In short: Demonic (2021)

Warning: there will be spoilers!

Neill Blomkamp’s pandemic-shot variation on the demonic possession flick about a woman (Carly Pope) having to confront the traumatic past about her mother’s big murder spree a couple of decades ago is a weird one. It’s full of potentially cool (and silly) plot elements like a very cheap looking mind-meld machine that lets Blomkamp use some new-fangled not-rotoscope technique for no visible artistic needs or gains, or the completely incompetent Vatican tactical exorcism squad that hides under the guise of a small town experimental medical company (or something). These things are somehow supposed to live in the same world as a serious treatment of family trauma, which again is supposed to co-exist with characters who tend to either speak in vague insinuations or awkward exposition.

The film’s plotting is a complete mess. Characters have a fifty/fifty chance of either acting completely rational for horror movie characters (like calling the police on encountering the house of a friend empty, dark and with the front door wide open) or absurdly stupid (like quickly agreeing to an experimental mind-meld procedure with one’s clinically insane mother by an incredibly sketchy company, without even telling anyone of one’s idiot decision); important plot elements are introduced at weird and awkward moments, or just introduced in a throw-away line ten minutes before they are needed. You’d think the Holy Lance kept by the Vatican for a thousand years would be a bit of a bigger thing, for example. But then, you’d also think our heroine’s changing view on her mother mind be a central point of the movie, building an actual character arc instead of getting pulled out for a scene or two for some bullshit reason only Blomkamp himself understands (perhaps). Why, one might even think that’s an element useful for a proper, dramatic ending that connects disparate elements of the plot, instead of using a Holy Lance ex machina.

On the positive side, this is certainly not as boring as its absurdly generic title. Watching Demonic, I had the impression of witnessing a fistfight between about three to five different movies of very different tones neither of them ever seems to win, Blomkamp’s script crying out for quite a bit of editing work by a professional, someone who’d provide some actual structure and form to the film’s bunch of cool and stupid ideas, and/or someone able to coherently identify and present the film’s emotional core. Our director/writer/producer obviously lacks these abilities.