The Cover

On the surface, Demonlover appears to be a drama about corporate espionage, with one media company trying to acquisition a maker of Japanese anime, and perhaps more disturbingly, anime-style pornography. Diane (Connie Nielsen), is a shrewd and manipulative business type with nothing more than the bottom line in her mind and she's willing to deal with this company if it means success. Elise (Chloe Sevigny) is her temporary assistant who just may have something evil up her sleeve. There's the usual bit of infighting and backbiting among the corporations as they try to merge and then the ugly rumors start flying. It's suggested that the anime company may be involved with something a little more sinister - an interactive torture site called Hellfire Club.

This is one of those films that's so hard to wrap your head around that it becomes a somewhat fruitless exercise to try and determine what the point of the movie is. It's hard to know where film ends and art begins, because the two don't always go hand in hand. I think the point of the movie is that evil will be punished in the end - or maybe the point is just that there are some sickos with computers out there. The movie slowly evolves (devolves?) from this corporate thriller formula to something far more ethereal and disturbing.

In this way, it's hard to tell if Demonlover accomplishes its objectives or maybe the question should be if the objectives even matter.

Movie Grade: C+(?)

Video: 2 out of 5
The film has a softness to it that comes from the PAL transfer and some sketchy transferring. It really looks like it's dubbed off of a video source, but at least it's in an anamorphic format. Not the best looking picture that you could have.
Widescreen Anamorphic - 2.80:1

A Barbarella haircut, leather jumpsuit and torture filled website. What the hell?

Audio: 3 out of 5
The audio is simply, regular stereo audio with no weird things going on, and nothing special.
English, French, Spanish (2.0)

Extras: 2 out of 5
The only extras on the disc are twenty minutes of interviews with the actors and director. It's the typical pretentious French crap. Chloë Sevigny's interview is unusually interesting because of her unfortunate and uncomfortable experience working on the film.

Overall: 3 out of 5
This is kind of movie that you have to experience for yourself. It's so weird, violent and strange that I really don't know what to make of it. It's not a great DVD but it's a definite rental.

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