Unscrupulous landlords are nothing new. I mean, how difficult is it to admit that the water in a house has two settings - arctic and third-ring-of-hell? Or to say, you know, Sorry About the Demon that you've made an unholy deal with?
Will (Jon Michael Simpson, Scare Package) is having a bad time. He's a talented baker, awesome at his job as a customer service agent for a toothpaste brand, but not so good at turning up for his girlfriend when she receives a major promotion at work. Frustrated with his tendency to be a feckless shut-in with many ambitions and few successes, Amy (Paige Evans, (Paranormal Nightshift) dumps Will and kicks him out of their shared apartment.
Lucky for Will, he manages to snag a massive house for an extremely low rent where he can bake and answer customer calls to his heart's delight. Unlucky for Will, the slightly creepy family that leased him the house forgot to tell him about the super aggressive house demon that happens to be looking for a new host.
Can our feckless man-child save his relationship with Amy and save the world from a dangerous demon? Well, maybe. He should really just leave the house but he technically has nowhere to go. Armed with toothpaste, cakes and a sceptical best friend, Will decides that he can definitely try.
Written and directed by Emily Hagins, Sorry About the Demon is laugh-out-loud funny which is why it was surprising that it is also scream-out-loud scary. Featuring the most middle-class seance ever seen on screen and an unholy puddle of blood and goo, this film is fun from the very first minute and I liked it a lot. There are also loads of very creepy moments in the film and the makeup / effects on the possessed humans was done really well.
Visually, Sorry About the Demon is a feast for the eyes with a really great setting in a kooky, quirky house. Many scenes were oozing colour, practically eye candy, with a focus on interior design and increasingly garish cakes.
What made this film most enjoyable is that it has great performances all round. Simpson and Evans are great as Will and Amy, a couple on the edge of relational collapse. Jeff McQuitty is brilliant as Will's increasingly-sceptical-yet-surprisingly-supportive best friend Patrick and Olivia Ducayen is very good as the eccentric-yet-somehow-completely-serious Aimee. Special mention has to go young Presley Allard in her role as Grace Sellers, the demon's intended victim. I haven't seen that scary of a performance of a possessed child since The Exorcist.
I give Sorry About the Demon an excellent five out of five stars. Comedy horror is not always my favourite type of horror but I had a lot of fun with this one and will be tracking down other works by Emily Hagins.★★★★★
A Shudder Exclusive, Sorry About the Demon, premiers Thursday, January 19, 2023
