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Released by: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Released on: July 30, 2013.
Director: Christopher Roosevelt
Cast: Kayla Ewell, Richard Kohnke, Ashlee Brian, Brittney Alger, Sarah Butler
Year: 2013
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The Movie:
The feature directorial debut from Christopher Roosevelt, the packaging for The Demented touts that it's 'From The Co-Producer Of A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984)!' but you've got to dig around a bit to figure out who that is. Turns out that it's Sara Risher, who produced most of the Nightmare On Elm Street movies, and who also produced Surf Ninjas. It would have been just as appropriate to slather the cover art of this release as 'From The Co-Producer Of Surf Ninjas (1993)!' as this movie has about as much in common with that film as it does Craven's horror classic.
The plot, such as it is, follows a half a dozen university aged students who decide to get away for a weekend and head to the family home of one of the kids out there in the serene rural area of Louisiana. Once they get there, they do what any group of college kids would do - they set up a water slide on a tiny hill and bust out the Nerf football and party hard. The girls get in their bikinis and the guys look buff and everyone is having a great time getting down in a decidedly PG manner. And then the phone rings. It's one of their dads and he's calling to let them know that some terrorists have launched a missile attack on the United States.
Though the missiles don't land in Louisiana, they hit close enough that whatever biological weapons the bad guys launched spread into the area and cause those who come into contact with them to mutate into fast moving 28 Days Later style zombies! So with the plot now established, our six irritating characters - Taylor (Kayla Ewell), David (Richard Kohnke), Brice (Ashlee Brian), Naomi (Brittney Alger), Sharley (Sarah Butler) and Howard (Michael Welch) - must try to get out of the infected zone to safety, all while inter group romance threatens to tear the group apart and an infected dog wreaks havoc!
While the movie goes at a pretty respectable pace The Demented is about as predictable and generic as they come. There's some decent production values here and the makeup effects are actually pretty good, but we don't get a whole lot in the way of gore and the nu-metal style soundtrack doesn't help things much. The cast phone it in, though you can't really blame them when the script doesn't bother to give them interesting characters to inhabit. The infected dog angle is kind of cool but there's a lot of effects work here that sticks out like the painfully obvious CGI that it is. The girls are all cute - Sarah Butler from the remake of I Spit On Your Grave, Brittney Alger from the new 21 Jump Street and Kayla Ewell from The Vampire Diaries - but they're obviously cast for that reason and that reason alone. The same criticism applies to the male cast members, they've been cast for their looks to appeal to the younger audience currently enraptured by all things zombie.
Without heading into spoiler territory, the only thing that really stands out about The Demented is the ending, which is actually pretty interesting and at least something a little different. Had there been good characters and a more interesting storyline leading up to this, the movie could have actually been a worthwhile and original entry in the overcrowded post-Walking Dead zombie pantheon, but as it stands it's too little too late.
Video/Audio/Extras:
No complaints about the AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer on this disc. Framed at 1.78.1 widescreen and shot digitally, the image is as crisp and as clean as you could want it to be. Colors look nice, black levels are solid and skin tones look pretty natural here. Detail is strong, especially in the close up shots, as is texture - you'll notice this throughout the movie. There's a little bit of shimmer and some really minor banding in a few spots but otherwise this movie looks great on Blu-ray.
The English language Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix is also of very good quality. Surround activity isn't quite constant but it's close, while the levels stay nicely balanced throughout. There's good depth here, you'll notice this with the score and with the directional effects used throughout the movie. There are no issues with hiss or distortion to note and the track is clean and well defined throughout. Optional subtitles are provided in Spanish and optional closed captioning is provided in English.
There are no extras outside of a basic menu and chapter selection, though a DVD copy of the movie is included in the keepcase alongside the Blu-ray disc.
The Final Word:
The Demented earns a point or two for delivering a genuinely unexpected finale, but everything leading up to that point is so completely generic and unremarkable that it's a chore sitting through it. Anchor Bay gets full marks for delivering a Blu-ray that looks and sounds great, but the lack of extras doesn't do it any favors.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
