Roscoe is taken as a young child and trained in an underworld by the demon Dimwos. When he returns to his home as an adult, he unwittingly brings back three demons with him and must reunite with an old friend to fight them back into the nether realm.Its a pretty standard affair. Writing, directing, acting and makeup is all done by one man band James Sizemore while his wife takes the reigns of his long lost friend and love interest.
The writing and acting are nothing to fall in love with. The dialogue is strung together with redneck backwoods talk and awkward conversation between characters that doesnt ever come off as cohesive. These are all amateurs, though, so most of that is to be expected.
The real poignancy of the film is behind the direction.
Sizemore is obviously a fan of the genre and manages to blend late ’80s and early ’90s monster gorefests with the strange spectravision psychopathy of the ’70s. Fog crawls along any night set, bright reds and yellows and greens are constant haunts and limbs are torn apart unabashedly while fountains of blood happily gush up from still pumping organs. The soundtrack bounces back and forth from ritualistic psuedo-metal to heavy synth reverbs and it really calls out the influences that Sizemore pulls from.
Production value is on the high side of completely amateur. Sound quality will flip on a dime and some of the zooming and pans are hard to watch. Its apparent that most of the budget was likely spent on the massive amount of make-up and set design. The demons are definitely the best looking monsters youll find in any low budget horror flick, think high quality Face Off work or even more garish Buffy baddies, but the zombies are a classic throwback to the earliest days of Romero but a bit more twisted.
The many (many, many) death scenes in the movie never stop being entertaining and recall back to some of the so bad theyre good cult films of the last few decades, such as Leprechaun, Galaxy of Terror, and Street Trash.The movie slows itself down a lot, insisting on slow motion run scenes and a lot of backstory between Roscoe and Dimwos that honestly doesnt add much to the movie and is all spoken in the strange demon tongue introduced in the film. Sometimes it seems more like an intricate heavy metal video than an actual movie but always manages to redeem itself with some good splatter kills. Quite honestly, it feels like youre watching one of the most impressive homemade movies ever made and its because of this palpable passion that you end up enjoying the film despite its lack of budget.
Overall, Demons Rook does the best it can with what is has. A talented director who perhaps bit off a little more than he can chew is able to write a love letter to horror fantasy that can strike a chord with different generations of horror fans. Rarely does the movie become unbearable, though it does dip its toe in that water a few times, and it mostly just shows off killer practical effects with a slight overindulgent run time. Its hard to bash something so genuine and its easy to see Sizemore put his heart and soul into the project, making The Demons Rook a watchable love letter to the horror days of yore.
The Demon’s Rook will be available on iTunes and VOD September 30th. For the Facebook page, follow this link.
