There is one shot early on in the otherwise utterly indefensible DEMONIUM that shows that Andreas Schnaas might have a real filmmaker lurking somewhere inside him: a blind woman, unaware that a killer is lurking in her house, walks past the camera towards her bathroom, when all at once the killer jumps out of hiding behind her, running from one room to the room opposite the hallway she's in. It's abrupt, and Schnaas cuts away almost immediately, so that the entire action is on screen for less than a second. It's a "jump outta your seat" moment worthy of Argento's DEEP RED.
Unfortunately, that's the only instance of actual film-making in the whole lousy enterprise. For the most part, Schnaas is just an untalented pretender to the director's chair. Even a reported $2.2 million budget and a chance to shoot 35mm hasn't made his work look any more professional than it does in his infamous shot-on-video no-budget backyard productions. His DP, and I use the term advisedly, makes everything look like video anyway. Almost all of the nighttime exteriors look like they were lit with a single 1K. And Schnaas not only shows his incompetence at composition, but in this film he overuses a camera dolly to ridiculous effect, the act of a filmmaker whose attitude is "Well, we rented the damn thing, might as well use it." I didn't get the impression Schnaas ever bothers with shot lists or storyboards, but even if he does, his work on those must be as inept as his "directing".
And the acting...yeesh! All the cast (but one) are Europeans for whom English is clearly their second or even third language, so everyone's (and I mean everyone's) line delivery is laughable. They sound like they're just reading for their ESL class, and doing it badly. Schnaas was either on a tight deadline here, or just doesn't bother with second takes, because a number of actors flub their lines, then start over. I imagine some of these actors might be pretty talented working in their native languages, but their work here is unlikely to benefit their careers in any way, to put it kindly.
Everyone talks about how gory Schnaas's films are, but you'll see much worse (and more believable) than this in ICHI THE KILLER, a gore film that just happens to be made by a real talent at the helm. Schnaas can't even make a good example of the lowest form of film art this side of hardcore porn. He and Troma deserve each other.
1/10
