Review:
Graham Reilly hasn't seen his brothers Jake and Phillip since the tragic death of their father George. He prefers it this way. Leaving the other two to tend to their family's falling-apart farm, Graham took up work in an auto garage in an equally remote location, with only his teenage employee Cole as an occasional intruder on self-imposed isolation.
When Jake shows up unannounced, Graham expects drunkenness and violence. What he gets instead is an impassioned invitation to come back home. Graham wants absolutely no part of a possible reunion, until Jake shows him disturbing footage of Phillip behaving bizarrely, just like their father did before he died.
The blood oath they swore reluctantly brings Graham back to the farm. It also brings back disturbing memories of George gnawing on live chickens, getting shackled to his bed, and being one head spin short of totally terrifying his three sons like Regan MacNeil did her mother Chris.
It seems George's death didn't eliminate the disease that made a monster out of his mind. Whatever that demon may be now appears to possess Phillip. Outsiders couldn't possibly comprehend what is happening, because they'd never believe what the trio already suffered through before. Only the brothers can exorcise the evil determinedly haunting their family, and doing so will require confronting the sins of their traumatic past.
"The Demon Disorder" marks the directorial debut of Steve Boyle, whose decades-long career in makeup and special FX production sees him credited on titles ranging from big blockbusters like Peter Jackson's "King Kong" and "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones" to various tiers of horror including "Winchester" (review here) and "Daybreakers." For his first feature, Boyle does precisely what new directors on restricted budgets are usually supposed to do. Cynics might wrongly call the film "cheap" when what Boyle actually accomplishes is he keeps his movie manageable, co-writing a contained story that can be told with five speaking roles and limited locations. Then he taps into his specific experience, and likely phones in a few favors, to layer on the frosting of fine creature FX that highlight an area of expertise where he can get bigger bangs out of smaller bucks than anyone outside of his field could.
The result becomes a movie that's also representative of what prolific B-movie streamer Shudder does best with its original features. Although pops of panic and slitherings from slimy grotesqueries serve up sudden shocks, "The Demon Disorder's" creeps mostly come quietly while the movie squares its spotlight on sibling melodrama. Not exactly a slow-burn, the film's suspense still stays subdued, as Shudder's offerings often do. Australian accents and the farmhouse setting add enough of an edge so the film never feels the fully familiar weight of an average American effort at this level, either.
The synopsis might lead someone to mistake "The Demon Disorder" for yet another routine possession thriller, but the film only echoes common exorcism tropes when looked at reductively. With content constructed around a metaphor for dealing with figurative family demons, the movie doesn't tread into the typical territory of priests spraying holy water or black-eyed victims barfing up pea soup and religious obscenities in equal measure. "The Demon Disorder" stays closer in tone to "Relic" (review here) as grounded, thematic chillers go.
Unlike "Relic" though, "The Demon Disorder" wasn't able to reach me like it probably should have. As of this writing, not only am I six months removed from the death of my own dementia-afflicted father, it's been under one month since myself and my brother, whom I've only seen in person twice in the last 12 years, spread my dad's ashes together. Rather than relate on a personal level, I found myself consciously noticing that the fictional pain of these estranged brothers and the sadness of seeing their father succumb to something terrible wasn't affecting me emotionally. Maybe that's on me. Maybe "The Demon Disorder" just doesn't hit the right notes, or hit them as hard as it could.
To people pressed with too many options and not enough time when programming their own "31 Days of Halloween" marathons, I don't know that I'd recommend "The Demon Disorder's" smaller-scale scares as an essential option that must make the cut. For people whose spooky season starts in September, on the other hand, "The Demon Disorder's" mutation-driven drama might fit better on an expanded 60-day schedule of early evening screenings before moving up to something bigger and bolder.
NOTE: There is a mid-credits scene.
Review Score: 60