THE BLACK DEMON: Camp Played Like Shakespeare

When it comes to “bad movies” there are many degrees that separate them. There are those movies that are so bad that you wouldn’t wish them on your worst enemy even as a form of payback. Then there are also those bad movies that are so bad that it’s what really makes them great. The Black Demon is more in the second category, where the movie overall isn’t bad because the actors take what is arguably some of the worst dialogue ever written in a script and deliver the lines like they’re making Citizen Kane. Each and every one of the actors (including the children) take what was handed to them and delivers near-pitch-perfect performances while still being in this absolutely bizarre and laughable situation of their own making.

The movie is a horror film (I think) and starts out like many in the genre do, with a family in a car, heading somewhere meant to be fun or adventurous. Josh Lucas plays Paul, the father of the family who is a successful man working in the oil business. His character is fairly nice for the first two minutes on screen then for whatever reason he turns into a bit of a jerk for the duration of the film. Paul has taken his family to Mexico for a vacation and almost from the word jump things start to go badly.

Fernanda Urrejola plays Paul’s wife, Ines who is the mother of their two children, Audrey and Tommy (Venus Ariel and Carlos Solórzano respectfully). All of them do an incredible job playing their parts to the point that it would be quite nice to see them as a family in a serious drama. I believed that they were husband and wife, brother and sister, the family dynamic was pretty impressive. Inez was the mom just needing a break, Audrey the teenage daughter who just doesn’t have time for anything, and Tommy, the quiet son who has jokes. It was great.

From bad to worse

It turns out it’s a working vacation for Paul, something that Inez is not a bit happy about, and he has to hitch a ride to an oil rig in the middle of the ocean to perform a routine inspection. It’s what he does. Everyone he meets is a little standoffish and he himself has quite the “I’m better than you” attitude but eventually, he gets a ride out to the rig to check things out, leaving Inez, Audrey, and Tommy back on dry land to fend for themselves. When Paul gets to the rig he quickly finds it in disrepair and only two men left trying to hold it together. It’s a mess. To make matters worse Paul is told that the black demon (it’s a megalodon from Mexican folklore) has been trying to destroy the platform and take back its ocean.

Meanwhile, on shore, Inez and the kids are attempting to have a nice evening when a group of men continuously make them all uncomfortable by being overly aggressive and rude. Inez decides that the best thing to do (obviously this was the only option) is load the kids on a boat and make for the oil rig to hang out with Paul, the two crewmen, and a giant shark who is seeking revenge. Logic problems aside, this was really the easiest way to get them all there so I can’t fault them for that.

Once everyone finally makes their way to the oil rig and gets good and settled in, the real fun starts. We get glimpses of limbs that have been bitten off by other crew members, bobbing in the ocean. We see all the problems that the rig itself is having as it wrecks the environment. We get to see the shark bite a boat in half totally ruining some people’s day, it was a blast. Then the real questions start floating to the surface, why has the black demon returned, how are any of them going to escape the rig with their lives and is there any putting a stop to such a massive monster?

That’s not how Jason Statham would have done it

The issues here don’t really stem from a lack of imagination, the central story is pretty well thought out and leans heavily into Mexican folklore. The biggest issue is the way they chose to handle the material versus a way that would have left room for things to be more fun. I’m not against playing things right down the middle, but the script (written by Boise Esquerra) taking everything one hundred percent seriously as opposed to having some tongue-in-cheek fun, left no room for knowing winks to the audience and left us wondering why any of these people even liked each other. Top to bottom, no one was very likable.

As far as the action and the way it was shot go, Adrian Grunberg really did a pretty fantastic job. The camera wasn’t boring, it floated around and gave plenty of interesting angles without once doing the stalking shark point-of-view shot that every hungry shark movie gives us. That isn’t a complaint, it was a relief to not see it for once. There are so many other things the camera can be doing and honestly, if you want to scare someone in a shark movie, it’s better if we don’t know where it is until the last possible moment.

Conclusion:

This isn’t going to be nominated for movie of the year, it might even collect a few Razzies, but for my money, it was fun. The fact that the dialogue was so underwritten but the actors chewed through it like the amazing professionals that they are made me want to root for this film. The shark was big, and to me, big shark always equals a good time. There will be no complaints from the creature feature lovers on this one, it was mean and nasty and everything you could want out of a shark that is purposely hunting down people.

If you like monster movies where the people involved are hilariously outgunned but go ahead and give it their best anyway, then you should give this one a try. It’s not going to change your life, and you will probably be rooting for the shark to eat everyone very early on, but that’s kind of the point. It wasn’t made to win awards, it was made to entertain you for ninety minutes, and that it can definitely do.

The Black Demon is now available VOD!

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