Demonic

Carly (Carly Pope) is estranged from her mother Angela who was convicted of burning down her care home workplace and killing some 21 people some twenty years ago. She further poisoned another five. Carly is haunted by nightmares of Angela. She has also been estranged from longtime friend Martin after those events and then he contacts her with news about her mother.

When this popped up, I didn't realize that it's a new Neill Blomkamp film. I figured it to be another low budget inconsequential B-horror movie. The initial assumption is not far from the reality. The premise is similar to Jennifer Lopez in The Cell except its visuals are nowhere near as imaginative nor compelling. This story needs something much more basic than that. It needs a ticking clock and stakes and motivation for Carly. If an evil corporation is going to all that trouble, it should do something much more coercive to bring her into the experiment. It has non of that. She just agrees to join this weird experience for no apparent reason. At least give her a beat and a nightmare in between the asking and the doing. She could do the procedure to confront her nightmarish visions and her mother. There is a clear deterioration in Blomkamp's writing and his visual style has stalled at best. There are basic concepts of motivation and characterization that are missing.

Nah...couldn't have been...this was low budge messiness...rushed ideas, no vision and some silly dialogue....or better yet what I like to call "nothing talk"...it's almost as if he was contracted to make a movie to pay back the studio ??

I like Neil's films and unique takes on existing genres. However this movie was much more bland then the trailers make you believe. Literally every cool idea and scene was shown in the trailer. Wanna see how black-op military priests sent by the vatican combat demons...... yeah that never happens. Could have been cool, but nah, no budget for that! Of the 3 V. R. scenes there was only one interesting moment when they kinda reveal the demon. This movie had lots of promise but went nowhere with it, was not scary enough to be called horror, and inspite of its one or two unique ideas, it did not push them far enough.

Beneath the glossy surface of unique visual ambition and a slew of intriguing, potential-filled ideas and concepts, this is unfortunately just 100 minutes of more of the same nonsensical writing, weak characters, and unbearably stupid dialogue and clichés that have plagued the horror genre for decades.

How is this the same filmmaker behind District 9?

You'll know it's bad when they enter a VR world in someone's mind. Monster wasn't very scary. Poor Neil, guy needs a hit and this ain't it.