Neill Blomkamp’s Demonic wasted not one, but two most promising conceits teased by the movie’s promotional material, turning a potentially fascinating premise into a disappointing and over-familiar finished film. Blomkamp’s debut feature District 9 was a breath of fresh air in 2009, and the sci-fi satire immediately made the director a name to watch. Unfortunately, a mixed bag of follow-up movies has dulled Blomkamp’s reputation, and this has only been worsened by the failure of his recent sci-fi horror mashup Demonic.

Filmed in secrecy during the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020, Demonic’s story follows a young woman, Carly, whose troubled mother is institutionalized after a killing spree. When a shady company offers Carly the opportunity to speak to her mother via dream-invading technology, the stage is seemingly set for a killer combination of horror and sci-fi. Unfortunately, Demonic disappointed critics with its rote plot and tired scares, a letdown made all the worse by its intriguing ideas.

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In its early trailers, Demonic promised both a visually stunning realization of the disturbed dreamworld conjured up inside the mind of Carly’s unhinged mother and the surreal sight of heavily armed SWAT-style exorcists. Demonic did reveal that the corporation behind its mind-entering technology was a secret Catholic sect of priests tracking demonic possessions, but no sooner was this revealed than the entire Black Ops exorcist team were found dead before ever being seen in action. Blomkamp’s Demonic wasted this intriguing concept; promising the sight of armed exorcists only to kill them off-screen almost immediately was a misstep, with the most interesting characters of the movie being unceremoniously offed before uttering a word. Not only that, but Demonic also failed to realize the potential of its dream exploration plotline.

From David Lynch to Wes Craven, the world of dreams has always been fertile ground for horror filmmakers. One of the big hooks that Demonic sold itself on, and the element that set the movie apart from so many other lockdown productions, was that the movie used CGI backgrounds to hide social distancing and realize the trippy world of nightmares at the same time. It’s an ingenious conceit and one that is never properly fleshed out or made exciting in Demonic, which barely distinguishes its waking world settings from the murky dream world. For the most part, Demonic's ending plays out as a standard demon possession story, eschewing Nightmare On Elm Street-style fantastical visuals in favor of a basic villain.

Neither an armed man of god nor the literalization of mental spaces is a new concept in the world of cinematic horror. 2000’s psychological horror/police procedural The Cell, for instance, got creative with its dream concept, with Tarsem Singh’s unforgettable effort featuring some truly inventive and jaw-droppingly grotesque realizations of the disturbed antagonist’s internal world. The underrated Dolph Lundgren effort The Minion, meanwhile, saw the actor play a tough-guy exorcist ready to tackle any demons with force and firepower. However, Demonic failed to breathe new life into either of these compelling premises, all but guaranteeing there will be no Demonic 2 to remedy this thanks to the movie’s weak critical reception.

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