Common Sense Media Review
By Jeffrey M. Anderson
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Dull monster-possession movie has gore, language.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 15+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
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Demonic
What's the Story?
In DEMONIC, Carly (Carly Pope) is having nightmares about her mother, who's in prison for multiple murders. An old, estranged friend, Martin (Chris William Martin), visits her and explains that he briefly took part in a medical experiment at a facility called Therapol and saw Carly's mother there in a coma. Further, the doctors in charge want to see Carly. Carly reluctantly shows up, and chief physician Michael (Michael J. Rogers) and neuroscientist Daniel (Terry Chen) strap her into a machine that will project her into a digital version of her mother's subconscious. Carly uses the opportunity to tell her mother off, but, to her surprise, she receives a warning. It wasn't her mother who summoned her, but something far, far worse.
Is It Any Good?
All the elements for a fun movie are present in Neill Blomkamp's low-budget horror movie, but somehow it just never gets moving; there's no emotional connection, no scares, and no suspense. The selling point of Demonic is its use of volumetric capture technology, which essentially makes things look like a glitchy video game. The movie's sequences using that technique could have been interesting, if for no other reason than their novelty, but Blomkamp's unwise use of handheld/shaky camera while in the digital universe calls attention to itself and spoils the effect.
Blomkamp, of course, made a splashy debut with the overrated District 9, which combined heavy messages with sci-fi and gory battles. His subsequent movies, Elysium and Chappie, were a little more flatly transparent in their intentions, and now Demonic reveals a filmmaker who's ultimately less interested in stories or humans than he is in sermons and technology. After watching Carly for 104 minutes, we still have no idea who she really is, other than a woman who hates her mother and abandons her friends for being a little too odd. Not even the un-scary monster has a shred of personality in this highly skippable dud.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about Demonic's violence. How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important?
Is the movie scary? What's the appeal of horror movies? Why do people sometimes like to be scared?
What did you think of the volumetric capture technology? Did it add anything to the movie? Was it a drawback?
What is the movie's central mother-daughter relationship like? How is forgiveness demonstrated?
Movie Details
- In theaters : August 20, 2021
- On DVD or streaming : August 20, 2021
- Cast : Carly Pope , Chris William Martin , Kandyse McClure
- Director : Neill Blomkamp
- Inclusion Information : Female Movie Actor(s) , Black Movie Actor(s)
- Studio : IFC Midnight
- Genre : Horror
- Topics : Fantasy
- Run time : 104 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- MPAA explanation : language, some violence and bloody images
- Last updated : September 29, 2025
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