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Film4 FrightFest 2013 Review – The Demon’s Rook (2013)

by

The Demon’s Rook, 2013

Directed by James Sizemore
Starring Ashleigh Jo Sizemore, James Sizemore, John Chatham, Melanie Richardson, Sade Smith, Dustin Dorough

SYNOPSIS:

A young boy named Roscoe finds a portal to another world where he is taught magic by an elder demon known as Dimwos. Dimwos raises the boy into manhood, revealing to him many secrets.A young boy named Roscoe finds a portal to another world where he is taught magic by an elder demon known as Dimwos. Dimwos raises the boy into manhood, revealing to him many secrets.

Watching The Demon’s Rook in 2013 is like stepping into a time warp as it’s a movie that would have been right at home during the Video Nasty controversy of the 1980s. It looks like it was shot on the cheap on someone’s farm with a limited crew and a cast made up of friends and, amazingly, this really adds to the movie’s charm.

The story is incredibly bizarre as a young boy named Roscoe is taken into another world by a demon named Dimwos, who is then raised into adulthood and taught in the art of magic. He eventually escapes his hellish captors and, with his childhood Eva, attempts to finally rid the world of Dimwos, his cohorts and their evil. 
The plot is very cheesy and incredibly wacky but somehow director, producer, writer and star James Sizemore manages to pull it off without it seeming too stupid. His intentions are to make the film look cheap, even having his cast members wear flair trousers to reflect it’s late 70s atmosphere and feel. The acting is never great with Sizemore and his real-life wife Jo Sizemore putting in the best performances, but everyone else fills their roles perfectly fine and, again, it’s not the movie’s intentions for stellar acting, further highlighting just how well-made the film is.
It is a really tough act to make a ‘good-bad movie’. A lot of directors (like the ones who direct for SyFy for example) will intentionally make a film bad in the hope that its audience will turn it into a good movie by laughing at it for being bad. A lot of people cite Troll 2 as the classic example of this, but Troll 2 works as a ‘good-bad’ movie because Claudio Fragasso was trying to make a good movie. If you ask him about Troll 2, he will tell you to this day that it is good. The Demon’s Rook is along the same lines as Sizemore clearly wasn’t trying to make a “good” movie, but effort was put into it and there is enough charm there to turn into a good movie. Not many people can manage it, but Sizemore has nailed it.
The costumes on the demons are a little rubbish and never look anything other than stupid, but the practical effects and make-up work is stunning and even the brief CGI shots looked impressive. Every single zombie bite or human death looks look 100% convincing and you’d think that all of the budget was put into this aspect of the movie.

The Demon’s Rook is as dumb as a bag of spanners but it’s a lot of fun – and that’s the point. If you set yourself into the wackiness of the plot and just enjoy the ride, you’ll have a good time. Sizemore deserves a lot of credit for this movie and, so long as he is in on the joke, he could be a director too keep an eye on as he clearly has a lot of talent.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★

Luke Owen is one of Flickering Myth’s co-editors and the host of Flickering Myth’s Podcast Network. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.

Originally published August 30, 2013. Updated November 7, 2019.

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