Genre: Sci-Fi/Horror
Premise: A woman is recruited to participate in an experiment where she’s digitally inserted into her comatose mother’s mind. Once inside, she must come to terms with her mom’s homicidal past.
About: Demonic is the latest entry from writer-director Neil Blomkamp, of District 9 fame. Blomkamp, who was once anointed the next great science-fiction director, followed up surprise hit District 9 with two disappointing films, Elysium and Chappie. After becoming momentarily attached to two gigantic 80s properties, Alien and Robocop, he retreated back into his filmmaking cocoon, choosing to make short films. “Demonic” is his first feature film in six years. It is currently at 14% at Rotten Tomatoes.
Writer: Neil Blomkamp
Details: 104 minutes
One of the things I’m fascinated by is artists who create something amazing then never replicate their success again. Because it taps into this fear that I think a lot of artists have, which is: “What if it’s all luck?” You come up with a masterpiece like The Sixth Sense only to then make a dozen terrible movies in a row. Why is it you can’t tap into that reservoir again?
That’s the question that comes up with Blomkamp. But, with Blomkamp, it goes a step further. Because his latest film isn’t just “not as good as District 9.” It’s a legitimately terrible movie. It doesn’t work on any level. So you have to start asking tough questions. Was Blomkamp involved with the screenplay for District 9 at all? Because it doesn’t make sense that the same person who constructed that universe constructed this one.
I know that he had a co-writer on District 9 in Terri Tatchel. And I remember Peter Jackson was shepherding the project, which means he was bringing two decades’ worth of storytelling experience to the table. So maybe it’s as simple as Blomkamp took care of the visuals while everyone else wrote the story. Otherwise, Demonic’s existence doesn’t make sense. It plays like a 23 year old film school student shooting his first movie.
And I’m not talking about just the writing. I’m talking about the acting. Who are these people? You’ve never heard of anybody in this cast. Blomkamp’s career may not be what it was after District 9. But he can get name actors if he wants to. The fact that he’s choosing not to indicates he has at least some propensity for self-sabotage.
30-something Carly, who lives out in the wilderness as far as I can tell (any sense of geography in this movie is non-existent), is contacted by her ex-boyfriend, who informs her that he recently signed up for an experiment at a local medical company only to find out that the company has Carly’s mom there, who’s in a coma and on life support.
Carly heads over there to see what’s up and they explain that her mom fell into a coma and the only way to get in touch with her is by digitally entering her mind. They would love it if Carly could go into her mind to see what she’s thinking. Carly reluctantly agrees and heads into her mother’s brain, which has her waiting for Caarly inside their old house.
It’s here where we learn that Carly’s mom burned an entire building full of people, killing them all, which is why Carly hasn’t seen her in forever. Carly takes this opportunity to tell her mom how much she hates her. Carly’s mom is apologetic, but there’s something else bubbling underneath the surface with her. The company (which amounts to 2 guys) thinks it’s worth sending Carly in for a second visit.
Eventually, we learn that Carly’s mom may be possessed and it was the demon who killed all those people, not the mom. Meanwhile, Carly starts experiencing incidents where she’s out in the real world only to realize she’s actually still in her mother’s, aka the demon’s, mind. The movie’s only scene that approaches halfway decent territory takes place when her best friend transforms into the demon and comes after her.
We eventually learn that the two company men are exorcists, complete with military Vatican gear (I’m not kidding). And they’ve been using Carly to pull the demon out of the mother’s mind so they can kill it. At least I think that’s what they were doing. Carly then runs around the woods a lot until she defeats the demon, I believe. The end.
Blomkamp just did a three hour interview with Joe Rogan which brought up even MORE questions because, when you listen to Blomkamp, you note how smart he is. He’s smarter than me. He’s smarter than anyone in this comment section. He’s smarter than 99% of the people in Hollywood. And yet he made this terrible movie. How can that be?
This got me wondering if being too intelligent is actually a detriment to creativity. Because to create great art, you have to have a strong connection with the non-logical side of your brain. That’s the side that comes up with the weird interesting shit. The logical side helps when it comes to structuring and plotting. But, in every other facet, logic gets in the way.
A steel skeleton cyborg limping down the street chasing a woman named Sarah Conner – that’s not a logical idea. That’s pure creativity. Listening to Blomkamp, he seems stilted and logical when he’s explaining his work. And, unfortunately, that’s not how you create great art.
Another issue Blomkamp has to contend with is that he’s never studied screenwriting. The most blatant example of this is Carly. Carly does not have a job. We have no idea what she does for a living. We have no idea how she makes money, how she survives, what her daily list of tasks is.
That’s because Blomkamp doesn’t know. As a result, the character is just waiting in her room for the writer to call on her. This is one of the most common beginner screenwriting mistakes there is – not knowing what your character does for a living. Thinking that that’s not important. As I’ve stated here before, a person’s occupation makes up half their life. It has tons of influence on who somebody is. Imagine a coder’s daily life compared to a fisherman’s. Do you think those jobs aren’t going to lead to those two people being drastically different? So why would you ever write someone without a job?
But it’s not just that. A job structures a character’s day. If a character doesn’t have one, they have nothing to do. Which makes them inactive, which makes them boring, which makes them unclear. Yet that’s the character leading this story. And the fact that nobody told Blomkamp to fix this indicates that he has zero people giving him feedback. Which is a recipe for disaster.
Where does Blomkamp go from here? I don’t know. Spike Lee ran into a similar problem back in the early 2000s. He was making a lot of bad movies that nobody saw so he was forced to make a studio film. That ended up being The Inside Man and giving his career new life. Of course, it only led to him making more bad movies that nobody saw but at least he was working. Blomkamp will now have to consider making a studio film in order to keep the lights on.
Unless someone pays him to make District 10. But I’ll be honest with you. It’s starting to look like the *other* people involved in District 9 had more of a creative impact than we thought. I still think Blomkamp is an excellent technical director. He has some shades of Lucas in him in how he comes up with interesting sci-fi imagery. But if this guy is going to keep making movies, he needs a collaborator who understands storytelling. Swallow the ego, find a screenwriter you love, and let him write your movies. If you don’t do that, your career might be over.
[x] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the stream
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: ‘Sitting down and talking’ scenes are the real demon in “Demonic.” I’ve told you before that you should never choose to write sitting down and talking scenes in your script. Ever. The only time you should write a sitting down and talking scene is when you’re on set, you’ve just lost your location, you have to get the scene shot, and the only option is to sit your actors down and shoot the scene quickly. That’s it. That’s your only excuse for writing a ‘sitting down and talking’ scene. But, believe it or not, there’s something even worse than sitting down and talking scenes. And that’s sitting down and talking scenes AT THE BEGINNING OF YOUR MOVIE. When you sit your actors down to talk, you are promoting stagnation. You are promoting inactivity. You are taking the “move” out of “movie.” It’s a terrible precedent to set for your story because it starts things off on a lifeless uninspired note. Of the first three scenes in Demonic, TWO of them are ‘sitting down and talking’ scenes – one with Carly’s best friend, the other with her ex-boyfriend. It was in those moments that I knew this movie was screwed.
