Demon Slayer

Quick summary: You don't want to see this straight-to-vid movie.

I don't know why people have so much trouble dealing with unspeakable horror. I just speak about it. It hates that.

I mean I just speak away like Oprah on a sugar high, just chatting and babbling away like a high school freshman at his first debating tournament. Only in so doing, can you make it speakable, and therefore remove its greatest weapon - unspeakability. Well, fear, surprise, and unspeakability are the three main weapons. That and pretty red uniforms.

Demon Slayer is basically a haunted house movie with a tiny twist. The house is a building which will be fixed up and made into a youth club. The kids trapped inside are juvenile offenders who have been given a choice of work or jail. They chose the haunted house over the big house. Leg bracelets keep them from leaving.

Blah blah blah ... house used to be a brothel ... the operators worshipped an Aztec goddess ... everyone was killed one night except one child ... the now-grown child is the guy who arranged for the kids to be assigned to the house ... one of the juvy offenders is the descendant of the Aztec witch ... the descendant must get rid of the evil Aztec spirits ... priest with a pirate eyepatch ...yadda yadda yadda.

Gimmicky colored lights and filters ... clichéd characters ... schlock.

NUDITY REPORT

Michelle Acuna does a lovely topless scene in good (albeit blue-filtered) light

one of the other kids has a brief topless scene which is done by a body double, per the credits

there are at least three different topless women in the flashback scenes, but they are unidentified, and the scenes occur in scenes altered by colored filters, extreme contrast, and hyper-saturation, so those scenes look more like a cartoon than live action

DVD info from Amazon

although there are no significant features, there is an anamorphic widescreen transfer, 1.85:1, and it is not bad at all.

Approximate budget: only the cost of the cameras, lights, and film stock plus the salaries. The entire film takes place in a deserted and dilapidated house. I reckon they just used a real deserted house.

Only one good thing about the movie - Michelle Acuna does a topless scene in good light, and she is attractive. The rest of the nudity is complete crap. In fact, is it beyond simple crap and more in the realm of professional grade fertilizer prepared from the manure of large and particularly foul-smelling beasts.

The Critics Vote

no reviews online

The People Vote ...

IMDB summary. IMDb voters score it 3.2/10

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, this film is about a Z. Oh, I guess it is actually a D. Some of the kids are pretty good performers, and there are a few scary moments, but it isn't worth your time, not even for genre fanatics.