Demonium

I did not like The horror film Demonium at all. I did not find anything interesting in the movie to enjoy. Rasmus Bentley and his lover, Maria. One afternoon, after they close a deal which will secure their lives together forever, terrible events occurs. One year earlier,a scientist is brutally murdered in his ancient castle. Rasmus, calls together the man's heirs listed in his will, but as they all gather at the castle, but what they do not know is that the murderer is still haunting the ancient halls. One by one, the group is hunted down by the lunatic, whose bloodbath is not yet complete. I found this to be quite a poor horror film, with not much of a very good storyline to it. 3/10

This could have been Andreas Schnass glorious welcome to the English speaking cinema, but ended up flawed because of certain production aspects that could had been easily corrected. Maybe it was the budget? overconfidence? human error? Let me explain.

This plot is about an old man who is brutally murdered in his castle, and the family who comes to take the inheritance. One by one will be killed by the servants who want to take the money. This is stated since the first two scenes, so don't worry, I have not spoiled a thing.

The movie starts with a couple being brutally killed by no reason. It takes us a year after the homicide and the movie starts, we realize that the couple are the servants. There is suspense, but this is not of the Agatha Christie's "who did it?" type, the questions that carry the movie are: "how were they discovered? and who discovered them?" In terms of script, is an unusual take on the story of the typical "inheritance story", and even when it gets boring at times and the ending is kind of dull, the acting carries it very good. Andreas Schnass had a nice cast... which leads us to one of the main problems in the film.

Why to have good foreign actors who CAN'T speak English TALKING in English?!? No matter how good an actor is, to be able to play a part in a language you don't know takes an extra effort that on rare occasions works(Peter Lorre in "The Man Who Knew Too Much" comes to mind). It was obvious that the movie was doomed when this choice was made because, even when some actors DO make a good pronunciation, most of them don't. Don't get me wrong, the acting is good, but it would had been a thousand better if the actors were speaking their mother languages. Or knew how to speak English. A good dubbing would had improved this movie a lot.

Andreas Schnass is known for having over-the-top gore similar to Peter Jackson's early efforts; in Demonium, while it still is very gory, it takes a Gothic approach similar to Stuart Gordon's Castle Freak. This makes the gore to be less funny(unlike Braidnead) and more in tone with the dark ambiance the film has.

So, we have average script, good acting(despite the BIG flaw of the language), usual direction BUT... the second BIG flaw of the movie is the lighting. This is Schnass first 35 mm. movie, but the lighting he used makes it look like a video. It's that bad. Certainly, this is a problem of experience, I hope that his next efforts will have improved this flaw.

I see a bright future for Mr. Schnass, and even when this movie suffers a LOT with it's flaws, it's still watchable. It's a bad movie that promises a better next effort.

5/10 because it's flaws really damaged what could had been a good movie.

There is one shot early on in the otherwise utterly indefensible DEMONIUM that shows that Andreas Schnaas might have a real filmmaker lurking somewhere inside him: a blind woman, unaware that a killer is lurking in her house, walks past the camera towards her bathroom, when all at once the killer jumps out of hiding behind her, running from one room to the room opposite the hallway she's in. It's abrupt, and Schnaas cuts away almost immediately, so that the entire action is on screen for less than a second. It's a "jump outta your seat" moment worthy of Argento's DEEP RED.

Unfortunately, that's the only instance of actual film-making in the whole lousy enterprise. For the most part, Schnaas is just an untalented pretender to the director's chair. Even a reported $2.2 million budget and a chance to shoot 35mm hasn't made his work look any more professional than it does in his infamous shot-on-video no-budget backyard productions. His DP, and I use the term advisedly, makes everything look like video anyway. Almost all of the nighttime exteriors look like they were lit with a single 1K. And Schnaas not only shows his incompetence at composition, but in this film he overuses a camera dolly to ridiculous effect, the act of a filmmaker whose attitude is "Well, we rented the damn thing, might as well use it." I didn't get the impression Schnaas ever bothers with shot lists or storyboards, but even if he does, his work on those must be as inept as his "directing".

And the acting...yeesh! All the cast (but one) are Europeans for whom English is clearly their second or even third language, so everyone's (and I mean everyone's) line delivery is laughable. They sound like they're just reading for their ESL class, and doing it badly. Schnaas was either on a tight deadline here, or just doesn't bother with second takes, because a number of actors flub their lines, then start over. I imagine some of these actors might be pretty talented working in their native languages, but their work here is unlikely to benefit their careers in any way, to put it kindly.

Everyone talks about how gory Schnaas's films are, but you'll see much worse (and more believable) than this in ICHI THE KILLER, a gore film that just happens to be made by a real talent at the helm. Schnaas can't even make a good example of the lowest form of film art this side of hardcore porn. He and Troma deserve each other.

1/10

A group of people assemble at a castle for the reading of a will, only to get murdered one by one. This did have a touch of Agatha Christie in that respect. Demonium was released in the UK on a label called Hard Gore, as the name suggests they specialised in putting out gory movies. And there is plenty of gore and violence on offer here.I would say that it is the only thing worth seeing as the plot, script and acting are all atrocious. Actually there is some female. topless nudity too. If it was not for the gore then I would be scoring this mess 1/10. Denomium is a TERRIBLE movie, despite the DVD's claim that it is a "masterpiece of gruelling horror"! Special effects meastro Sergio Stivaletti, who worked on many great Italian horror movies, was on board and whilst some of the gory effects are decent many are cheap looking, including some nasty CGI.

"Demonium" is the English language debut of Andreas Schnaas,whose previous amateurish horror movies include "Zombie 90:Extreme Pestilence","Anthropophagous 2000" and "Violent Shit" trilogy.For a Schnaas film,"Demonium" actually looks pretty expensive,but not too much.The acting is very poor and the script by Ted Geoghegan and Sonja Schnaas is awful,with appalling dialogue and unsympathetic characters.The gore is pretty extreme,with decapitations,throat ripping,torture and chainsaw dismemberment.Still the film is rather dull,so casual horror fans will be disappointed.Give this one a look,if you're a fan of German splatter.4 out of 10.