DEMONS RISING

Demons Rising revolves around an occult book, the Liber Malorium, which has gotten into the wrong hands. Kyle Rush and his girlfriend Sonya (also his partner in crime) are paid $2 million to steal the book from its high security resting place within a museum of sorts. The tome apparently has been owned by such ‘greats’ as Genghis Khan and Hitler. It is a work of the Devil that has the power of life and death within its pages. While attempting to sell the book, Sonya gets killed by a blow dart before it is discovered that it has actually been swapped for a fake.

Meanwhile, Mathius has traded his career in the US military’s covert group DELTA 4, to pursue a life of peace as a Buddhist monk. He is then ludicrously consulted and recruited in order to find the real book… and stop the Demons Rising…

If the above paragraph sounds a little incoherent I apologise but you have to appreciate the material I was watching! Weighing in at a hefty 2 hour runtime, this zero budget effort is a confused little piece to say the least. Starting as occult horror it soon has takes on a ‘Boyz in the Hood’ type attitude before a martial art element kicks in.

When you strap in for a slice of no budget pie you kind of expect substandard acting and home grown special effects. I can almost forgive those two. But what is unacceptable is the complete disregard for anything remotely audible. The dialogue is either screamed at such volume it is distorted, or it is so low it is hard to decipher what is being said. The outdoor scenes in particular were a nightmare. Buses, sirens, even birds tweeting in the tree’s were more then a match for the actors recitals!

But persevere and you will be rewarded. Especially if you play a little drinking game I devised while watching this mess. Basically, every time you hear the word "BOOK" while watching the movie, swig a shot of whiskey. Trust me, you will be rat-arsed after 20 minutes. (It could even make watching the rest of the movie bearable!). "Where is the book? Give me the book? We have to find that book. The book is cursed. You haven’t read the book have you? Give me that motherfucking book you fucker". And so on and so forth!! The special effects were mainly the software generated kind, but the movie did benefit from a vast array of coloured contact lenses. There are greens, reds, blues and those Darth Maul ones with the cat pupil shaped slits. Very demonic indeed…

The fight scenes had some interesting sound effects. Or should I say sound effect. Whether it was a kick to the face, a block with a forearm or a knee to the groin, it made no difference whatsoever. Every strike sounded like a gunshot from Call of Duty on the PS3!! Surely there is a special effects CD out there they could have used just to vary it a little? Maybe they blew the $100 budget on contact lenses. Who knows?

On a positive side there is a lot of violence in the movie. Guns a plenty, tongues getting bitten out, even penises getting ripped off. Unfortunately the execution makes a Hershel Gordon Lewis movie appear like a Lucas Arts epic but hey!

That said, I couldn’t take my eyes off the damn thing! I even watched the end credits roll and I was glad I did because there was a real treat to follow. As the final credit dripped off the screen we are informed that Rick Shaw (stuntman) broke the world record for "being on fire on camera for over 1 minute and 18 seconds".

With that in mind, I look down at the disc and a certain word springs to mind – kerosene!

Review by Marc Lissenburg