a virtual wheel which then chooses a film or TV show at random out of the deepest crevices of the streaming service. My three rules are that I'll only watch films I haven't seen before, I won't review any sequels unless we've reviewed the original already and that I won't cheat and I'll review whatever it tells me to on the first spin. Hopefully we'll find some hidden gems or some even more hidden garbage piles! Enjoy my pain and/or joy. This Week's Film: Demonic (AKA: Forest of the Damned) (2005)
Written and Directed by Johannes Roberts
Actors: Nicole Petty. Daniel MacLagen. Tom Savini. Sophie Holland.
What's it About: Five people who are supposed to be friends but seem to hate each other take a van trip to the woods. After a run in with a crazy old German man who basically tells them the equivalent of "Don't go in them thar woods," they drive directly to the woods where their shitty van (which barely runs in the first place) breaks the hell down. Naturally, there are super naked women, fallen angels apparently, although they look and act like succubi. One by one the succu-angels pick off our idiotic main characters until they're all dead...kinda.
Is It Good: Nope. Not even a little. The description on Netflix about this movie called the demons 'wood nymphs' which got me pretty excited because I feel like we don't see enough wood nymphs in our non-pornographic movies nowadays. But really, these are just naked models with bubba teeth and pale skin. Which is fine, that can still make for an entertaining movie, but every aspect of this movie from the score to the acting to the editing fail miserably, over and over and over again.
Even the opening credits last for about 5 minutes. Seriously, five minutes of ariel shots of the forest with the lamest credits font and the most annoying score you could possibly imagine. The music was so bad my girlfriend woke up and rolled her eyes at me. The music was so bad I think all the dogs in my building had seizures. The music was so bad I cursed Netflix and the garbage it foists upon the unwilling populace. The opening credits title says "Johannes Roberts' Demonic" which, you know, good for Mr. Roberts finally being in a place in his career where he gets his name over the title of a film, but I'm not sure this was the one he should have wanted to be remembered for.
The characters are all named after the actors in The Breakfast Club. We've got Emilio, Ally, Molly and Judd. There's also an Andrew, which I think came from Andrew McCarthy in Pretty in Pink but I guess we'll never know. Chalk this one up to a mystery I'll die with, I suppose.
Horror icon and special effects guru Tom Savini shows up as the resident of a creepy house they find in the woods. He ties up a few of our 'heroes' until they escape and kill him. I think maybe he was going to feed them to the naked hungry horny angels but he died without getting to spit out any exposition. He must have owed Johannes Roberts a favor. I bet they're even now. The guy who wrote the book "Slugs" also shows up, playing himself. The nymphs take care of him in quick order.
Man, I guess it's fun to watch beautiful naked women eating the faces off of dickhead teenagers, but the film could have been so much more. I think the budget was too low for Roberts to be able to achieve any of the goals he set out to do. The editing makes huge swaths of the film nonsensical and not as much silly fun as it should be. The ending even tries to have a bit of a twist, but because we literally have no idea what's going on, it falls incredibly flat. The old crazy german guy shows up during the closing credits and starts burning something. I think he's burning the woods to save humanity from the horny angels, but who the hell knows? I can only assume so much story for a script until the script starts pissing me off and I take my ball and go home.
This movie isn't good. Don't watch it. Although, and I hate myself for saying this, I noticed there is a Demonic/Forest of the Damned 2 and I kinda can't wait to see it. I think there's a lot of milage left in the naked, horny angel genre that hasn't been explored and I guess I'm the right man for the job. So, I'll take this burden upon myself for you, faithful readers, as long as you hug me in the streets and buy me fruit roll-ups. I'm easy.
Also, this Netflix Roulette thing is most definitely not working out so far. Is it specifically going after garbage? Is that the joke here?
Link to the Movie: If you want, but I warned you!!
Grade: D- (half a grade up for the idea of naked, horny angels)
Favorite Line: "I hope she dies and you go to jail."
Next Week: The Retrieval
