFEST 2021: Demonic
FRIGHTFESTIf Neill Blomkamp's Demonic is anything to go by, it is that the once rising star, former protege of director Peter Jackson, and the creative behind District 9 and Elysium director is no more. The once bubbling and socially conscious director from South Africa who brought social and political allegory to a range of science fiction features now returns behind the camera with his first feature film since 2016's Chappie with the, quite frankly, horrendous Demonic.
Before watching Demonic, the question is not what but why Neill Blomkamp was encapsulated in the so-called directors' hell after the poorly received but well-crafted Chappie; it is clear that after a string of independent efforts, Blomkamp's only way forward was to ensure he worked within the limits of what the studios were willing to risk, so came the era of trying to reboot and remake everything in sight. First, it was Robocop, and then it was Alien 5 – all slowly but surely turning into dust. Now the topic has turned into making District 10, a film that perfectly epitomises the current issue the director faces: going from the original into the recycled.
Nevertheless, before the next attempt on District 10, Blomkamp returns with the independently produced Demonic. It is a feature made in total secrecy, during the COVID epidemic, and acts as the first film without editor Trent Opaloch and actor Sharlto Copley. The results are sadly nothing short of disastrous. In a state of nomadland, career-wise, Blomkamp has made the on-the-surface correct decision to go back to the creative well of independent and lower budget material. Of course, this makes perfect sense to retain creative control on the story and the financial aspect of production in the hope of proving to those that there are still more creative shapes to draw.
Sadly, Demonic proves ineffective on all the probable positives. But it does need to be somewhat commended on its ambition. This horror feature wants to combine the genres science fiction and horror into one. To the film’s credit, Blomkamp tries his damnedest to craft effective cohesion and with stylish intent. The problem is that both elements of the genres are hollow, uninteresting, and undeniably ineffective. The science-fiction elements are poorly exercised and do little to craft a more extensive world here, more so implemented for aesthetic and narrative beats rather than fully-fledged integral plot points that mean something to the audience. At best, they feel like underwhelming jargon with little depth. Equally as frustrating in the use of this science-fiction vernacular is that this is where the special effects take complete precedent, and to say they underwhelm would be an understatement. Said inclusion is progressively under par and craft abysmal standards for both world-building and immersion.
The horror genre, on the whole, is inadequately crafted throughout. The main draw of this feature is to thrill and scare, and Blomkamp's film does the most to underwhelm in this department. Not during one second of this features running time does Demonic entertain or succeed in its ability to thrill or scare; for a whole one hundred and four minutes, Demonic fails to instigate anything remotely close to being effective. The feature’s iconography is constantly poorly crafted to elicit a response from its audience, but the lack of skill on offer to create something on a shoestring budget is evidently apparent and completely undermines Blomkamp’s motif to go back into the independent market to showcase his ability. With Demonic, nothing is on show to offer possible creative investors the opportunity to work with an inventive creator.
Even the performances are lacking and uninspiring. A whole host of underground actors and actresses should offer a substantial amount of freshness to proceedings and bleed into the genre's nature in palpable immersion. Nonetheless, no character is interested in being explored for the feature to create immersion and the bane interest from the audience. Carly Pope has the most screen-time and, therefore, depth allocated to such a performance. A life lived is only ever showcased in flashbacks and exposition and never fortifies a real character that lives and breathes. Yet, with the underwhelming and poor material given forward in the script Pope and co drown in trying to elevate this feature from the mundane to any soaring heights, it would hope. Again, that would rest on Blomkamp’s shoulders with the director also writing this spectacle, and with nowhere to hide, the limitations and faults all rest on his shoulders.
Demonic is more than a disappointment. It is a disaster. This is Neill Blomkamp, a director who was going to make an Alien sequel a year ago but has just released a feature that nobody knows is out and will probably never be given a chance to see. It is hard to see where the director heads next, but if Demonic is indeed anything to go by, it offers little hope of ever seeing Blomkamp reach the heights everyone expected of him. A sad state of affairs indeed.
