Back to our usual five films this week, and we have an interesting mix of horror and terrifying reality. We’ll start with “The Demoness,” which just came out, along with “Super Happy Fun Clown,” also new. We finally got around to “Megan is Missing” from 2011. For a couple of older films, we went with “Wisconsin Death Trip” (1999) and “Come and See” (1985).
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Mainstream Films:
2025 The Demoness
Directed by: Andrew de Burgh
Written by: Andrew de Burgh
Stars: Akihiro Kitamura, Riley Nottingham, Bella Glanville
Run Time: 1 Hour, 33 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A demoness visits Earth to cause trouble for one couple in particular. A couple with relationship issues. We had issues understanding several of the characters. After the couple, she moves on to mayhem to a series of victims. We both agree that it suffers from too much dialogue that’s difficult to understand, poor pacing, and bad CGI. It didn’t work for either of us, with Kevin being more forgiving of it.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open in an apartment as a jerky-moving demoness wanders through the house and stops next to the occupied bed. Credits roll.
In the morning, the couple wakes up and complains about the economy and their jobs. They argue about Sarah’s inability to get a job. That night, the demoness comes back into their room, and this time, we see what it does. It wakes up Jack and has sex with him, but Sarah can’t hear them and doesn’t wake up.
In the morning, Sarah finds some evidence of sex in the bed and assumes Jack’s been cheating on her. The demoness comes to her and they argue about the sex last night. “Kill him if you want to live.” That evening, she poisons Jack and dismembers him on the autopsy table they have in the garage for some reason. She mumbles in British throughout the process.
The demoness returns and bites Sarah on the neck, vampire-style. The demoness then conjures up assistance, and Satan himself shows up, also speaking too modulated to understand more than half of it. She admits that she’s had a great time with Jack and Sarah, but now she wants more. She wants to be able to take human form to make her job easier. He gives her a month to see if she can torture ten people.
Now in human form, the demoness heads to Hollywood for victims. We cut to a disco that looks like it was filmed on a green screen without the processing. Two guys hit on an attractive-looking human who’s not at all a demon; she says she’s Charlotte. She’s rude, and they love it. One guy leaves, leaving Steve, a Tech Bro, with Charlotte. The two seem to compare to see who’s the most shallow.
She invites him over to her place after dancing. She’s surprisingly philosophical, which puts him off a little. She makes him a drink, and shockingly, it’s drugged. She dresses him up like a clown, puts him back on the autopsy table, and makes a whole unintelligible speech in her demoness form; when she pulls out a machete, we understand that part.
In the morning, Charlotte talks to the neighbors, Yagami and Tamara, about moving to Jack and Sarah’s house. They invite her over for dinner. Their daughter has cancer.
Charlotte arrives for dinner in a sexy, low-cut dress that Tamara obviously doesn’t approve of. It’s all very awkward. Yagami, on the other hand, says she “looks gorgeous.” It’s an awkward scene that drags on for entirely too long. It soon becomes obvious that they have drugged her. “This will be fun,” Tamara laughs. Daughter Saori says they shouldn’t be doing this just to keep her alive.
Charlotte wakes up tied to the wall. The family plans to steal Charlotte’s organs to sell to pay for Sairi’s treatments. Charlotte starts to laugh in a “Do you know who I am” kind of way. She then beats them both to death with a hammer.
Steve’s partner, Brad, goes to see a detective about Steve’s mysterious disappearance. They’re hostile with each other for no apparent reason, but Brad seems unhinged.
The demoness calls Satan again, and she wants to move on to bigger things; he says no.
Brad grabs a gun and breaks into Charlotte’s house. She quickly takes charge of the situation and puts him in a clown costume. Soon after, she eats his eyeball and cuts out his tongue. Then she bites off his toes. The demoness summons Satan yet again, and they discuss the need to deal with Detective Gerrard, the last one alive who knows who Charlotte is. She pays him a visit at his office, and of course that goes very badly for him.
And then it was suddenly over, fortunately for all of us.
Brian’s Commentary
Was the sound designer for this a deaf person? Both Sarah and the Demoness are nearly completely unintelligible. Once the demoness became human, the voices got a lot clearer. When she was back in the makeup, she was unintelligible again. The demoness creature looks really good, but her voice is awful.
That’s the fakest disco I’ve ever seen, almost as fake as the CGI gore effects, which are really poorly done.
I like the idea and the basic plot, but it’s a really poorly made film. It starts out hard to understand, and once we get moving, it’s only downhill from there.
This is pretty awful.
Kevin’s Commentary
We really could have used subtitles. That conversation between the demoness and Lucifer might have been interesting, but I felt like I missed a quarter of it. But once we got past that and Sarah out of the picture, people’s voices were nice and clear. Until Charlotte went back to her demon form again, sigh. She was good in the role though, and her makeup was cool.
This falls in the trope of a killer that is so powerful that the victims have zero chance as they are toyed with, and we know how each confrontation is going to end - it’s just a matter of how.
Between the pacing, poor audio, and overacting, I was pretty weary of it as the end approached. And then an abrupt ending happened. I’m going to say I liked it more than disliked it.
2025 Super Happy Fun Clown
Directed by: Patrick Rea
Written by: Eric Winkler
Stars: Jennifer Seward, Nicole Hall, Matt Leisy
Run Time: 1 Hour 27 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Jennifer’s had a rough life, but she finds a way to happiness and fame by channeling her clown self. After a slow start, we watch her trip to crazy town progress and leave a trail of bodies in her wake. The pacing is uneven, but it’s a pretty good one.
Spoilery Synopsis
The police have the clown and her hostage in their sights. That goes badly, and then credits roll.
Back in 2004, we see a clown in the park. Young Jennifer is somewhat obsessed with clowns and homeless people. She’s smart, but her mother is unenthusiastic.
Twenty years later, She’s Jenno-The-Clown, doing mime-y things in the park, and the kids love her. Her husband is unenthusiastic. She’s got serial killer posters on her wall, and she likes that as well.
Detectives Barnes and Marshall talk about what crimes they expect this upcoming Halloween.
Jennifer and her mother talk about her pedo, ex-lawyer husband and badly paying job. Her mother is still unenthusiastic and downright mean. She and her coworker Ryan fantasize about being serial killers. She loves being a clown, but not much else about her life.
After a while, Jennifer stops being enthusiastic about being a clown, so she kills her husband. She just lets him decompose in the spaghetti over the weeks leading up to Halloween. After a while, she starts to eat him. Then she buys a tiny little gun.
It’s Halloween, and Jen runs over a guy with her car. She goes over to her mother’s house in full costume and shoots right through her mother’s head.
The police get a call to do a wellness check on Jen’s rotting husband. Barnes mentions that he’s afraid of clowns; Marshall hates horses. Neither of them appreciate the half-eaten rotten corpse in the kitchen; they also soon track down her dead mother too. Jen, meanwhile, is at Ryan’s Halloween party and has sex with him. Halfway through, she stabs him with an icepick.
Jen then goes to a haunted house attraction and jumps the line. She starts killing the “monsters” inside. The zombie and the Phantom of the Opera are the first to die, but several more follow. Eventually, she comes to a woman dressed as a killer clown, and she likes that a lot but only for a minute.
The detectives arrive at the theater, and one of them soon becomes a convenient hostage. We’re back at the opening scene, and Jennifer is shot.
Some time later, she wakes up in the hospital without makeup. The networks are already asking for interviews. Detective Marshall is not amused that the evil clown has survived.
Brian’s Commentary
The childhood segment was only ten minutes long, but seemed like half an hour. I love the husband’s meal choices. After the slow start, the film picks up the pace and goes pretty well until the haunted cinema, where things seem to slow down once again.
For a low-budget indie film, it’s not bad. With the exception of the pacing issues, I was entertained.
Kevin’s Commentary
We have Harley Quinn at home.
This spends way too long at the beginning of the movie showing not a whole lot happening in Jennie’s childhood, or it seemed way too long anyway. Once she reaches adulthood things build momentum. The pacing is still uneven throughout, but I thought it was decent overall. I enjoyed it more than disliked it.
2011 Megan is Missing
Directed by: Michael Goi
Written by: Michael Goi
Stars: Amber Perkins, Rachel Quinn, Dean Waite
Run Time: 1 Hour, 25 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s a movie entirely on webcam, video, phone camera, and so forth, presented in found footage format. Two “teenage” girls are the main characters, who fall for an Internet predator. It’s drawn out and talky for a long time before the missing part happens. It does finally dial up the horrifying, and hard to watch, up to eleven, but it takes quite a while to get there. It’s bleak and cautionary.
Spoilery Synopsis
Amy and Megan come on talking about being her new camera. We’re told onscreen that in 2007, 14 year old Megan went missing, and three weeks later, Amy also vanished. Credits roll.
The two girls talk about losing their virginity soon and drugs as well. We soon see Megan’s mom smashing her X-Box in the other room. Amy, on the other hand, has a nice home life. Amy’s a year younger than the other girls, so the others consider her something of a nerd.
On Saturday, everyone goes out to a house party. Amy’s only invited because Megan insisted on it, but she doesn’t really fit in. It’s pretty wild for a teenage party, since everyone is too young to really know how to party. It doesn’t end well for Amy, who pukes on some other girls.
The next day, the girls talk about blowjobs; Megan did her first one at age ten, but Amy’s still afraid to try. She tells the story, and it’s anything but romantic. The conversation is interrupted by Meg’s overbearing mother, which prompts her into saying she hates it there and would like to just leave.
It’s Amy’s 14th birthday, and she gets a new video camera. She interviews Megan about being sexually assaulted by her stepfather. Amy, on the other hand, talks about her favorite stuffed animals.
Megan hears about a new guy in town, Josh, who’s a skateboarder. He likes what he sees, but his “camera is broken” so she can’t see him. He invites her to a party tonight, and she’s clearly interested. He doesn’t show up.
She calls Josh, and he swears he was there. He describes what she was wearing, so he was there, but she never saw him. They flirt and make up on their one-sided video call. Later, she calls him again and introduces Amy. Amy leaves, and Megan goes to meet him behind the diner.
The next day, Amy starts calling Megan’s friends; she didn’t come home last night. She eventually calls Josh, who says she never showed up last night.
A couple days later, Megan’s disappearance makes the news. Amy continues to record her video diary; the newspeople all seem to think Megan ran away, but Amy doesn’t believe that. We see security footage of a man meeting Megan and leading her away.
Amy continues to talk to “Josh” on the webcam, and he denies that the “old guy” in the video footage was him. He’s a little mean to her, and he seems to understand her pretty well. She goes to the police and tells them everything. The other girls blame Amy for all this, for no particular reason.
Josh threatens Amy to shut up to the police and says he’s watching her. We do see a mysterious figure behind Amy in some of her videos.
A few months later, torture porn photos of Megan show up on a fetish site. She’s not looking like she’s having a good time.
Amy goes missing as well, and the news people speculate that they may have run off together. They do, however, find Amy’s video camera in the trash can where we saw her abducted. We then see that footage…
We hear a woman screaming behind a big metal door; it’s Amy. She begs to go home, but “Josh” isn’t going to do that. We watch her scream as he rapes her. She eventually gets to see what became of Megan, and it’s not pretty. He then seals Amy into a barrel with Megan’s rotten corpse, which terrifies her, as he digs a barrel-sized hole. As he digs, she begs and bargains with him from inside the barrel. This goes on for a long time.
Eventually, he pushes the barrel into the hole and fills it in, with Amy screaming and begging the whole time.
Then the screaming stops.
Brian’s Commentary
Brian’s Rating: ****
It starts out fairly weak, with two girls talking about nonsense, but it devolves from there. Megan doesn’t go missing until about 40 minutes in, and it’s a little dull before that. Everything is done as found footage, mostly through video chats.
The “horror” aspects don’t really come into it until Amy disappears, and then it gets pretty extreme. There’s no supernatural elements or creatures here, just a kidnapper and victims; the horror comes from the idea that this kind of thing happens all the time in the real world.
I’m not quite sure why Josh would film all this and then leave the camera in the last place anyone saw Amy.
Kevin’s Commentary
Kevin’s Rating: ****
So, we get to watch some “teenage” girls talking and partying for a while. For too long of a while. Eventually a predator does start making his moves, and Megan disappears. Then we get more talk from Amy, and we see her getting pressure from the predator. A true crime show wades in.
It’s very tame until it isn’t any more, it goes to the other extreme.
It’s easy to watch this sort of thing and think how dumb the girls are for falling for it, but this sort of thing (and lesser things) does really happen to the naive and inexperienced and unwary.
1999 Wisconsin Death Trip
Directed by: James Marsh
Written by: Michael Lesy, James Marsh
Stars: Ian Holm, Jeffrey Golden, Jo Vukelich
Run Time: 1 Hour, 16 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
There’s not a story to spoil. The movie consists of a series of grim and unusual news stories that were reported in Wisconsin from 1890 to 1900. They are reenacted in black and white, and interspaced with many historical photos and narration. With some more modern scenes and stories from Wisconsin spaced in here and there, showing things can still be violent and strange today. It’s put together in a way that’s interesting, and we both thought it’s worth the watch.
Spoilery Synopsis
We’re told that “What follows is based on real events that took place in the state of Wisconsin between 1890 and 1900. All the stories are authentic news reports from a paper of the time.”
The narrator introduces us to the city of Black River Falls, and we see lots of old-time photos of the people there. It all sounds like a very nice place. We then cut to a photographer taking a photo of a dead child and then putting her back in the coffin. Credits roll.
Then a hard winter hit, the banks failed and mines started shutting down, and poverty and disease hit the area. Many unemployed men left town and some tried to kill themselves quite creatively. Several are sent to the insane asylum.
There are stories of the insane, abandoned children, suicides, murders, diptheria.
We watch as the film goes into color mode, and we see modern-day children playing and that things have gone back to normal. The current mayor talks to us about the town.
Back in the 1800s, and black and white, we hit Spring. Drugs, murders, arson, weird Norwegian superstitions, and suicides abound. After, we get more modern, mundane town life, although they have arson and crime as well.
Summer arrives in the cursed 1800s, and there are trouble with courting couples, baby murder, drunkenness, religious issues, and more insanity. Back in the modern day, we hear about Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer, both from the area.
In the fall of the 1800s, we get shootings, murders, more religious troubles, and a lesson in making sheep’s head stew. “Criminal ears” are also a factor. We hear the story of a famous opera singer who hit hard times, came to the area, and met with a bad end. In the present, there is still murder, suicide, and mental illness today.
Back in Winter, there’s trouble with old people, grave robbing, suicides, ghosts, and still more window-smashing, an ongoing thing.
We cut back to the present, where we’re reminded what a wonderful place Black River Falls Wisconsin is– and even that’s creepy.
Brian’s Commentary
It’s mostly in grainy black-and-white to give it a more authentic feel, although the stories are all reported as true. There’s no real overall plot or characters here, it’s just one damned thing after another that happened in this town, which was not a fun place to live. These were not happy times for anyone, and it’s interesting to be reminded of that. Crime and insanity aren’t new.
For a film with zero story, it’s strangely fascinating to watch. It’s really something!
Kevin’s Commentary
It was interesting how it focuses on the violent, grim, and sordid around the edges. The mix of historical photos and reenactments is well balanced, with good narration. I thought it was really cool.
1985 Come and See
Directed by: Elem Klimov
Written by: Ales Adamovich, Elem Klimov
Stars: Aleksey Kravchenko, Olga Mironova, Liubomiras Laucevius
Run Time: 2 Hours, 22 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This isn’t a horror movie, but it does show the horror of war. It’s set in 1943 Russia in an area fully hit by fighting and follows the misadventures of a pre-teen boy who joins the resistance. It’s an uncomfortable watch, very graphic and realistic, but it’s really well made.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on an old man yelling at someone he claims is digging and hiding underground. We then cut to a little boy who mocks his grumpy uncle. We see that it’s Byelorussia in 1943. The two boys then go dig on the beach, looking for guns. “Without guns, they won’t let us join!” They want to be soldiers. The older brother finds one. Credits roll.
The boy’s mother doesn’t want him to go and hands him an axe to kill them all, which Flyora won’t do. Some Soviet soldiers come to pick him up, he’s joining up with them. The soldiers try to be funny, but it only scares the family. The soldiers make it look like he was conscripted, but he really volunteered.
Flyora goes to the army camp, and it all looks like a big adventure to him. Kosach is the commander, and Glasha is a girl that he likes. They are soon called to action, and everyone gets ready to march to the fight– except Flyora, who is told to trade boots with a man and stay behind.
Flyora runs into Glasha crying in the woods, and she’s so sad it makes him cry as well until they laugh. She points out that they left him behind out of pity, and he takes offense to that. She doesn’t seem quite right, mentally, and she upsets him. They watch a plane fly over and drop parachutes and bombs far too close for their liking, partially deafening Flyora. Then they have to hide from the paratroopers who land nearby.
By morning, the two are friends again, and they get a little crazy in the woods. With nowhere else to go, Flyora and Glasha head back to his mother’s house, but no one is there. The soup is still warm, so they haven’t been gone long. Glasha sees a huge pile of bodies, probably including Flyora’s family, but she doesn’t tell him about it. The two then decide to walk through a swamp, which neither of them enjoy. She tells him the truth, but he won’t believe it.
After finding another soldier, the two go with him to a place with a bunch of refugees including some who tell Flyora that his family is dead. Flyora’s cranky old uncle is there who is burned and dying, but still has time to say “I told you so.”
In the group, some of the men do artwork with a Nazi skeleton. Flyora seems to mostly be in shock through all this, but eventually moves on with some soldiers. Soon, there’s only Flyora and one other soldier, and they steal a cow, which leads Flyora to be the only survivor; even the cow is shot.
Flyora meets up with a man who agrees to take him home and hide him with his family. The German soldiers are right behind them in trucks. The Germans round up all the villagers and inspect the group. Flyora knows they’re going to be slaughtered like his own village, but the villagers allow themselves to be herded into a barn. There is a lot of screaming and pushing for a long while, and Flyora is just one of the crowd.
The leader of the Germans then ordered all the adults to climb out a window and leave the children. Flyora is the only one to try to leave, so he’s grabbed and pulled aside. There are a lot of Germans there, and they all watch and have a good time as they kill everyone in the barn. Flyora is one of the few outside who lives to see it. The Germans start to leave as the village burns. Flyora passes out, and they leave him for dead.
In the morning, Flyora moves on, regaining his uniform and gun. He rejoins Glasha, who has been beaten and raped quite badly. Kosach’s men have captured a handful of Germans, and there’s an argument on how to treat them. The German officers identify themselves and make excuses. “I’m just a tired old man,” says the German leader. Flyora points out that he’s the one who ordered the children killed. Exposed, the leaders tell what they really think of the local people. This goes badly for the prisoners.
We then cut to real old footage of concentration camp survivors as Flyora finally shoots his gun– at a poster of Hitler. It looks like he’s gone completely insane from all of it, but he goes off with the soldiers to fight some more. We’re told that in total, in reality, 628 villages were burned to the ground just like what we saw.
Brian’s Commentary
It’s not so much a horror film as it is a “horror of war” film. Flyora witnesses all kinds of death and atrocities, much more than any twelve year old should. It’s slow to get started, but the climax is very intense. No one gets out unscathed, and we see why Flyora has “that look” in his eyes toward the end.
Kevin’s Commentary
It’s not a fun movie, but it’s a good one. I’ve heard it said it’s an uncomfortable watch, and they are right. War is awful, and this shows that well.
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