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Overall Rating : 4/10
Directed By : Adam Matalon
Jerry Broome
Elisabeth Jamison
Anne McDaniels
Brandon Goins
Supplied By : MTI Home Video
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : July. 21, 2008
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| PLOT Twenty Years ago on Thanksgiving Day, ice climber and adventurer Sean McIntyre savagely murdered his entire family and hanged himself in the attic. The murders are an unwelcome and unspoken part of a town’s history until Richard, a savvy college student, convinces three couples to spend Halloween night in the house and solve the mystery during a live webcast. As they move through the abandoned house, they soon realize they are not alone, and the night becomes a fight for survival. |
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| THE REVIEW in DEAD ON DEMAND, after being attacked by a Yeti, on one of his climbs, acclaimed mountain climber, Sean McIntyre suffered a severe brain trauma. So severe, that a month later on Thanksgiving day, he slaughtered his entire family with various climbing tools - all of which occurs before he finally hangs himself. We rejoin the story 20 years after the fact, which sees a wealthy college student named Richard plotting a scheme to make money, a scheme that features the supposedly haunted McIntyre house and a streaming internet broadcast. Since a 5,000 prize is being rewarded to whomever can spend the night in the house, it wasn't long before the web cast had it's contestants which includes a group of college students, and a Porn Star, named Velvet Luv, as she is part of the effort that Richard trying to gain more subscribers. Later on, Ricard and his assistant Peter pull the predictable scare pranks on the guest that do little to frighten them. But soon what goes on in the house is mo prank at all when an angry Sean McIntyre appears as a result of a botched Séance. As he kills and kills again each time with a different climbing tool, those that have managed to stat alive must find a way out of the old house before they too meet a deadly end. Well, let's see, we've already sort have seen this premise, and with reality TV basically ruling Television these days, we know we were bound to see more films take advantage of both reality TV and technology has to offer. From the start it's obvious that DEATH ON DEMAND, is much like HALLOWEEN RESURRECTION. In the film, the contestants of a reality show, strapped with web cams. rummage through, and spend the night in the Myers' House - only to be stalked and dropped later by the deranged Michal Myers himself. This is almost to the number as to what happens in the later quarter of DEATH ON DEMAND, however this film starts off with a legend. The film goes on to show what happened on that fateful Thanksgiving day, when Sean McIntyre killed his family as well as himself. The legend aspect rivals that of many 1980's slashers, the one I could only think of of the top of my head what be MADMAN. So if you think about it DEATH ON DEMAND's plot is essentially made up of two angles....one is a classic set up, while the other fairly new in recent times. The result? It's only a so-so affair. Obviously, shot on s low budget by the looks of it, it takes it a long while to get to where it wants to go. Where it wants to go, is to it's gore content, because that is where it's undeniably at it's best, but in it's other areas, we are left with a lot of fluff, such as bad dialogue , thin characters, and not so great performances coming from the film's actors. The acting is not so good and was probably had the film school level, as the level here rages from good, fairly but to bad. As I said earlier, when mentioning the film's look, it has a low budget, shot on cheap digital look...this is more apparent in the beginning, however as it gets dark outside, that actually works in the film's favor. As most of the gore occurs when it's dark, breaking some kind of sept to it. And when we see this gore we also get to see the plethora of weapons in which he chooses to wield, which includes various mountain climbing tool - A gimmick that stems from films such as SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE(in which a drill with a long drill bit is used to slay), and NAIL GUN MASSACRE(the weapon used, featured in title). Overall as far as DEATH ON DEMAND goes, there really isn't very much creativity going on with it, as all of this has been seen before(it seems as if i've said that a lot as of late). From the "so and so, who killed his family many years ago" back-story to the HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION set up( they even had a group of teens gathered around to watching the web cast....much like RESURRECTION), it is nothing more than mediocre familiarity, but it does indeed have it's moments |
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| GORE
METER 5/110 Decapitations, severed limbs, torn out intestines, etc. |
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 3.5/10 Indie Rock(that most of the time you can't here do to it being drowned out by dialogue), the rest was comprised of some decent suspense scoring, but still nothing special. |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM While watching DEATH ON DEMAND, it was like watching a low budget version of a higher budget film, where the higher budgeter would have more freedom, this film felt confined, as if it's money was mostly put into it's story and not it's characters(with th obvious exclusion of the character of Sean McIntyre), the characters here all sort of seem the same, at least in my opinion. |
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