Review: Demonicus (2001)

2 out of 5 stars

Jay Woelfel's Demonicus is a Full Moon-as-shot-on-video steaming pile. The plot is moronic, and the acting is so bad I cringed. Repeatedly.

The saving grace of the production is not the dull pacing, nor the pitiful cave set, nor the dull bad guy, nor the one-dimensional victims; rather, it's the mountains. I gather the film was shot somewhere around Big Bear out there in Cullyfornia (Ah-nold country), and the scenery is really majestic and well shot.

The plot is the possession of a college kid by a long-buried gladiator's spirit who then goes out hunting his friends in the mountains so he can make a body-part stew, hum a few lines of latin, and resurrect the gladiator himself. A few of the kills are fun and ugly, but most of it is typical Full Moonish dullness. The shots are held too long exposing the gore as really fake. (sidenote: when is Band and his editors ever going to realize that fewer frames means less of a low-budgetness look to their gore and mayhem?)

I'm not going to spend all day on this one, racking my brain for something nice to say like I did for my Witchouse review and a few others. I'm just gonna sit here for a few moments and think about the $2.50 I wasted renting this dreck...

Other reviews: MicrocinemaScene, The Smartmarks, Badmovieplanet.