The Bottom Line
Pros
- Quality gore
- Almost everyone dies
Cons
- Bad acting
- Lame humor
- Been-there-done-that storyline
- Weak villain
Description
- Starring Dan Falcone, Elisabeth Jamison, Jerry Broome, Krista Grotte, Anne McDaniels, Brandon Goins, Josh Folan
- Directed by Adam Matalon
- Rated R
- DVD Release Date: July 8, 2008
Guide Review - 'Death on Demand' DVD Review
The Movie
If you were going to borrow a plot from a horror movie, you'd think you'd delve deeper than the lousy Halloween: Resurrection, but that seems to be where the makers of Death on Demand got their inspiration. Like that film, Death on Demand follows a group of college kids taking part in an internet broadcast in which they spend the night in a house supposedly haunted by a killer.
In the case of this direct-to-video slasher, the killer is Sean McIntyre, an ice climber suffering from altitude sickness who returns home to kill his wife, mother-in-law and two daughters -- during Thanksgiving dinner, no less -- before hanging himself. Twenty years later, as college kids spend the night in the infamous McIntyre house, of course the killer returns to pick them off in typical slasher fashion.
If the only thing wrong with Death on Demand was its lack of originality, it would still be an OK movie, but there are other issues. The acting is awful, although that goes without saying for this budget. It doesn't help, though, that the dialogue is just as bad, packed with lame humor about erectile dysfunction and dumb jocks.
On top of that, the killer doesn't show up until 50 minutes in, meaning we have to suffer through the wafer-thin characters. Even when he does appear, McIntyre basically looks like a haggard, 40-something surfer; hardly scary. They should've fitted him with climbing gear to cover his face -- an oxygen mask perhaps, or at least a ski mask.
But such is the lazy effort that we get with this film. There's no clear-cut "hook" to distinguish it from other slashers. The Internet aspect isn't taken advantage of, nor is the mountain climber angle. The only thing that Death on Demand offers is strong gore, which is just the bare minimum that a slasher needs.
The DVD
Special features include commentary and outtakes.
Movie: D
DVD: C+
