Timothy Glaraton
When The Daemon was sent my way from one of my usual sources, it was a film that I almost immediately wanted to see. Both the description and the images included looked like they were my kind of jam. On top of that one of the leads, Sara Fletcher, was my first TV crush from years ago. Having seen it for myself, I’m thoroughly impressed with what writers/directors Matt Devino & David Michael Yohe have put together.
What The Daemon pulls off at its core is one of the more fascinating premises for a film that I have seen in years. The film takes a set of characters you would find in a more modern horror film, each one of them carrying their own particular baggage and trauma, and puts them into a more traditional Lovecraftian-style story where whatever is going on in their personal lives proves to be both unresolved and utterly meaningless in the face of unfathomable cosmic horror.
There’s Tom, still carrying guilt from an incident in his youth that changed his life forever; his sister Kathy, who married young and now finds herself unsatisfied and looking for a taste of something new; her brother Mark, who is dealing with work stress that is putting strain on his marriage; and his wife Jess, who has worked through her own trauma and now works as a therapist but is letting a patient get inside her head.
When a call arrives informing Tom of his father’s recent suicide—and shortly thereafter a strange note from his father arrives in the mail—he immediately drops everything and returns to the lake house from his youth, abandoning Kathy with hardly a word apart from claiming that “the lake is real”. After going to Mark and Jess for help, the trio makes their way up to the lake house to try and help convince Tom to come back home.
The first half or so of The Daemon is a slow-moving affair as it introduces us to each of their characters and their particular baggage, but there’s a constant undercurrent of something sinister just below the surface. Tom stalks around the property looking and acting downright feral, Jess is plagued by nightmares about one of her patients, Kathy is trying to get Tom to open up to her and Mark is mostly just trying to have a good time.
But it’s not long until the lake and its inhabitants start calling to each of them, at which point the film becomes an increasingly intense march toward what proves to be an inevitable conclusion for everyone involved. Bits and pieces of information are slowly teased out about the true nature of the lake’s inhabitant in the final half, but the full picture never truly emerges—we don’t even find out what its name is until the ending credits—and the film ends on an ambivalent, ominous note that lingers with you long after the screen turns black.
Particularly gnarly are The Daemon’s special effects. They’re used sparingly throughout the film, but when they do show up they have a fantastically disgusting Stuart Gordon/Brian Yuzna sliminess. One standout scene probably uses a good eight gallons of goo, with a particularly gnarly face melt thrown in for good measure, and ends with one character trapped in what is essentially a giant amniotic sac. Equally impressive is the design of the cosmic horror itself, proving to be an overwhelming force whenever it appears on screen to drag each of our characters into its pull.
The Daemon made its worldwide premiere at Pigeon Shrine FrightFest on August 23rd and will likely continue making waves on this year’s festival circuit. I don’t know when you’ll be able to see The Daemon for yourself, but when it does arrive on streaming or VOD, anyone looking for a unique twist on a Lovecraft-style story shouldn’t miss it.
