'Demon Kiss' is flawed but watchable

Demon Kiss (2010)
Starring: Sally Mullins, Elizabeth Di Prinzio (aka Jessica T. Perez?), Sebastian Gonzales, and Jamie Macek
Director: Dennis Devine
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A demon goes on a bloody killing spree, thinning the roster of an escort service while moving from body to body while searching for the reincarnated Mary Magdalene, the "mother of all whores." Meanwhile, a police detective (Gonzales) and the "psychoanalyst to the working hooker" (Mullins) are desperately trying to identify who the serial killer is and stop him.

"Demon Kiss" is a movie I should come down on like a ton of bricks. Its director, Dennis Devine, has helmed better movies (with "Caregiver" from 2007 springing immediately to mind); the cast is mostly community theatre-level when it comes to both acting skills and acting styles; the production was so cash-starved that the gore effects are weak and almost no effort was made to hide the fact that the same room is recycled as different locations, and the theological and historical under-pinnings of the story are so shaky that it made my old-time Humanities Major heart cry out in pain.

Despite all those negatives, however, the film held my attention... and that's saying a lot these days when I'm being pulled in all kinds of directions by non-movie related demands. I can't quite put my finger on what made this movie more entertaining than annoying, but the fact that ten minutes didn't go by without a attractive woman getting naked was part of it.

Another part was, despite the fact that the tired cliche of a "hooker with a heart of gold, looking for a way out of the profession" was joined with the slur that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute was one part of the script that stuck in my craw more than anything, was that Elizabeth Di Prinzio (or Jessica T. Perez in some credits listings) gave such a good performance that I wished she'd had more screen time. I was interested in seeing how things turned out for this character, especially with all the references in the film to Jesus having returned to Earth and that they two of them were fated to meet again. (And this is the demon's plan: possess the reincarnated Mary and thus later possess the reincarnated Jesus. Not a very good plan, but still a plan... which is impressive given how stupid and shortsighted this demon is portrayed as.)

A fun, over-the-top performance by Jamie Macek as a demon-possessed homicide detective was also something I found entertaining. He gives viewers a villain to hate even when he's not possessed by the demon.

The rest of the cast, as I mentioned above, are about par for the course for movies at this budget level, including the lead actress Sally Mullins (who also produced the film and co-wrote the script with Devine), but none are downright awful--a couple are borderline, but they were obviously hired for their boobs and tattoos rather than acting talent. But with the two fun performances to lift the film up, everyone else is passable.

The only things that keep this film from getting a Five rating from me instead of the low Four it has now is that Devine and Mullins weren't very adept in hiding their sources of inspiration for the story. I'm not talking about Bible sources, but rather films like "Fallen" and "The Exorcist" and/or low-rent rip-offs like "Eerie Midnight Horror Show". Not hiding your sources becomes a danger when the audience keeps thinking how the source borrowed from is better than what we are currently being subjected to... and it becomes downright fatal when the movie's climax is one that has been done better many, MANY times over. And to make matters worse, the whole bit with Jesus walking the Earth and Mary Magdalene being reincarnated never really pays off... and the obligatory "shock twist ending" pretty much established that it never will.

In the end, "Demon Kiss" stands as a deeply flawed but watchable film... assuming you don't mind boobs and gore mixed in with a weakly conceived theological horror plot.

'Caregiver' is surprisingly good thriller

Caregiver (2007)
Starring: Osa Wallander, Rebeka Montoya, Elisa Eliot, Paula Thomas, Carla Valentine, and Rich Ward
Director: Dennis Devine
Steve's Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Sexually abused as a child and hiding from a physically abusive husband, Paige (Wallander) sets out to get a fresh start in life while helping others who have hard lives. She goes to work as a counciler at a halfway house for girls intending to change the girls' lives by showing them kindness. However, the girls--ranging from abuse victims to hardened juveline delinquents to throw Paige's kindness back in her face and the mental strain causes her to crack. With a background darker and more twisted than any of the inmates in the halfway house, and a tendency to violence that makes the girls look like the children they are, Paige quickly becomes a threat to anyone who crosses her.


"Caregiver" a moody, realistic, well-acted psychological thriller, and it's easy to see why it won Best Picture at the "Phoenix Fear Film Festival" in December of 2006. Osa Wallander is particularly impressives as Paige, a troubled woman who wants to be a positive influence in the world but who is just too mentally disturbed herself to quite manage to be one. Wallander's ability to switch from sugar-sweet to psycho-bitch in a heartbeat is one of the best things about this movie.

Aside from the strong performances by all the film's lead actresses, "Caregiver" benefits from a strong scrpt that has a ring of truth to it. A relative of mine worked for a number of years in a facility exactly like the one in the movie--the layout even resembled it--and the behavior of the girls, staff, and management in "Caregiver" reminded me very much of the stories she used to tell. This sense of realism gives the film a grounding that few chillers manage these days... and it makes me wish that more filmmakers would take such care witih their scripts.

The film further benefits from a subtle, unobtrusive directing and filming style. There are no "look at me showing off my film degree" flourishes in the film. The camera is simply there to pass along the story to us. It's an approach that brings even more realism to the film.

The film is not without its flaws, though... and while many of the strengths of the film arise from the script, so does its weaknesses.

First off, the pre-title murder sequence is rather tepid and it had me fearing for what was to follow--it's the one bit of the movie where i felt the acting left a lot to be desired.

Second, there's a rather stylish and creepy scene where one of the characters commits suicide. While this is a nice set-piece that had me squirming a bit, it might have had more impact if we'd actually known more the character beforehand. It's also something that doesn't seem to be connected with anything else that happens in the film, except a bewildering "haunting" that happens around the halfway mark. That whole element (because it's not even really a subplot) of the film feels out of place and as if it's something that remains from an earlier draft of the script that no one wanted to get rid of. (The girl refusing to wear a shirt was a great establishing bit for the way these halfway houses are, but the other bits of business involving the character distract more than they add to the overall flow of the movie.)

Still, this is a well-done, worthwhile psychological thriller that works because it is populated by realistic characters who exist within a perfectly believable world. Sure, there are some things I could nitpick, but, overall, the film sets a reality and maintains it. This is itself quite a feat for moviemakers, as the last few horror movies I've seen that involved social workers or institutions (like "See No Evil" and "Asylum of the Damned") were both so incompetently written that anyone who's ever so much as read a newspaper would be unable to suspend their disbelief. (The strong sense of realism in the film also makes the one murder that doesn't occur in flashback startling and impactful.)