Sunday Bloody Sunday Matinee: Demons [Film]

Welcome to Day 1 of Trainwreck’d Society’s Month of Horror Showcase. Every day during the month of October, we will have a horror related interview and/or film review for your fright-filled reading pleasure! The set up will be the same as usual, but the topics will be far more terrifying. Enjoy!

“Eight years ago, Father Colin Hampstead oversaw an aborted exorcism that resulted in the gruesome death of seventeen-year-old Jewel Grant, in rural Louisiana. The deceased girl’s older sister, Kayleigh, grew immediately attached to Hampstead and sought him out, at first for grief counseling and then, for much more.
Eight years later, Hampstead has left the priesthood and become a celebrated fiction writer, specializing in stories about the occult, and he and Kayleigh, now his wife, have a beautiful daughter and run a well-known bed and breakfast in Savannah, GA. When the couple agrees to host a wedding for one of Colin’s college friends, what begins as a Big Chill-type reunion turns into something much more macabre, as the seemingly omnipresent  ghost of her dead sister Jewel compels Kayleigh to engage in bizarre, destructive behaviors that endanger the lives of both her friends and herself.” – October Coast PR

I will be the first to admit that I went into Demons with the thought that I was simply going to be viewing yet another depiction of the same sort of thing we have all seen many times before. Exorcism and the world of horror go together like Nutella and bananas. It is a common theme. But seldom do the creators behind such a project manage to come up with some truly unique and/or original. That is one reason I was pleasantly surprised that this film came through with just that. Demons is not just a film about war waged with Satan inside of a human’s body. Sure there are actual demons involved in the film and show up regularly, but there is also the struggle of the more proverbial and non-physical demons. The demons of the past can be some of the most struggle filled demons of all, and this film provides a brilliant take on uncovering and unearthing both types of demons. It is a power struggle between not just Satan, but an understanding of what traumatic events that have occurred in the character’s past. Seriously folks, if you have been skipping out on “exorcism” movies over the years due to lack of originality, I honestly cannot stress just how different Demons truly is, and in a very positive way.

One of the most compelling aspects of Demons, beyond Miles Doleac’s wonderful storytelling and tantalizing visuals, was just how wonderfully casted this film was! I will be the first to admit that beyond the occasional appearance of Gary Grubbs, I wasn’t all too familiar with most of the cast. But I will be damned if I didn’t end of becoming a great fan of some pretty amazing performers. While every performance was brilliant in its own right, a huge shout out has to go to Kristina Emerson and especially to Lindsay Anne Williams, both of which absolutely crushed in their respected roles, and the latter being one of the finest performances in a suspense film that I have seen in a whole lot of years. As many regular horror viewers know, a truly great story is important in this genre. But without the right people to help visualize the tale, sometimes it just won’t work. But with a cast as good as this one, it was simply destined to achieve greatness.

Demons will be select theaters and VOD on October 6th.

Check out this trailer from the Bloody Disgusting YouTube Page: