Five years after the release of Chappie, Neill Blomkamp's back to scare the bejeezus out of audiences with supernatural horror Demonic. It's all in the title, really. For those who might require a little more convincing, the first teaser dropped today and promises plenty of chills ahead of its release later this summer. Watch above.
Not giving too much away, is it? That initial tease sets the tone nicely, introducing Carly Pope (Elysium) as a woman who appears to be participating in a voluntary virtual study of some sort. Upon entering this alternate reality, she encounters strange shifting landscapes and summons a demonic entity with rather large claws.
This aligns well with the official Demonic synopsis: "A young woman unleashes terrifying demons when supernatural forces at the root of a decades-old rift between mother and daughter are revealed.” Whiffs of Relic and Hereditary, anyone?
Blomkamp spent time during lockdown cooking up Demonic, taking inspiration from low-budget, big-earning horror hits before he began shooting in Canada. He told Entertainment Weekly earlier this year: “Living out here in this slightly more rural area I was thinking we should self-finance something so that we could make something cool. For a long time, I’ve been really interested in films like Paranormal Activity and lower-budget stuff that is pretty terrifying, and so we just started working on this concept. It grew and it got bigger than films like Paranormal Activity but it was cut from the same cloth really. So that’s what it is. We made use out of a lot of the locations out here and just shot it through the summer.”
As he mentions, the finished result is a little spendier as evidenced by the trailer's CG imagery which is frankly pretty damn haunting. Chris William Martin (Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem), Michael Rogers (Supernatural), and Nathalie Boltt (District 9) round out the rest of the supporting cast for what's hopefully a return to form for the sci-fi filmmaker.
All we need now is for Demonic to be a huge success so Disney might change their minds and let Blomkamp film that Alien 5 project… Demonic arrives in US theaters on August 20, and in UK cinemas and UK/US VOD August 27.
