Film Reviews

Demons Never Die

• Rating:
• Director: Arjun Rose
• Starring: Jason Maza
• Details: UK / 110mins (18).

Romantic comedy Swinging With The Finkels was dire stuff but Demons Never Die, a low budget British horror, pushes it for the worst movie of the year.

In a plot that could be taken from Hollyoaks Later (and look – there's Hollyoaks' Emma Rigby!), this teen slasher concerns itself with a group of college students who make a suicide pact when one of their gang ends her own life (although from the bloody nature of the attack we know it was murder). Robert Sheehan is one of the gang, but he's not too sure about this pact as he's just fallen for Jennie Jacques; Jason Maza's 'nutta', however, is on and has even employed a student filmmaker to document the run up, which will take place at a house party. Before they can settle on a plan – pills or bullets – the gang is killed off one by one by an unknown assailant...
Where to begin: apart from Rigby's bulimia, a problem she's had for years and can't take it anymore, we have no idea why any of the group of eight (or nine) would want to end their lives. Oh, Maza thinks his family are 'c***s', which isn't strong enough to send a man to suicide. Suicide and mental illness is a heavy subject and deserves respect but writer-director Rose isn't concerned with all that; he just wants to cut people up and plays some tunes. The narrative is weak to begin with, but Rose shines a light on this by including a music montage every ten minutes; the soundtrack is admittedly fresh, but when you're forced to substitute montage for story and character, and to do it so often, your film is in trouble.
Characterisation is thin and the casting is woeful. Only Robert Sheehan looks and acts like a college student; Jason Maza is full of pomp and energy but it's hard to see that this geez (a) would want anything to do with this dippy crowd and (b) that they would want anything to do with him. Sheehan, Maza and Jacques are really the only ones allowed any room to develop. The two detectives hunting the killer – Reggie Yates and Ashley Walters – couldn't look less like police detectives.
A limp rip-off of Scream and other slashers, Demons Never Die is a cliché-ridden mess. And the big reveal of the killer makes no sense whatsoever. Avoid.

Review by Gavin Burke