Dir. Steven Boyle (2024)
Two brothers come together to fight the demons of their deceased father's past.
Mental illness in films can be difficult to portray in a way that tracks for an audience that may well have no experience with the illnesses being discussed, but horror provides a particularly potent avenue to explore them. A lot of the horror genre seeks to deal with things that we don't understand, and there's perhaps no part of healthcare that is less understood, even with all of the millions of dollars and decades of research, than mental health. Discussing these topics through the lens of possession, or demonic entities, is particularly interesting, a way to explain what it feels like inside those who suffer from these illnesses in a way that a layman audience can understand. Today's film, The Demon Disorder, does exactly this, discussing the familial experience with mental illness as if the party is possessed by something that seeks to control others within the family unit in the same way.
Brothers Phillip (Charles Cottier) and Jake Reilly (Dirk Hunter) have come together in their auto repair store and family farm, trying to come to terms with the recent death of their father, George (John Noble). As the illness threatens to infect them as well, the brother must struggle to understand why things are happening and fight to survive before they are claimed as well. The brothers struggle with a family sickness, one that threatens to pull others from their periphery into the fight as well.
The Demon Disorder is a fairly standard discussion of these issues, and while it does a good job of displaying all of the family curse with some excellent body horror effects, it largely fails to add anything beyond what the genre has already explored. It's a decent film, and Cottier and Hunter do a great job in their roles as the tortured brothers. There's a lot of grief here, and the film does an excellent job of talking about it in a way that's conducive to the horror and possession genres. There are also some pretty stellar effects, the result of the film being directed by Australian effects master Steven Boyle.
Unfortunately, there's not enough meat on the bones here to really make a lasting impact. It all feels rote, a been-there-done-that type of film that doesn't add anything new to a type of horror that feels like it's saturating the market at this point. It does largely avoid becoming yet another slow burn horror, and while it does certainly drag at times, it never lets too long go between scares or gory destruction. It's the lack of message, however, that allows the film to be bogged down into becoming just another movie that uses horror subjects as an allegory for something larger. It's not particularly clever, nor is it especially creative, a sin that prevents The Demon Disorder from becoming better than it ends up being.
Shudder has struggled at times with selecting films that serve as anything more than cannon fodder to pad their lineup. I'm obviously a big fan of the network, and there are some true gems that they've brought before an audience that would otherwise likely never get to see them. Unfortunately, this isn't one of them, a largely forgettable film with not enough to say and not enough new ways to say it. It's decent, but it's not one that's going to stick in your mind much longer than it takes to watch it. For fans of the genre, though, there's enough here that may make it worth a watch anyway.
Who this movie is for: Possession movie fans, Mental illness horror lovers, Mechanics
Bottom line: The Demon Disorder is nothing new, and it doesn't have a whole lot to say on a subject that's already been explored in depth. It does contain some pretty stellar body horror, however, and the performances within make it worth a watch regardless of its lack of addition to the genre as a whole. It's streaming on Shudder September 6th, and while it's not going to blow you away, you should still probably check it out.
