Daemonium: Soldier of the Underworld (2015)

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Daemonium is a strange film. It sets out to do something ambitious: tell a story about good versus evil in a strange world slightly different to our own in an inventive way. Does it succeed? Sort of.The story-telling here is non-linear, and jumps around. This can be brilliant if done well. In this case, it sort of works, however the pieces of the story don't quite fit together at the end, which denies the audience the moment of revelation when everything fits together. At the same time, there clearly is a set timeline there, which leaves the audience frustrated by the plot rather than with a sense of wonder at the bizarreness of it all, as with Un Chien Andalou.Some of the visuals are great. There's one scene where a character has a vision of what has happened in the past, and the way it's shot actually manages to emulate the visual feel of TV programs from the past, such as Star Trek. The visual theme also feels consistent throughout the film.Most of the film is okay. The acting is all either good or okay, with none standing out as particularly bad. Some of the fight scenes are entertaining and exciting. However, towards the end the quality of these scenes begins to drop significantly. The big final fight scene in particular is a big let-down, looking more comical than dramatic.The camera-work needs improving. There is an overuse of Dutch angles, particularly in the opening scene, some of the editing is too choppy, and shakey camera shots happen far too often. So overall, I'm not sure about this one. It has some interesting ideas and has the guts to try them, but it's let down in several places by bad camera-work, or plot inconsistencies. So I give it a 6/10, because there were a lot of good and inventive ideas about both the story and execution. However, not all of these paid off, and other elements, such as the final battle, weren't given the attention they needed.

We watched this as a group that enjoys horrible movies. This movie is beyond any word used to describe horrible. God awful and pure crap are too good for this film. The best we could figure out is this atrocious excuse for a flick is that someone took something from just about every sci-fi and horror film/TV show and blended them all together. Yes, there is even anime references and plenty of over the top cheesiness. I myself wanted to delete what IMDB has for a plot and rewrite it to say "Absolutely none". We all believe this was all filmed, edited and produced on a used iPhone 7 and iPad for special effects. If you know you have 2 hours left to live you should watch paint dry or water boil long before you consider ever watching this slop.

I actually wanted to give this movie a 7.5, and not an 8, but the IMDb system doesn't let you do that, so I rounded up, because for all its many problems, this movie won me over. You'll notice that the other reviewers complained about the lack of coherence in the story line. I get that, and I agree with them. This is, in some ways, an awful movie. But it's awful in interesting ways...it's the movie that the first "Underworld" COULD have been. The deal-breaker for most people is going to be that you are dropped into the middle of a situation with very little backstory or exposition or character set up, and you never really get anything more than the barest sketches of anything resembling that as the movie progresses. And characters the movie has been following die abruptly and the movie then switches to OTHER characters who pull out new abilities and fighting moves and backstories from nowhere, with very little justification or setup. So the end result is like watching a series of "Metal Hurlant" episodes, or (as one earlier reviewer cleverly noticed) extended versions of the old animated "Aeon Flux" cartoons.You never know quite what's going on, or why people are doing what they do, and the fact that one actress plays several different roles (with the barest throwaway description of "synthetic combat robots" or some such silliness) only adds to the confusion. However, if you can put up with that, you can groove on some wildly inventive character designs, costumes, makeup, and fight scenes. And for all the lack of actual character development in the screenplay, the actors pump huge amounts of energy into filling out their cardboard roles. "Falcinelli", who seems to be sort of the "hero" in this, is especially good. All you ever learn about him is that he's a low level street wizard who mostly uses a Tarot deck to work his magic and is something of a scoundrel who enjoys cigars...but man, he is fun to watch in action. So: should you watch this? I can't tell what kind of mood you will be in when you start watching, so I can't tell whether it will pull you in or annoy the hell out of you. But you might like it.

As per usual with me I utilize movies similarly as other utilize music as I am preoccupied with other endeavors. I am surrounded by 3 forty inch screens with the one the right playing movies. Believe me with EVERYTHING being a rehash of something else it does not take full attention to understand a story plot. If the dialogue is atrocious and I laugh, the movie was worth it. If the movie demands a closer view, I will then pay full attention to it in a full viewing. This movie was an enigma. Every time I glanced at it, there was no coherency in it at all. OK so I make the decision to watch said film. (I use the word film because there is nothing else I can think of to name these atrocities to the human race. I had my Dewalt drill fully charged for emergency trepanation. I believe the synopsis to be incorrect and nonsensical in that Razor has to summon back the demon from Hell or it is inevitable he dies. I am sure he would rather not have to do that since demons are foul and rarely are conscious of practicing good personal hygiene and offend all. I did love the "He-man" moment when that demon in his ratty, decaying form said essentially "I HAVE THE POWER" and transformed into a slightly less ratty and decaying demon and got his nether world kicked. There are quite a few characters in this movie that are blind in the left eye. I think it was the group's initiation right which used a BB gun. They should know better!The writer thinking he was experiencing a coherent and cohesive moment thought: "I WILL throw everything into this movie and Richard Simmons!" I must saying getting Richard in the film as the Razor's gay brother to get his minion into shape through aerobics was as brilliant as the pink shorts Richard wore.Donald Trump was adequate as the demon. No make up was needed nor lines since he just ranted unintelligibly during his scenes just like he does in his daily life.The musical score was created by my 8 year old neighbor Billy that is continually locked in his parent's basement with his laptop and aging 8-bit Nintendo gaming unit and a frozen TV dinner.Face it, do we REALLY want to or CARE what exactly this heinous conveyance of an incongruent idea means? NO! This is one of those movies that absolutely offers nothing. Not good enough to care to watch and not bad enough to be funny. It is what I call a "Purgatory" film. It is in a nebulous state with nothing positive to offer anyone and just exists. Our current film production is overwhelming re pleat with these. In their attempt to become your one and only source of movie entertainment, all studios are pulling their property from other sources and creating their own service for you to pay for. So unfortunately we are left with tons of excrement such as this that streaming sources are filling their coffers with for us to view. It is never ending. There will be hominids that will love this picture but remember the people in psychological asylums have Internet access also.