Demolisher is a surprisingly impressive deviation from the crowd, which dares to stand out by seeking to employ the shock of horror and murder with a gentle grasp of gentle emotion and crushed intimacy, all the while playfully toying with a sense of dark obscenity. It’s slow, sharp, twisted, and immersive – not to mention damn entertaining.
After his wife suffers a terrible and debilitating injury from a gang of criminals, handyman Barrett undertakes to be a cruel vigilante with the intent to settle the score of pain and suffering. But this is only a portion of the story, as his rapidly failing control of sanity plummets him into a fearsome world of violence and destruction.
Barrett struggles with his vengeful role as a killer as with his new reality. His partner can no longer take care of themselves. Lost and distraught within tragedy, and understanding everything he knew is gone forever, he resolves to throw away his humanity and become a heartless murderer to the murderers of his once normal life. Also Hotline Miami and Trevor Something influence.
It’s incredibly refreshing for a drama to be so strangely speechless. Usually, dramas are draped in irritating theatrics and pointless gossip; here, actions that are allowed to speak from themselves. The obsession with symbolism expresses a desire to be clinically precise, yet artistically free. And the flick understands people as humans, not simply disposable things but our flawed natures, as well as exploring the realism of impairment: its doom, difficulty, and humiliation.
Normally when you come across a bombastic title “Demolisher” with a shitty IMDB rating, the expectation is nothing further than a dry, stale, tedious pile of adolescent style crap with homemade props and not so homemade tropes. You know the drill: stupid teens, embarrassing parents, bad hairdos, ridiculous antagonists and maybe a somewhat decent plotline if you’re even half lucky.
This got trashed by the critics. What’s wrong with everyone? It’s actually alright, and certainly worth a good uninterrupted watch. Perhaps in places it could have been structured more wisely, certain areas may have had better design, and if you’re gonna be a complete neckbeard, there is a little of that fallen-superhero twist. For those that don’t fall into these categories though and have the intention to try something intelligent and experimental for once, give this a whirl – you might like it.
6/10
Possession Media 