The Demon Disorder

If a film of any sort is set in Australia’s rural areas, there is a guarantee that of at least one tough hardy no nonsense character. Be it horror or comedy, whatever, it’s a given.

In The Demon Disorder there’s four; father and his three sons. An incident with his father caused Graham Reilly (Christian Willis) to leave the family home/farm to set up a new life as a mechanic with apprentice Cole (Tobie Webster).

When his alcoholic brother Jake (Dirk Hunter) turns up asking Graham to return as their younger brother Philip (Charles Cottier) is starting to show the signs that afflicted their father George (John Noble) – whom we see in flashbacks and Graham’s nightmares.

Graham has no wish to return but is attuned to his brothers’ resentment of him leaving the way he did, so agrees. At the house the memories resurface as well as something far more primal, and evil that they all thought had been dealt with.

Debut director Steven Boyle and co-writer Toby Osborne make a decent stab at doing something different the possession sub-genre and just about gets away with it. That is mainly due to the rapport that Willis, Hunter and Cottier have whom convince as estranged siblings but with an underlying love for each other, not to mention a base instinct to stay alive.

But it’s the special effects that set The Demon Disorder apart from other low budget one or two location shoots. And that should come as no surprise as Boyle has worked on the SFX for some of the biggest films in cinema. Here he’s going for gross out body horror and killings, nicely working the practical effects, if the CGI exposes the budget's limits.

Frankly it’s not much of an issue as for the most part Boyle has done some decent work with the grubby rural location managing to create some decent tension and dread as the secrets come to light.

The Demon Disorder is available now on Shudder.