Don't Look at the Demon Review

Don’t Look at the Demon review.

Don’t Look at the Demon mixes possession, mystery and trauma into a package lesser than the sum of its parts.

New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.

Don’t Look at the Demon

Directed by Brando Lee

Screenplay by Alfie Palermo

Starring Fiona Dourif, Jordan Belfi, Ashlyn Boots and Malin Crepin

Don’t Look at the Demon Review

It’s tough to put your finger on why Don’t Look at the Demon falters as it does. The various aspects of the movie all work well enough. It’s a good-looking picture with a fine cast. It has decent possession scenes and an interesting central mystery. The movie just never quite puts everything together to become the entertaining cohesive film it should be.

A group of American paranormal investigators head to a house in Malaysia to film an episode of their tv show. The couple that lives there reached out for help due to the strange occurrences happening in their home. Jules (Fiona Dourif) has a history of being able to commune with demons and believes the couple is telling the truth. Once the crew sees what’s happening for themselves, they launch an investigation into what exactly is haunting the couple. And why.

Despite being filmed in Malaysia, director Brando Lee goes out of his way to make the movie feel purely American. English speaking actors fill out most of the cast. Though we see some foreign customs (including one major outlawed one central to the plot) this is a movie that could have as easily been filmed in New Jersey as Malaysia. This accessibility to domestic audiences is likely what caused it to be the first Malaysian production to be released into American theaters. Limited as the engagement was.

Dourif carries the bulk of Don’t Look at the Demon as the lead of the investigators with a tortured past. We learn early on that she has a history of connecting to the demon world though the full extent of her history is kept under wraps until the end of the movie. The reveal isn’t much of a surprise, but they use it to kick off the ending statement of the film.

We won’t be getting into spoilers in a movie this recent, but we will say the ending is a good idea, poorly executed. It trades trying for a wow moment for what would have been the most exciting scene of the movie. The moment isn’t worth what it opts not to show on screen.

One of the biggest issues with Don’t Look at the Demon is that it doesn’t seem to trust that it’s an interesting enough story. It fills moments that could have been suspenseful for loud noises and jump scares. Doing that sometimes is a great move. Doing it every time takes away any suspense from thinking that something might happen and then it doesn’t. If every opportunity ends loudly and with a scream…you already know how every opportunity will end.

Dourif is in fine form as Jules. She has the hardest task in the movie, spending almost every moment displaying the emotional and physical pain of being close enough for evil to touch. The supporting cast is perfectly fine as well. There isn’t a ton of development for the rest of the characters, but they make their roles worth watching and caring/worrying about.

Don’t Look at the Demon, unsurprisingly, has a demon involved in the story. The how and why of it all is a mystery that the crew investigates throughout the film. It’s a pretty good one, all told. Possession scenes suffer from the same reliance on noise and jumps that the set up to the possession does. There’s still some decent stuff in here, but I wouldn’t call it a real highlight. The mystery is worth more than the mostly basic possession scenes.

If you’re interested in a demon movie that is part investigative horror movie, part possession movie…you could do worse than Don’t Look at the Demon. Dourif’s performance and an overall well-crafted screenplay makes up for enough of the questionable production choices to make it a fine watch. I think there was a stronger story here than the filmmaker gave credit to. The bag of tricks he goes back to over and over hurt more than help the overall product.

Scare Value

Don’t Look at the Demon does a lot of things well. It just can’t seem to combine them into an overall movie that works. Fiona Dourif is great, and the supporting cast all pulls their weight. The mystery is interesting enough and the possession scenes are perfectly fine. The movie is crafted well enough that it should work better than it does.

2.5/5