Lovecraftian horror can mean different things to different people. To some it's stories about vast, unknowable monsters from beyond the stars hidden beneath the waters of Earth, to others it's a slow descent into madness, and it can be a twisting of the body into something less human. Depending on who's writing the story it can even forgo a lot of this and just have a tiny sprinkling of one and still be considered a Lovecraftian cosmic horror. The Daemon, however, tries to do a little bit of everything as it charts the horrors that befall a small group of friends who visit a remote lakeside cabin.
The Daemon opens with Elliot (Nick Searcy), frantically writing a letter to his son, experiencing wild and disturbing visions at his remote lakeshore cabin. From here we jump to the city, where his son, Tom (Tyler Q. Rosen) receives the news that his father is dead, along with the note that we saw Elliot writing. As to be expected, the news of a parents unexpected death can have a shocking affect on someone, and Tom essentially vanishes on his partner Kathy (Sara Fletcher), leaving her in the lurch and ignoring her calls. Kathy turns to her brother, Mark (Oscar Wilson) and his wife Jess (Adriana Isabel) for help, and the three of them travel to the cabin to try and help Tom. However, they find something dark and twisted waiting for them instead.
Grief is the main theme of The Daemon, and not just the grief of losing a parent. The two lead characters of the film are Tom and Jess, and each of them seems to have a well of trauma to deal with. From the opening scene of the film where Elliot is leaving a frantic message for his son it's clear that this is a family with a lot of baggage, and as the film progresses we learn more of this and see how it's managed to seep into Tom with the loss of his father. He's not just dealing with that loss, but all of the painful childhood memories that it's brought to the surface; everything that happened up at the lake decades before, and the tragic events that surrounded his mother.
Tragic mothers seem to be the go to here too, as Jess lays out her own trauma and backstory in her very first scene of the film. A therapist and meditation guide who works with criminals and addicts, Jess it trying to help a hardened career criminal named Mani (Mario Daggett) and opens up about her own past, a past that clearly directed her into the life she now leads, and also still hangs over her like a shadow. Whilst this does not help in the moment, and Mani uses it as ammunition against her, it feels like it informs Jess' entire character and the way that we're supposed to think about her moving forward from here. Whilst Mark and Kathy are sympathetic to Tom they're also somewhat dismissive and abrasive to him, but Jess is the only one who seems to understand grief and trauma and tries to connect with him on a different level.
And if this was just a film about family trauma, childhood trauma, and the loss of loved ones it would be fine; however, there's something dark and twisted waiting for these people up at the lake, and it's ready to use these emotions as a way of getting inside them. The horror of The Daemon is kind of subtle for the most part, and goes for a feeling of unease rather than out and out monsters and gore; though the film does have this too. There's a feeling of madness that creeps its way into the narrative the more the story unfolds, and there are times where you start to question if what you're seeing on screen is supposed to be real in the moment or not, nicely reflecting the characters own slipping sanity.
There are a number of moments in the film of more overt horror, moments that employ some interesting make-up effects, gore, and body horror. These are done particularly well, and thanks to the rest of the film having this sense of quite unease mixed in with the mundane these moments tend to land with a great deal of shock. The titular daemon, the thing living beneath the waters of the lake, has a pretty good design, and feels like it's lifted out of the pages of Lovecraft's work. The lake itself is so huge that you could be forgiven for thinking it's the ocean coast, and so something titanic like this existing just beneath the waves isn't too unbelievable. The creature looks good whenever it's on screen, and the final shots of the film are some of the most interesting and beautifully made in the movie that led to me leaving the film with a huge sense of interest and the desire to know more.
But tying all of this horror together are the central cast. It's hard to particularly like many of the characters in the film. Most of them have some pretty big faults, they're abrasive, they're sarcastic, they're annoying, and most of them don't seem to care about the emotional wellbeing of their friend. For example, Kathy is more annoyed at her husband for vanishing during his grief and cares about getting her credit cards working again instead of actually wanting to help heal her partner. The cast play these roles well, and somewhat gear you towards being excited to see them get killed off. Adriana Isabel is the stand out in the film, and manages to bring a lot more complexity to Jess than you first expect. She plays the character as a woman who seems to have her life together, but could fall apart with just a little push. This is demonstrated wonderfully with her opening scene and the way that Mani shapes her for the rest of the film. And whilst Mani himself is only in this one scene, Mario Daggett appears in some dream sequences and hallucinations that expand his role and makes him an interesting presence in Jess' life.
The Daemon feels like a small movie that's trying to take some big swings. It has a fairly small cast, and doesn't have too many locations with which to work. It focuses the horror on the characters rather than a set or some external threat. However, there are moments where you can see a larger budget at play when the special effects work gets put on screen that showcases the creativity of the filmmakers. The Daemon is an interesting movie, one that I feel raises more questions than it answers, and as such might not be to everyone's tastes; but if you have a love of cosmic horror it might just be the thing for you.
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