Once upon a time, there was a rule, a guideline in the horror genre, stay in your lane, meaning no crossover or mixing genres for example Freddy vs. Jason, combined slasher with action, but the rule extended to the subgenres, now though they all seem clearly and rightfully tossed aside, as is the case with The Demonologist. Writer and director J.M. Stelly (Within Madness [2015])  quite dedicated to working with as many genres as possible well, not as many as The Mummy (with Tom Cruise) does involve action, horror, thriller and mystery, released by Thriller Films.

A deranged cultist Ian Parrish (Jared Bankens (Camera Obscura [2017]) commit bizarre ritualistic murders to both honor and resurrect a demon, in the form of a woman named Meredith Carr (Manon Pages (Purgatory Road [2017]). She uses her powers of persuasion, eroticism carnal bloodlusts, similar to Elizabeth Bathory infamy, to enhance her supercharged hellish powers. However, the opposition comes from a New Orleans police detective Damian Seryph (Brian Krause (House of Purgatory [2016]), well-versed in the solving ritualistic killings and debunking the occult mumbo-jumbo BS; yes he does have the cliché first name.  His partner Garrison (Dane Rhoades (Smothered [2016]), a tad less knowledgeable of religious conversions of the theology and occultism, but always willing support his buddy. One needs to note the twists all telegraphed early on, concerning Damien and sadly the story bogs down somewhere in the middle becoming a tad muddled, the simplistic route abandon, unsure why. However, a religious scholar Victor Manchester (Thomas Francis Murphy) gives a worthy performance telling of four King Demons of Hell, and Lucifer trying to establish his bloodline on earth to protect us. The movie strays away, positive original direction from always show inverted pentagrams and inverted crosses, and rather using the Sigil of Lucifer (Seal of Satan) (*1). Damien serves mankind as a savior, a descendant of Lucifer, known as the Demonologist battling with ancient powers.

A rule often filmmakers overlook, writing to budget, yes one seeks to do all they can for their movie to succeed, and while on screen it looks great, it suffers from the constraints, the CGI work of fire a tad lame. However, the exorcism girl (actually credited character) portrayed by Rebecca Chapman  deserves much applause for her Pennywise meets Conjuring backbreaking contortions act, truly has one aching afterwards. Stelly does layered quite a bit Satanic elements, ad true symbols in a creepy vibe at different times in the movie.

For every plus the movie makes, and negative occurs with regard to the screenplay, often the principle actors just going through the motions, likely to do to a convoluted storyline, This presents a slight mess, two rules one keeps it simple and two always write with your audience in mind. It’s fine to make an occult story but and cross over  into one other genre, but not mix multiple ones in your recipe and hope for 5 course gourmet meal, while on a McDonald’s budget. The film takes too many twists and turns, while striving for an equivalent of Constantine (2015), but wasting so much diabolical eroticism and ritually killing with cutaway shots.

Footnote  (*1) http://symboldictionary.net/?p=1342

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7130192/

IMDb Rating: 3.0/10

Baron’s Rating: 3.0/10