A man haunted by his past, from his youthful dabbling in the occult that saw someone he loved lost to the forces of hell, now dedicated his life to finding ghosts and demons and banishing them to protect the living. Whilst I'm talking about Miles Mako (Dustyn Gullede), the central character of new supernatural horror The Demon Detective, this is a character archetype that will immediately feel familiar to fans of the genre. Whilst The Demon Detective is a relatively enjoyable film, never straying into the realm of being too awful to watch, this sense of familiarity will be present throughout.
The Demon Detective focuses on Miles Mako, a demonologist and exorcist who gets called in when ghosts and other strange forces start to give people problems. Working alongside his partner Pin (Eugene Young), he does what he can to atone for the mistakes of his past. At the start of the film we see the two of them moving to a new neighbourhood that's rife with the supernatural, an increase in strange activity in the area providing the perfect opportunity for the two of them to find more work.
As Miles and Pin investigate a Catholic school gymnasium that's so haunted they had to shut it down, a woman named Clara (Dani J. Scott) begins to experience strange occurrences in her parking garage, hearing a strange voice. Jumping from one case to another, Miles is surprised by how strong the entities involved are, with more demonic forces than normal becoming entwined with people's lives. It's when Clara tells him of a name she heard the strange voice say that he realises that a quite literal demon from his past is pulling the strings, and that he may be in the centre of a web of revenge.
Despite being a low budget movie there's quite a lot to like about The Demon Detective. The writing is pretty strong, and there's a lot more plot here than you'd normally get from a film like this. It's clear that Writer/Director T.C. De Witt is trying to make a cohesive story, one with clear character motivations and development. In a lot of ways the film felt like a two-part episode of TV, because in very short order you can feel that these characters have been through a lot, that they've got a history and a supporting cast to help them. De Witt spent the time to make The Demon Detective feel like a more lived in world, and I definitely appreciated that.
The film also doesn't feel the need to rush things, to throw everything at the viewer immediately in order to keep your attention, instead hoping that the characters and story keep you engaged. Some of this is reflected in the fact that the film is just shy of two hours long. A lot of lower budget horror films seem to aim for around 90 minutes, creating faster paced films that sometimes feel a bit light in places because it's clear that there just isn't enough to really fill in the full time. In contrast to that The Demon Detective takes its time to get things right, giving us scenes with character development, key story points and lore, and whilst you could probably trim some stuff here and there to make a shorter version of the film you never really feel like there's anything that obviously needs excising to the cutting room floor.
Whilst the writing is strong the effects are perhaps best described as somewhat middling. The ghosts are nothing unusual, depicted as lank, pale people who hand around in the corners of rooms or off in the distance, looking somewhat sad and bored. These wandering spirits aren't much of a focus in the film, and are more often used as set-dressing, reminding the viewer that not only can Miles see ghosts, but that they're basically everywhere. It's the demons that are perhaps the films biggest stumbling block, however. The first demonic entity we see, in the first scene, is barely seen, offering more of a hint at what demons look like than anything else. This is fine, as it leaves more to the imagination than anything else. However, when the demons have to become a big part of the story their designs end up feeling like something from the wrong film.
There's a scene where the entity that's haunting the school gymnasium is revealed as a demon, and we see this creature full on, and while the make-up effects are good, it feels incredibly out of place here. It's basically an orc from The Lord of the Rings resembling an Uruk-hai more than any movie demon I've ever seen. Other demons featured include an all black creature with feathers and a mouth filled with fangs who haunts a woman at night whilst she sleeps, and a creature who just looks like a woman with dreadlocks who's been covered in thick white body paint. And there's the demon that's a shirtless Doug Jones with a few scars on his body. There's no real consistency to the designs, and whilst none stood out as badly done they failed to have a cohesive whole to them, and thus none of them ended up feeling like they particularly fit well. Jones, presented as almost human, was the best of these creatures, largely because he was able to make the creature feel like it had a personality and drives beyond 'be a monster' that the others had.
Connected somewhat to the demons, the lead actors felt somewhat weak when it came to them exorcising and fighting monsters. Being a fan of the Matt Ryan version of John Constantine, I've seen perhaps the best example of someone bursting into Latin and other dead languages, waving his arms around with CGI magic effects laid over them that you can get. Dustyn Gulledge and Eugene Young do their best to emulate this, but neither of them manage to make these moments feel particularly real. Their delivery fails to convey the energy of the scene, nor do either of them feel like they're confident in what they're doing, perhaps aware that these moments can be quite silly, and as such these scenes that should feel like they have some weight and importance to them end up kind of flat.
The Demon Detective isn't trying to reinvent the wheel, and anyone familiar with this kind of genre will see the influences quite clearly, from characters like John Constantine to films such as Insidious, but just because the movie is playing it relatively safe doesn't mean it's a bad thing. The Demon Detective delivers a competent yet flawed film, but those flaws aren't big enough to make it a bad film, and you can have a decent time with it, especially if you're a big fan of this kind of story and want to watch something new. The cast and crew of The Demon Detective have clearly tried hard to make a decent film, and I think they've done pretty well in delivering something enjoyable.
The Demon Detective is available on UK digital services from Miracle Media now.
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