Demons at Dawn

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.

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).

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.

I had a lot of fun watching this film and always enjoy watching what indie filmmakers can do on a "lower budget" than that of the big Hollywood blockbuster. Great camera work, lighting, and scenery were the highlights here to me. I enjoyed the story and much of the acting as well, but the technical side of things are what I enjoyed most in this case. I loved the house and its surrounding setting and enjoyed the mystery of the story that was conveyed by the characters within. It's a blast watching the folks at Black Coppice Films share their love of film and horror through their hard work! I am looking forward to see what they do next!

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.