Movie Review: Dark Star Pictures’s Dementer - Backwoods Cult Horror Offers Creeps And Little Else

Genre: Horror

Director: Chad Crawford Kinkle

Cast: Katie Groshong, Stephanie Kinkle, and Larry Fessenden

Studio: Dark Star Pictures

Runtime: 80 minutes

Release Date: On VOD March 2nd, 2021

Rated: Not rated

Reviewer’s Rating ★★★★★

Dementer, written and directed by Chad Crawfod Kinkle, follows Katie (Katie Groshong) who recently escaped from under the thumb of a cult led by Larry (Larry Fessenden). Hoping to start anew, Katie gets a job at a care center for disabled adults where she befriends one of the residents, Stephanie (Stephanie Kinkle), a woman with Down Syndrome. Events quickly take a sinister turn when Katie suspects the cult has targeted Stephanie and desperately finds herself doing whatever she can to protect the unknowing young woman from their evils.

I’m a sucker for two things: cult horror and Larry Fessenden. I’ve been a fan of his since I first saw him as the flamethrower-wielding beast killer in the horror game Until Dawn. So, anything featuring these two things, I have to check it out. And even though Dementer does have a promising concept, and it does utilize some visceral creepy images and scenes, the end result feels like a great short film stretched out too thin by the halfway mark.

Let’s start with the best aspect of Dementer which is how dirty you feel while watching it. The camerawork is handheld mixed with the digital grain and noise that saturates the picture giving the film a home video quality to it. In combination with the naturalistic performances from the cast, Dementer ends up being uncomfortably confrontational in its presentation rather than if Kinkle were to opt for a more cinematic look. This is all set to a haunting score from Sean Spilane which doesn’t sound so much like music than it does a demon droning in your ear making you feel like you’re going insane, like our lead.

Despite the perfect creepy aesthetic, it seems like Kinkle doesn’t really know what to do with it. Most of Dementer consists of the same few scenes: Katie bonding with the residents she’s caring for, she has PTSD-like flashbacks of her time with the cult (usually these are a quick cut montage of creepy ritualistic images with Fessenden whispering about the devil), and Katie reading from her notebook she keeps about the occult (this also causes another flashback sequence that plays out roughly the same as the previous ones.) This structure causes the film to feel repetitive as little else happens until the last act.

Kinkle’s script often feels muddled as well. While I do love the use of a backwoods cult, the screenplay goes from intentionally ambiguous to feeling like we’re missing huge chunks of the story. It’s never made entirely clear why events are unfolding the way they are, and it eventually builds to an ending that’s sort of abrupt with a lack of resolution for any of the characters. This payoff, or lack thereof, ended up making my experience feel hollow.

The performances keep the film grounded, mostly. Groshong is a sympathetic lead and her reactions to the proceedings of everything keep Dementer in the realm of plausibility. The choice to use the choice to use actual real-life adults with a variety of developmental disabilities is commendable; it’s inclusive and adds to the realism of watching something that’s actually happening. real differently-abled adults Stephanie Kinkle sells every creepy thing that happens to her; she holds her own with Groshong. Fessenden is vastly underutilized as he’s hardly on screen spending most of the time as a disembodied voice of Larry in Katie’s head. He fits the bill of a creepy cult leader to a ‘T;’ his character would probably not have an impact if it were played by anyone else.

Dementer does feature some great performances and disturbing imagery; it’s applauded for casting actual special needs adults; however, it’s padded out length and lack of any deep characterization make for a viewing that ends up feeling shallow and, at times, boring experience. I don’t really see myself revisiting this one anytime in the future;it’s difficult to recommend. If you’re heavy into folklore horror, check it out but, other than that, you’re probably better off passing on this one.

For more on DEMENTER, visit:

IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8992690/

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Dustin Kogler

Professional amateur movie watcher. Dustin is a laid-back nerd who loves discussing pop culture. He loves listening to 80s music, playing video games and watching netflix all day. He's pretty sarcastic and if you tell him your favorite movie he can tell you why you're wrong.