DEMON PROTOCOL – Review

Review by Mark Longden

Writer / producer / director Kelly Parks has been busy making a name for himself in the horror business, and has found something of a muse in TV legend Gary Graham (“Alien Nation”, “Star Trek: Enterprise”). The two of them have worked together on virtually all Parks’ work, and so it continues with “Demon Protocol”, a movie that falls somewhere between short film and feature (it’s a little under an hour), and is therefore a fine choice if you’re a little pushed for time.

Pretty much the entire movie takes place in the living room of a suburban house, as a pair of homeowners have invited exorcists into their home to take care of a demon problem. They’re a religious group, of an unspecified but potentially unusual variety, and have all sorts of fun tech gadgets.

After starting with a 911 call which wanders into the world of comedy, thinking it might be light, things go to heck almost immediately, with the homeowners becoming increasingly uneasy and the main group revealing different reasons for being there. And, you know, there’s a demon, who starts doing its demonic thing.

Apart from Gary Graham, the acting is a little on the “enthusiastic amateur” side; no-one is terrible, but no-one is great either. And there’s a little too much of the trick of deaths and bullet wounds and so on happening off camera to save on special effects costs. Every now and again, I’ll forgive them, but it happened a little too regularly.

I liked the plot, although it felt they packed a little too much incident into the last ten minutes and a little too little incident into the first forty-five. Also, honestly, it’s a little too reminiscent of “The Thing”? Kelly Parks has made TV and short films before now, and this comes over like an episode of a TV show, stretched just a little too far. I liked it just fine, and I think Parks has an interesting future ahead of him, but this is more an interesting curio than a genuinely great movie.