Demons at Dawn

Right, well I figured that I would be in for a horror movie, as I sat down to watch the 2022 movie "Demons at Dawn". Actually, I hadn't heard about the movie prior to sitting down to watch it, so I didn't know what I was in for. But given the movie's cover and it's title, then I figured it would be a horror movie.

Turns out that I was in for a snoozefest of a movie, and there was actually nothing worthwhile to behold here. Needless to say that I didn't stick around to finish watching the movie. I just simply found no enjoyment in the storyline from writer Chris Sanders.

The acting performances in the movie were fair enough, when you take into consideration that the actors and actresses had very little to work with in terms of script, storyline, characters and dialogue. Needless to say that I wasn't familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list. Nor can I can say that I was impressed with what I saw.

Visually then you're not in for anything grand here, should you opt to sit down and watch director Randy Kent's 2022 movie "Demons at Dawn".

My rating of "Demons at Dawn" lands on a generous two out ten stars.

Indebted to a vicious mob boss, a retiring hitman is blackmailed into taking on one last job to clear himself of the debts and sets off to the remote house where his target is held up, but when the whole affair is found to be a setup for a demonic sacrifice must save himself and their targets.

This was an intriguing if somewhat flawed feature. Among the better features here is the way this one tends to work through the rather surprising setup that works quite well at establishing a solid old-school atmosphere. The time-honored trope of the retiring hitman pulled into doing one last job only to get caught up in something beyond his experiences and get dragged into a genuine supernatural fare is a fine way to get this going as it starts off on a lot of fine elements here. The use of the gangster-drama first half to spell out his reasoning and motivation to take on the case which is a blackmailed way of ensuring he gets out to the house and undergoes a series of revelations and reveals about everything when he arrives is a fun way to get this going as the different setup at first allows the genre fare to come off quite a bit better when they occur due to this. The other big factor to be had with this one is the final half where the film starts to get far more interesting than just spending time with him doing nothing. The introduction of his mission being interrupted by the cult looking to sacrifice them for their demonic hosts is a solid twist and hsa a lot to like with the slow build-up to get there offering some solid bits of supernatural shenanigans to highlight that impending twist when they're revealed in their glory. Featuring a lot of solid encounters in the house and the surrounding areas to show the impact of the demonic beings coming to fulfill the twist nicely, there's plenty to like here with the atmospheric setting helping to give this a great touch overall to help hold this one up overall. There are some drawbacks to this one which holds it back. The biggest detriment to this one is the incredibly sluggish and draining tempo at the beginning which takes so long to get going that the film is half over before anything really happens. With the majority of the first half spent on the mob bosses getting him to accept their blackmailed mission and send him off to the mission is just dull and not that interesting, making for a tough immersion here involving the potential non-genre material to slow the film up before it gets started. There's also the film's somewhat obvious low-budget limitations present, where the flimsy-looking masks for the demons, cheesy gore make-up, and lack of elaborate wounds in a singular location setup offer a strong hint about this which might not always appeal to everyone and keeps it down at points.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Violence.

I had previously seen the first movie from this director called "Nest of Vampires" which had a super confusing plot and was hobbled somewhat by bad practical effects. However, it was clear, even then, that Sanders would be somebody to watch in the future.

With this offering, "Demons at Dawn", it is very clear that he has learned a huge amount from his previous movie and his craft has improved dramatically.

Without spoilers, the basic synopsis of the plot is that a retired hitman, Mickey, is forced by circumstance and a gambling addiction to take one last job to clear his debt load with his previous "employers". As the movie title no doubt reveals, things don't go as planned and take a supernatural turn for the worse.

For the most part, the movie is strongly driven by dialogue and pretty solid acting. Almost all characters are fleshed out with real motivations and backgrounds and unique personality quirks. The camera work and lighting is absolutely spot on. A solid plot invests the audience in the fate of the characters with the correct amount of believable tension. All the scenes drive towards a solid and satisfying conclusion.

Now, originally, my thought was to give a rare 10/10 review based on the solid storytelling and cinematography, made even more impressive by the tiny budget it was filmed with. However, there were a few niggles that I decided to drop a couple of points for. First, there was a scene where some cultists are actually summoning the "demons" and the acting in that scene was pretty cringeworthy. Likewise, a scene with a judge which was similarly very cardboard acting and pulled the audience somewhat out of the movie for a moment. I'm not sure why these two scenes were not up to the same solid acting standard or proofed as with the rest of the movie. The second issue I had was with "Mickey" himself. His acting skills were impeccable, his character well developed and solid and his dialogue and emotional range absolutely carried the movie. However, he was set up as being a highly trained hitman and that was not even remotely evident in the movie. He came ill prepared with the "tools of the trade" to complete his assigned mission and appeared not well trained in how to appropriately use or handle weapons. Ie, although his character was solid and relatable, he appeared to be, at best, an amateur assassin and not the stated "best in the business" that the other support characters set him up to be. The makeup, for the most part was solid although there were a couple of points where the low budget gore was evident. However, these were relatively minor unless specifically looking for them.

Minor niggles aside, this was a very entertaining movie that stands up well against considerably larger big budget movies out there. The ambient background sounds and creepy music really helped to build tension with the audience. Some very clever cinematography techniques helped to show the passage of time or flashbacks. The cuts and lighting were spot on and there was very little in the way of filler getting in the way of the story. Also, there were a couple of satisfying twists including a solid one at the very end.

All in all, well worth the hour and a half time investment. If you love Indie horror, this is one of the better ones. A phenomenal achievement with an extremely limited budget. Well done!

Again, this is a movie that lives off its FEW reviews, hiking the numbers up. It is clearly not a 5.8 (at the time of writing) and will continue to go down.

It is a passable movie in all respect, but there are choices in directing, design and writing that puts it just under "ok".

You can tell that this was a passion project for many of those involved, but to call it a "masterpiece" is to give it too much credit.

Th effectwork is plugin-based and the makeup is... I mean, it is interesting, but certainly nothing to write home about.

You can safely give this one a miss, as it is nothing much.

A well paced and high stakes piece with an isolated and beautiful setting. Demons at Dawn gives you a tight script with well rounded charecters faced with the task of outliving a family of demons hungry for blood. I won't spoil anything for you as it's a definite recommendation well worthy of its title.

It's nice to see low budget films like this coming out of the UK with new Filmmakers getting a chance to showcase their skills. The fresh faces of the cast also gives new actors a chance to shine, I hope to see some of them popping up again in future.

Look forward to Black Coppices next film.