Horror Movie Review: Demons at Dawn (2022)

Directed by Randy Kent, written by Chris Sanders and starring Ben Silver, Amber Doig-Thorne, Crystal J. Huang and Dani Thompson. Demons At Dawn is a low-budget horror that fails to light up the screen. A messy story, an uninteresting cast of characters, disappointing effects and a flat ending. Putting it simply, Demons at Dawn is not a good movie.

Taking an age to get going, we’re introduced to Mickey (Ben Silver), a retired hitman who has no interest in doing any more jobs. Even though he owes a huge amount of money to some unknown but powerful people. It’s this debt and his desire to live a normal life with his wife and young son that is used as blackmail to force him to do one more job. One last job.

Mickey heads out into the English countryside to find his target, coming across a house that appears to be deserted. It’s here, he will get dragged into a much darker plot, one involving human sacrifices, an elite Satanic cult and demonic entities.

The basic synopsis sounds like a wild ride but Demons at Dawn doesn’t deliver on that. It’s an incredibly slow-moving movie, more interested in having characters talk without really saying much at all. Instead of getting something over the top and cheesy ala Demon Wind or Night of the Demons, we get something unnecessarily serious.

Everyone plays this so straight that it quickly stops being any fun. Something that isn’t helped by a cast who aren’t exactly lighting up the screen. Instead of sticking with a small number, people pop in randomly, seemingly having been waiting off-screen to enter the movie. Each character, as bland as the other. All while the character of Mickey tries his hardest to come across as an unfeeling tough guy. Instead coming across like he is monumentally bored.

If you haven’t fallen asleep or decided to not waste your time finishing it, the introduction of the cult and demons will probably finish you off. Confusing motivations, confusing behaviour, laughable Halloween masks and very little threat. Demons at Dawns starts to look and feel like a film-school project. The brief use of gore making everything all the worse.

It gives us no pleasure to blast a movie like this but we can’t ignore the poor quality of the product. Demons at Dawns has very little to be positive about. It’s slow, uninteresting, has bland characters, average acting and disappointing effects. Had it been played for laughs or been over the top silly, it might have been more enjoyable.