It’s pretty fascinating how the careers of Neill Blomkamp and Duncan Jones have sort of mirrored each other to this point. Both burst onto the scene back in 2009 with critically acclaimed directorial debuts (District 9 and Moon respectively) that had people immediately proclaiming them to be the future of the sci-fi genre, and delivered some well-received (even if slightly less so in Elysium’s case) follow-ups afterwards that served to further cement that belief. Things started to go bad following their third films though, which proved divisive and kind of made everyone take a collective step back and say “you know, maybe these guys aren’t quite the revolutionary new talents we thought they were,” although I personally loved each. A train of thought that wasn’t helped by their universally panned fourth efforts… Demonic is essentially Blomkamp’s Mute. Only instead of being a dull, confused Blade Runner wannabe, it’s a dull and confused horror flick. The Chappie creator doesn’t stray too far from his science-fiction roots, however. The whole thing is centered around the concept of being able to jump into the minds of comatose patients Matrix-style with the help of technology. It’s a bit awkward in execution as these sequences are all entirely animated (the director has quite a few prior 3D animation credits on his resume) and look like a filmmaker who has never played a video game’s idea of a video game, but is still one of the merely three in total interesting aspects this movie has going for it regardless. Unfortunately, you’re not going to find much to get excited about here. The terror is practically nonexistent with exception to a brief, late-night house visit from the lovely and surprisingly bendy Kandyse McClure, altogether wasting a fantastic demon design (the second of the three interesting qualities). I’m not sure if it was pulled from actual demonology or not, but this unholy entity is so freaky looking you’ll honestly wish it was featured in something that utilized it more. Instead the majority of the runtime is dedicated to, well, basically nothing outside of unnecessarily drawing out the process of explaining everything, such as the protagonist’s damaged relationship with her possessed mother for example. Elements that might have proven more compelling had anyone onscreen been able to act. Lead actress Carly Pope may be the worst offender as she never provides the necessary appropriate emotional response to any given situation. The proceedings do show the barest hints of a pulse in the last half hour before concluding when the story inexplicably and rather pointlessly asks “what if the Vatican had guns?!” (the third and final interesting thing here) leading to an intriguing amalgam of religious, futuristic, and military imagery, but by then it’s too little, too late. Ultimately, a lot of this can be forgiven due to the low budget and the fact that it was shot during the Covid-19 pandemic, on top of it not being completely painful to sit through. Which is perhaps why the South African/Canadian’s prospects moving forward don’t yet appear to be as dire as that of his aforementioned peer’s. He may be getting ready to helm a pseudo-video game adaptation for the Gran Turismo property, a class of cinema never favored by the critics, but the only thing we’ve received from David Bowie’s son since his last misfire has been a comic book and vague rumors of a Rouge Trooper film that has shown no signs of ever actually having a chance at coming to fruition. Ouch. I digress of course. While there are traces of the imagination and creativity present that make it so I’m not ready to see the last of either man’s work, I sadly can’t recommend watching this lackluster display.