Every week I do a deep dive into the basement of the Netflix Video Library. This week, what foul hellspawn was belched forth from the bowels of Purgatory?
DAEMONIUM (2015)
Daemonium is an Argentinean Zombie-Demon-Gorefest. It is made by a dude who appears to be the Argentinean Roger Corman, but only if Roger was obsessed with zombies, demons, and lucha libre. The movie is ridiculously violent, stupid, and incomprehensible. You can tell what kind of film you’re dealing with when the opening shot is a close-up of a baby-faced actress in a Catholic schoolgirl outfit sucking on a phallic lollipop. Very classy, Daemonium.
The movie is all dutch angles, mid-90s MTV editing, and the cameras set to maximum vibrate. The school girl wanders into an empty warehouse and is attacked by some dudes in really bad zombie make-up. So she pulls two guns from behind her back Bugs Bunny style and shoots them all. But see, she only shot them with green paintballs. So they all get up again and chase her around some more. Then she hides to reload, which is the last time anybody reloads a gun in this movie. You know the filmmakers aren’t interested in horror when a zombie-demon dude suddenly pops up and there is the weakest, saddest horror music sting in the history of cinema.
Anyways, it turns out that the green paintballs are some sort of tracking paint, and the schoolgirl activates a mini-gun by stepping on her lollipop and the remote-controlled gun somehow shoots all of the zombies and misses the girl. Then another girl shows up played by the same actress and we learn that the first girl is a robot. And possibly the second girl, too. I’m not too sure. At this point, the movie stops making any damn sense and I stop giving a crap.
The “plot” is a series of unconnected scenes where all the actors are dressed in cosplay from their favorite post-apocalyptic video game and they punch and shoot each other and then someone is ripped apart. There is a scene where a “Wizard” summons a “Demon” that looks like a member of a Gwar tribute band. Then a pudgy soldier dude who looks like Argentinean Greg Grunberg from Heroes and Big Ass Spider, steals the magic whatever and gets powers and takes over the world. Then there’s a whole lot of nonsense where the filmmaker decides to rip off Sucker Punch with washed out visuals, slow-mo, and have warrior women with one defining weapon each. But instead of doing anything interesting, it pits them against each other in a series of battles where Rope Girl, Mummy Woman with glowing light sticks, and One-Eyed Chick violently kill each other.
Then everyone is looking for the “Wizard” because he’s the only one that can open the magic whatzit portal. But his wizard powers seem limited to throwing magic dust in people’s eyes. There’s a really stupid scene where the “Wizard” is sleeping on his own “Wanted” poster and a demon that looks like a roadie for the same Gwar cover band pees on the “Wizard’s” head. I should add that the “Wizard” has two disgusting, long rat tails in his hair so we know he’s only a Padawan Learner and not a full-fledged Jedi.
The “Wizard” is captured by a gang dressed up like French aristocrats. I don’t know what the crap is going on there. The Wizard escapes and is chased, and I’m pretty sure he’s captured again but I lost track of what’s supposed to be going on. I could always rewind, but it’s hard enough to get to the end of this movie as it is.
Then my favorite character shows up. He’s this oily, sort of muscled dude who looks like a ‘roided Rick Springfield and walks around shirtless. I will call him Man-Boobs Gomez. Man-Boobs Gomez kind of knows kung fu. There’s several fight scenes where the filmmakers show the clumsy actors tussling in slow motion, making it easier to see when they react to the punch before it lands or where they miss by three feet.
Then there’s a hover-jet, which is a pretty cool effect in this low-budget movie. Nobody ever gets into the hover-jet or flies it around, but I like the effort.
Anyways, the whole movie comes down to The Big Battle involving zombies, soldiers, Man-Boobs Gomez, and the Sucker Punch Girls. Most everyone dies bloodily. Then the Robot Girl from Scene 1 and the “Demon” square off and, instead of doing anything interesting, they just punch each other a lot.
BOTTOM LINE:
Daemonium is not just the worst movie I’ve seen in a while but it’s in the running for one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. And remember, I watch a lot of Netflix films, so this is saying something. Everything is cheap, amateurish, and ugly. The filmmakers don’t understand that it’s really hard to care what happens when all of the characters are violent psychopaths who brutally murder each other. And just to show I’m not some squeamish prude, I really loved Turbo Kid, which is also a brutally violent low-budget, post-apocalyptic action movie. But that one has humor, pays homage to cheesy ’80s action movies, and is far more creative. If I have made Daemonium sound interesting in any way, remember, it is terrible and you should NOT see it. Watch Turbo Kid instead, also available on Netflix, and you will be happier that you did.