Demon Slaughter (2003)

Posted on Oct 08, 2003 under Horror |

Produced, written and directed by Ryan Cavalline
Starring
- Adam Berasi
- Vic Badger
- Bill Wittman
- Shannon Johnson

Demon Slaughter could very well be Ryan Cavalline’s best movie to date.

I have to qualify that, because even though I’ve seen and reviewed his movies before (3 Evil Tales, Shudder, and Serial Killer), I know I’ve missed at least a couple. (I’ve actually had a screener of Evil Tales 3 sitting here for more months than I care to count. Demon Slaughter came along later, but because it has zombies, it got bumped to the top of the heap for Month of the Living Dead 3. Life is full of such permutations. And most of them are more interesting than this digression, so maybe I’ll get back to the review.) But it’s clear that his storytelling and filmmaking skills are on the rise.

**“A bullet in the head, or Queer Eye — your choice!”**

That’s not to say that we’ve got stellar cinema here. The budget is, as with his other features, cripplingly low. While I’ve seen some filmmakers get an impossible amount of production value out of minimal financing, there’s a certain common denominator threshold below which impoverishment is gonna show. But even there, Cavalline’s got a story this time out which doesn’t feel so much like it was constructed specically to appease budgetary restrictions.

There are other problems, but let’s get to them in their own good time, shall we?

Our main character is a hitman named Jimmy (Adam Berasi, who also starred in Serial Killer). As with most movie hitmen with a heart of gold, Jimmy’s losing his taste for the profession, and is just winding up his last hit. Unlike other hitmen with a heart of gold, Jimmy doesn’t actually have a heart of gold; he’s pure bastard through and through. He’s not looking to get out of the business because he’s going soft, as evidenced by his cold-hearted dispatch of his last mark; he’s just getting tired of risking his life every time he goes to work.

And here I thought shaving in the shower was safer.

His plan, in classic style, is to take possession of the money that his last victim had stolen from the mob (thus earning a contract on his life) and use it to fund his retirement. And just to prove what a cold-hearted sonofagun he is, he tells his girlfriend all of this, then shoots her so no one will know he’s leaving. What a guy.

‘Course, the path of escape from the mob never runs smooth, and the heir to the family business, Little Joey (Bill Wittman), sends out a couple of goons to block his escape. It’s here where the budget starts to severely constrict what can and can’t be shown. Thanks to some judiciously used over-the-counter computer effects software, the guns all have muzzle flash. However, there just wasn’t money enough for squibs or general property damage, so the end result is that, aside from the few bullets that manage to strike flesh, nothing leaves a hole. (At one point, Jimmy walks past a window with impunity, despite being in the line of fire. He knew they didn’t have anything that could penetrate a quarter-inch pane of glass.)

Exactly what the Bible’s missing: Nekkid angels.

Jimmy takes a little visit then to the bar where Little Joey hold court, and another massive damage-less firefight ensues (watch for director Cavalline as the shotgun-wielding barkeep). Then it’s off to try to save Jimmy’s wife, who’s about to have a visit from a couple of Joey’s thugs as an obedience training lesson. (On the one hand, Jimmy never told his wife that he had a girlfriend on the side. On the other hand, the girlfriend found out that having Jimmy open up and tell you stuff isn’t great for your life expectancy.)

Things go from bad to worse for Jimmy when he gets home. Not only did the thugs get there first, but they get the drop on Jimmy, and as one of them holds a gun to Jimmy’s head…

The thug suddenly disappears.

Confused and angry, Jimmy tries to find a safe haven, and ends up driving to the abandoned cabin that his girlfriend had mentioned her uncle owning. It looks livable (gotta love those Victorian Jesus pictures all over the walls), but he falls asleep and has a bizarre dream of naked, angelic women mysteriously beckoning him. (Remember: Ryan Cavalline movie = make-work project for local strippers.) When he wakes up, his unplugged TV starts ranting at him about God having forgotten him.

Now THERE’S a happy fellow.

And then he meets a jovial fellow (Vic Badger, also of Shudder and Serial Killer) on his front step who gives some pretty clear indications of actually being Satan himself. (Clue #1: He can instantly turn into a burlesque of Christ on the cross, complete with crown of thorns and nailholes.) Ol’ Scratch apparently saw The Prophecy, because he thinks that Jimmy’s of a higher caliber than “the other monkeys,” and wants to recruit him for his own little mob. And just to give Jimmy a push in the right direction…

…The cabin is attacked by zombies.

Now, I don’t want to tell you all the rest of the story. But one of the biggest problems is that there isn’t much more story to tell, which is disappointing. After the surprisingly effective characterization of Jimmy as a completely reprehensible antihero who nevertheless has the audience on his side, after the long setup to get us to “Pulp Fiction meets Night of the Living Dead” (or “The Sopranos vs. The Evil Dead,” or… heck, make up your own), it runs out of gas right when it starts getting good and ends up being a Twilight Zone story stretched out to twice its optimal length.

Late Afternoon of the Suburban Dead!

And, although this may seem nitpicky and petty to dwell on, I just gotta say: The makeup effects suck, specifically the zombies. The combination of thick greasepaint and lumpy face putty (which looks like plasticine) is laughably bad. Maybe if we had the generous shadows of night to help hide the imperfections, it would have worked, but in the unforgiving light of midday…

That said, this movie still had a lot going for it in the micro-budget realm. The dialogue was crisp and well-delivered (and weighted with more than enough F-bombs for verisimilitude), and the gunbattles were effectively staged, for all of their squiblessness. Cavalline’s also got a good feel for spooky pacing, even in the middle of action sequences.

Now if we just had a third act, we’d really be onto something here.