The film's premise is a straightforward concept that incorporates classic, overdone horror tropes with slices of Gen X flavor, in the form of found footage - as in documentary footage recovered from the scene. The dual concepts, although not original, are offered up in a clever parallel time line. It creates a sort of murder mystery aspect, broken up by standard paranormal horror moments next to found footage sequences. To a small degree the mixture sometimes feels disjointed, but the back and forth does break up any monotony that would otherwise be present.

The cast give quality performances, the line up consists of recognizable faces, and known names. There is a glare of underdevelopment to the characters, that if a bit of tweaking had been done, could have really became full-bodied portrayals. Still there is enough to make them relatable.

Special effects are the typical gimmicks one expects in these kind of films. Shock gags and sound bites meant to give a fright are over used and often fall flat. Still "Demonic" has its moments of genuine chills, and the gore elements are quality. Think "Insidious" -esque trickery, just a few more misses. The horror moments run the gambit of "see it coming" to "cool and creepy".

Overall the film is a mediocre but watchable horror flick with some quality actors, refreshing concepts, entertaining climax, and enough death to hit that ghoulish spot. It does have some redundancy issues, and a cloud of "know what's going to happen before it happens", but the movie gives enough to make it enjoyable.

DEMONIC is another possession-focused supernatural horror flick that gets by on jump scares and loud noises. If you like watching young actors overacting a great deal and spewing up black slime then maybe this is the film for you, but I'll admit that I didn't care much for this low budget and predictable outing. It's the kind of film that flirts with the found footage genre without going all the way, and one which wastes talented actors (Frank Grillo, Maria Bello) in supporting roles which merely exist to fill up the screen time. Overall it's nothing special, and completely forgettable to boot.

In Louisianna, Detective Mark Lewis (Frank Grillo) is summoned to attend a call from the notorious Livingston House and he finds three bodies and one survivor, John (Dustin Milligan),who is in shock. He calls for backup and also the police psychologist Dr. Elizabeth Klein (Maria Bello) to interrogate John. They learn that the team of ghost-busters formed by Bryan (Scott Mechlowicz),John's pregnant girlfriend Michelle (Cody Horn),Jules (Megan Park),Donnie (Aaron Yoo) and Sam (Alex Goode) decided to perform a séance in the house, where the owner Marta Livingstone committed a violent slaughter many years ago, to summon their spirits. The séance went wrong and released evil spirits that killed Jules, Donnie and Sam; however Michelle and Bryan are missing. While Elizabeth interrogates John, Mark and the technical team tries to retrieve the hard disks with the footages from the house to find where the other two survivors may be, Detective Lewis discloses a dark supernatural secret about John.

"Demonic" is a movie about haunted house where something is missing to be a great horror movie. The screenplay entwines two stories through the testimony of John and the hard disks and the previous events. The atmosphere is gloomy and suspenseful and the performances are good. However the final twist is weak and does not give the climax the story deserved. Anyway it is worthwhile watching this movie but with low expectations. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "A Casa dos Mortos" ("The House of the Dead")

Note: On 14 Dec 2016, I saw this film again.