The Dark Days of Demetrius Review!
You know whose shadowy nightmare world you’ve stepped into instantly as the dark blue lighting over the credit photos and the exploding fast grinding metal hits ya. Welcome back into the cold and gloomy realms of Dakota Ray with The Dark Days of Demetrius. I’ve had a lot of fun reviewing his flicks, beginning with American Antichrist (see review here) which had him come over as a bit of a moody goth emo making a point (I totally love that), to the wonderful Dante’s Shadow of Sin (see review here) which showed an incredible depth and construction of ideas and characters.
The Dark Days of Demetrius was released in-between so it’s going to be interesting to observe what went on as things grew. As per usual, Dakota is a morose society and religion hating serial murderer. This time round he’s the Live Stream Killer, speaking in the standard distorted voice, but slaughtering people whilst filming it live for the web. He stares at himself in the mirror then lifts weights for a while.
He checks the comments on his latest uploaded video, and they are generally positive, calling him bad ass, and such. No one knows who he is, but he will continue to give them more and more. We follow as he chloroforms and kills a sleeping bloke, then takes selfies with the corpse after saying, “Hail Satan.”
The trademark insects and creepy toys are in full force as you’d expect. Demetrius starts a new game for his viewers, giving them the interactive choice of whether his victims live or die. Of course, “die” is the outstanding winner. One evening an article is online where he is called a coward, so he decides to reply and sends a letter to the press. He visits a grave, the resting place of the first person he killed two years ago. Say, now this is kind of a blueprint moment to Dante’s Shadow of Sin. Demetrius waxes lyrical about the death, then spits on a statue for good measure and banter.
We have a flashback to his childhood of being blind folded and locked in a cage. This seems to be the genesis of his desires and darkness. “I’ve enjoyed everyone else’s suffering, now I want to rejoice in my own.” he says after vomiting. Taking a blade, he slices himself and poses symbolically for a while.
Time to introduce our second main character, Clive, played by the brilliantly unpredictable Fred Epstein who was a complete beast (or will be since it hadn’t been made yet) in Dante’s Shadow of Sin. He’s a reporter with a solid reputation for getting cutting edge graphic stories on his news site. “People want sensationalism! Death and violence!” he shouts all wide-eyed. I totally love this guy. His plan is to head out and create headlines. “Nothing is more sensational than murder!”
Step one, shoot a homeless guy plus his yapping dog, burn the corpse, and take photographs. He buys a video of a cat in a microwave but is constantly under pressure to find new and way-out videos and pictures to draw viewers onto his website. It isn’t long before an interview with the Live Stream Killer is uploaded and is a huge success, but Demetrius takes offence to it because it has been fabricated. He wants it taking down. Clive refuses. He isn’t scared of the multitude of threats received over his phone. To really wind shit up, Clive is murdering people, taking pics, and attributing the slayings to the Live Stream Killer. A parcel with a severed head and a note is delivered to a stunned Clive.
To further intensify the plot, it appears that a third person enters the playing field, wearing the head of Baphomet, this person has decided he wants the equal heights of fame as Demetrius and begins to copycat the techniques, getting Clive’s attention straight away.
Coupled with flamboyant filter colours plus even more flamboyant performances and voices, The Dark Days of Demetrius is totally surreal. It’s a wild traumatizing, almost cartoon world of madness, and there’s no other way to explain this. Different to the other movies in Dakota’s heavy duty morbid arsenal, more humorous but like his others slyly winking to the viewers in the knowledge of his material.
The Dark Days of Demetrius stood out for me for much of the running time, aside from the crazed performances, due to his lighting and direction more so this time round looked like metal albums. Some scenes could have been lifted from Sarcofago’s The Worst CD cover and inlay if Demetrius was bald and bearded that is, and so many more albums from the ‘90s to the early 2000s. I know it’s a way-out comparison, but I write what appears in my head upon reviewing films. The atmosphere is a bit heavier than his earlier flix but again is only sort of a prelude to things incoming.
The huge let down has to be the concluding acts. So much builds up just to kind of fizzle out into nothingness. I really expected something more between the solid characters, yet Dakota did as little as possible. Considering how the other two movies ended…
All in all, this is a small but raw descent into chaos. Dakota brings us another vision of Hell and it has never looked so authentic for the curious.
Directed by: Dakota Ray
Written by: Dakota Ray
Produced by: Dakota Ray, Sebastian Oake
Cinematography by: Dakota Ray
Editing by: Dakota Ray
Music by: Dakota Ray, Emperor Ov Larvae
Special Effects by: Dakota Ray
Cast: Dakota Ray, Lilith Frost, Sebastian Oake (as S A Donatello), Fred Epstein
Year: 2019
Country: USA
Language: English
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 1h
