Demons at Dawn

Indie movies are so much fun. A few years back they were often grainy and amateurish. That has all changed in the last five years. Most are so well-filmed, edited, directed, and the acting is so good that they are often better than the productions coming out of the Hollywood movie machines. They are way more creative, and each actor is so invested that they are a joy to watch. I have one criticism of almost all current indie films. It is difficult to find a real story line. They are beautiful, well-acted scenes just hooked together. So that is what you end up watching. Demons at Dawn breaks away from that tunnel-vision trap. It is easy to see what is going on in a linear fashion so that It follows a real storyline. Five minutes into the film, I noticed how well-written it is. It is a most enjoyable film with many highly comic points and excellent effects as our protagonist, fraught with addictions and co dependencies, tries to cancel out his humongous gambling debt in one fell swoop..oh my..he gets a bit side-tracked by scary ?, ?, and ? Wonderful job by all involved! I am fond of many of the actors as I have watched them in other indie works. Good stuff! Entertaining!

Director Randy Kent (THE PERFECT HOUSE 2012) ,BLOOD TULIPS fails upon establishing anything that is entertaining nor suspenseful as the majority of the film basically has Sander and a lone female(rising British Scream Queen] Amber Doig Thorne (WINNIE THE POOH:BLOOD AND HONEY,FANGED UP,MINACIOUS) having lengthy talky scenes inside of a remote countryside side and nothing else more as it all leads to a grim finale that leaves the door open for a sequel(which is unlikely to ever happen) with the cast doing what they can to salvage this film, which is basically the celluloid version of a Pet Rock in terms of entertainment values. With a quick guest appearance by (modern British Scream Queen) Dani Thompson (AXE TO GRIND,MY BLOODY BANJO,VIDEO SHOP TALES OF TERROR). Crystal J. Huang (AMITYVILLE BIGFOOT,AMBER ROAD,BERMUDA ISLAND),and Amy DiLorenzi(PILLOW PARTY MASSACRE).

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.

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.

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.