DEMONIC (2015)

Studio:       Lionsgate
Director:    Will Canon
Writer:       Max La Bella, Will Canon, Doug Simon
Producer:  James Wan, Lee Clay
Stars:     Frank Grillo, Dustin Milligan, Cody Horn, Scott Mechlowicz, Megan Park, Aaron Yoo, Alex Goode, Maria Bello

Review Score:

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Summary:

Paranormal researchers awaken a demon when they investigate a house haunted by gruesome occult murders.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Detective Mark Lewis is called to the notorious Livingston house, where Martha Livingston killed four people before hanging herself as part of an occult ritual in 1988, by property caretaker Leonard Aberknacky. Lewis discovers three brutally butchered bodies and one survivor, John Mitchell.

Police begin processing the crime scene. To help find two missing people and determine what happened, Lewis calls in his psychologist girlfriend Dr. Elizabeth Klein to interview John.

One Week Earlier – As part of a paranormal research project, Sam Chapman and his sister Michelle interview John, who is Michelle’s boyfriend. John discusses how he is haunted by recurring visions of his deceased mother Sara Mathews, who was the sole survivor of the Martha Livingston murders.

John is upset to discover that Bryan Purcell, Michelle’s rude ex-boyfriend, is part of the research project. However, Sam convinces John that they can give his visions closure if he participates in a séance at the Livingston house.

John, Michelle, Bryan, Sam, Jules Carter, and Donnie Smith break into the Livingston house to set up their cameras and equipment. Over the course of the evening, various instances of paranormal activity plague everyone.

A music box ballerina moving on its own points John toward a rug. The group pulls up the rug to reveal a circular occult symbol carved into the wooden floor underneath. A certain bird, identified earlier as a communication vessel with the underworld, flies into the room and dies on the seal.

Paranormal activity continues, including the spontaneous combustion of a Livingston family painting. Jules is briefly pulled down the hallway by a supernatural force.

John and Michelle decide to leave. Bryan and Jules insist that everyone see their project through to the end. Bryan compels John to stay by revealing he knows that John is Sara Mathews’ son, which was a secret John had hidden from Michelle.

Jules leads the séance to make contact with the other side. Paranormal activity escalates again. John breaks the circle when he sees a vision of his mother morphing into a demon telling him to let go. In the ensuing commotion, Michelle runs away. Bryan seemingly becomes possessed and attacks John.

Back in the present, Dr. Klein continues questioning John, who insists that the house did something to Bryan that caused him to kill Sam, Jules, and Donnie before attacking John and kidnapping Michelle. John eventually reveals that Michelle is pregnant.

Detective Lewis works with forensic officers to recover video footage from the research team’s cameras in order to see what actually happened inside the house. Blood found in a milk chute reveals that Bryan escaped from the house, presumably while chasing Michelle.

A report of a stolen car leads cops to finding Bryan in an overturned vehicle. Bryan kills Officer Reeves before fleeing on foot to a local convenience store, where Bryan also murders the clerk.

Before racing to the store, Lewis tasks Klein with identifying the symbol found in the house. Using Jules’ occult book, Klein discovers that the symbol is the Seal of the Left Hand Path, part of a ritual for releasing an imprisoned demon that requires everyone involved in the summoning to die. Klein calls Lewis with a warning that Bryan is likely delusional from the event, believing himself to be possessed and driven to kill everyone.

The police surround Bryan at the store. Lewis tosses a walkie-talkie inside in order to talk to Bryan.

Back at the house, John hears the police activity with Bryan over the radio. John grabs a walkie and threatens Bryan. Every time Bryan shrieks back over the walkie in response, John goes into convulsions. At Klein’s insistence over saving John, Lewis shoots Bryan dead. It is discovered that Bryan’s tongue was cut out, which was why he could not speak.

Lewis returns to the Livingston house. Clues lead him to find Michelle restrained in a hidden crawlspace. Michelle mumbles “same room” to Lewis before being wheeled away on a gurney.

A cop shows Klein archival interrogation footage of Sara Mathews claiming that Martha Livingston said everyone had to die so that she could go free. The cop then shows Klein newly decrypted video evidence that John committed all of the murders in the house and manipulated events to appear as though Bryan was responsible.

Klein confronts John in the barn outside where he is still being held. Klein tells John the she knows he committed the murders according to the ritual, but failed because everyone didn’t die.

Inside the house, Sara’s clue leads Lewis to discover John’s corpse dangling from having hanged himself.

Back in the barn, demonic John supernaturally chokes Klein. John reveals that Michelle is actually his vessel, as he planned all along to be reborn into her baby. John claims that once Michelle crosses the house’s occult seal, he will be free.

John vanishes. Lewis comes to Klein’s rescue, but dismisses her claim that John was responsible because he saw John’s dead body in the house. Klein rewinds her interview footage with John to find that no one else is present with her on the video.

Michelle is driven away in an ambulance. An EMT conducts a test and tells Michelle that her baby will be fine.

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Review:

One particularly frightening way to curse a horror film is to have Harvey or Bob Weinstein’s name appear in the executive producer credits.  For reasons we will likely never know and will certainly never understand, the duo’s involvement can ring a death knell signaling that the chiller in question is doomed to have a completely confounding rollout, if it even releases at all.

Just ask French filmmakers Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, whose 2011 movie “Livide” (review here) was scooped up by Dimension Films only to be condemned indefinitely to U.S. distribution limbo.  Or try using less than two hands to count the number of times “Amityville: The Awakening” shifted release dates between when it was first announced in 2014 and unceremoniously dumped internationally in 2017.

Take “Demonic” too.  Originally shot in 2013, “Demonic” went straight to DVD in some countries in the summer of 2015.  Then it backpedaled a bit to make a brief festival run in the fall before hitting home video everywhere else overseas.  Meanwhile, the United States confusingly had to wait until 2017, when “Demonic” suddenly appeared on Spike TV in July before arriving almost unannounced on Netflix in August, both of which predate the film’s home video debut in October.  That is about as nonsensical a release plan as any inept distributor can concoct.

It’s not as if Dimension was sitting on a moneymaking masterpiece.  But “Demonic” isn’t any worse a commodity to have on hand than any other milquetoast supernatural thriller catering to mainstream masses, like “The Bye Bye Man” (review here) or “Rings” (review here).  What the “sit on it” strategy gains anyone is a mystery.  What is lost is audience confidence as well as the movie itself, disappearing down a hole of “whatever happened to?” curiosity before being forgotten entirely.

Which is pretty much what happened to “Demonic.”  Even with two notable names in front of the camera (Frank Grillo and Maria Bello) and a big one behind it (horror hitmaker James Wan in a producer role), “Demonic” capitalized on neither its talent nor its timeliness.  The feeble fright flick instead became its own worst enemy in terms of acquiring an audience, although it gets considerable help from a drab script and pedestrian production, both of which are serviceable yet unremarkable.

An occult ritual gone awry resulted in one woman killing herself and four others inside an old Louisiana mansion in 1988.  History is poised to repeat itself 25 years later when six collegiate paranormal researchers venture into the haunted house to recreate the satanic séance.  What could go wrong?

John has been traumatized by recurring visions of his dead mother Sara, the sole survivor of the original slaughter.  Assurances from his girlfriend Michelle claim John can get closure if he accompanies the team on this trip.  Unfortunately, Michelle’s prickly ex-boyfriend Bryan is in charge of the project, making it all the more uncomfortable for John.  But John agrees to participate anyway, so off everyone goes, along with three other people whose names don’t matter (one of these actors is even left out of the title cards) to make ill-advised contact with the other side.

It’s a straightforward premise, yet “Demonic” complicates things by playing out events in parallel timelines.  With the three red shirts already dead when the film starts, Frank Grillo’s detective and Maria Bello’s police psychologist are brought in to investigate the crime scene and interview John in hopes of uncovering what really happened.  John’s ongoing story thus unfolds in present and near-past arcs.

The dead giveaway in presenting two pathways like this is that current events clearly have one hidden card left to play regarding how the previous plotline concludes.  Such a conceit hasn’t been clever since “The Usual Suspects.”  Contemporary viewers are conditioned to see telegraphed twists like this one coming ten miles away.  “Demonic’s” supposed surprise is disappointingly no exception.  Not to mention it makes little sense in retrospect (would anyone like to explain why a certain someone kills a cop and convenience store clerk if s/he isn’t the person initially presumed to be?).

The preceding synopsis also has all the markings of a “found footage” film setup, with “Demonic” actually using the format for several sequences.  Like concurrent plotlines, being noncommittal to any one storytelling technique turns the movie into an unnecessarily messy narrative of disparate styles.

Michael Fimognari, who collaborates frequently with filmmaker Mike Flanagan, is one of the finest cinematographers working in horror today.  Yet Fimognari bafflingly chooses to film “Demonic” in a distracting handheld style, even when not in first-person mode, for an outdated “NYPD Blue” anxiousness not at all in keeping with the tone.

Current timeline versus past timeline.  First-person footage versus traditional filming.  “Demonic” fights a perpetual civil war over how to tell its tale, and none of its approaches fit smoothly with the others.

Scares, such as they are, are of the routinely rote variety, e.g. a wall-mounted cross spinning upside down or flashlights sweeping over creepy dolls while a music box tinkles in the background.  Getting the picture?  “Demonic” isn’t bad so much as it is simply bland and artistically misconceived.

It could be that this review answers my own questions regarding why the Weinsteins left “Demonic” to languish without much of a care for its final fate.  Cocooned in mediocrity from head to toe and back again, there isn’t anything distinguishing “Demonic” from the countless other films it is practically identical to.  Undoubtedly, this is one time that the mighty Mr. Wan forgot to take off his glove before applying his usual Midas touch.

Review Score:  45

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