Movie Review: THE DEMON DISORDER

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: September 6th, 2024 / 03:24 AM

THE DEMON DISORDER key art | ©2024 Shudder

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Christian Willis, Dirk Hunter, Charles Cottier, John Noble, Tobie Webster
Writers: Steve Boyle & Toby Osborne
Director: Steve Boyle
Distributor: Shudder
Release Date: September 6, 2024 (Shudder)

THE DEMON DISORDER treats demonic possession as a hereditary physical disease. It mixes Cronenbergian levels of body horror with family drama that has elements of both tragedy and dark humor.

We’re in rural Australia. We start with views of a rundown house behind a chain-link fence. The place is occupied, though, by two adult Reilly brothers. Alcoholic Jake (Dirk Hunter) is the eldest; troubled youngest Phillip (Charles Cottier) is turning twenty-eight. Middle brother Graham (Christian Willis) fled the home after the death of their father George (John Noble), and now sleeps in his auto parts store.

The Reillys have a small, isolated family farm with cows and chickens. When a cow gives birth to an extremely distorted, skinless but living calf (it takes us a while before we’re told that’s what it is), Jake concludes, “It’s happening again.”

Jake therefore drives out to Graham’s auto parts shop. After alarming Graham’s lone employee, Cole (Tobie Webster), Jake insists that the reluctant Graham go home with him. Phillip needs help, and they’ve sworn a blood oath.

We don’t find out exactly what that oath is until almost the end of the film. By then, we’ve had strange murderous behavior, strange demonic growths, and a crash course in the practicalities of what’s required when a loved one/relative is possessed.

We get flashbacks to the brothers trying to handle their father’s possession. As with many non-horror films centered around familial illness, THE DEMON DISORDER mixes in some deadpan humor with anguish that readily invites empathy.

Director Steve Boyle, who wrote the script with Toby Osborne, maintains a baseline of reality through all the weirdness. The sets look like what happens when people live in environments that they can’t bring themselves to maintain. The characters’ beliefs and experiences likewise inform how they cope. The guilt weighing down on the brothers is so thick that we can almost touch it.

Willis as Graham, who wants to escape the family but can think of little else, is a study in quiet regret. Cottier effectively brings forth the various aspects of Phillip as frightened, confused, and possessed. Hunter gives Jake a backwoods intensity that makes us worry about him. Noble has the proper gravitas as George, and suitable menace when the demon speaks through him. Webster handles Cole’s transition from easy confidence to astonishment with aplomb.

While there have been a number of other films using possession as a metaphor for more conventional deterioration, the mood and methods of THE DEMON DISORDER make it unique and affecting enough to be worthy of attention.

There is a mid-end credits sequence, so those who want to see more of the creature effects should stick around.

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