- Director: Glenn Standring
- Writer: Glenn Standring
- Stars: Karl Urban, Katie Wolfe, Jonathon Hendry
- Run Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
- Link: https://amzn.to/3f3cB0j
Synopsis
Anthropologist Harry Ballard is working in his office when his assistant, Johnny, tries to scare him, but it doesn’t work. Harry is a researcher into cults and covens. He receives a package in the mail that’s dripping blood; it came from one of the cults. There’s a bald man talking to a group of cultists, and he says they are going to show Harry “The truth behind demons.” Johnny freaks out, but Harry isn’t worried— the tape is a year old.
On his way out of the building that night, a woman with too much makeup asks if he’s “seen the sorcerer,” and then asks if he got the video. She gives him a charm and says he has to keep it close to his penis. He assumes it’s a joke. A weird-looking man outside says he’d better be careful, or Harry will wind up like his dead brother. His group of punk-looking cultists grab Harry and put him in the back of a truck.
They take him to some kind of torture-warehouse and chain him up. At this point, the punk-people act like ridiculous caricatures of punks on drugs, and I sort of lost all suspension of disbelief. He escapes but has a vision of the bald man turning into a demon.
He dreams that the gang kills his girlfriend, but when he wakes up, she’s just gone. He follows a trail of blood and finds her body strung up with barbed wire in the next room. “I killed this demon by Harry Ballard” is written on the wall; the police are already outside. He runs out and gets a cheap motel room to collect his thoughts.
He called Johnny for help, and he freaks out once again. Johnny leaves and is killed by something nasty before he even makes it to his car. The bald preacher from the video finally confronts Harry, and Harry sees an actual demon.
The woman-with-too-much-makeup explains that her name is Bennie when she comes to his rescue. She explains that Le Valliant is the high priest of the Black Lodge, and he was involved with the death of his brother.
There’s some mumbo jumbo about the cult and a few jump scares before the demon cult attacks the building. They get away and go to the torture-warehouse from earlier. They break in and see the bald guy and his men carrying out bodies.
Harry sees Celia, his dead girlfriend, in Le Valliant’s arms. Is she real or a zombie? He follows her home and confronts her. She accuses him of being on drugs for the past two days. Why does he keep doing this to her? He’s knocked out, and wakes up to see Le Valliant kissing Celia. They hold him down and cover him in cockroaches.
Le Valliant pulls out Harry’s heart, but Harry doesn’t die. Bennie frees Harry, and they go home and have sex. How Harry does this with no heart is a mystery. He has a dream where his dead brother tells him to just believe in himself to beat Le Valliant. Harry pulls his chest open to demonstrate that he’s grown a new heart.
Suddenly, CGI demons appear and they tear Le Valliant apart. The police arrest Harry, but he just laughs and pukes up cockroaches. Celia comes in as his lawyer, and she wants to know what power Harry has. She says she was the one who killed Harry’s brother last year. Harry and Bennie are committed to a mental hospital.
Commentary
Karl Urban does a good job here, but he’s the only one. The villain’s acting abilities are comic-book level, and not in a good way. All the villains look like something out of a 1980s version of a punk-goth-underworld-Matrix-style nightclub.
Bennie wears the most ridiculous makeup I’ve ever seen on someone we’re supposed to like. Crack whores on the streets often have better-looking makeup, and they’re more stable a well.
The cultists want Harry’s soul, but at no point do they actually try to take it, even though he’s captured, confronted, and tormented by the cultists numerous times. What are they waiting for? Kill him already. No, they just toy with him for an hour and half. Le Valliant makes long, pointless speeches about creepy-sounding stuff, but he’s hard to take seriously.
The music was bland, the lighting was dim, and everything was lit in dull-brown color that made it visually uninteresting. There were a lot of good ideas here, but it was really hard to get over how stupid all the characters except Harry looked. There’s little to no special effects or creature shots here until the very end, but that’s not bad; the story was more about cultists than actual demons.