Family Demons (2009)

I wanted to but couldn't!

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Billie is a shy & withdrawn teenager kept as a virtual prisoner in her house by her abusive alcoholic mother in the suburbs of Adelaide. Driven to breaking point by her mother's constant abuse, Billie assaults her mother, who falls into a coma. As the mother lies dying in the hospital, Billie plans to escape to the countryside with her male friend Sean. But the constant abuse that Billie has suffered so far takes a heavy toll on her sanity, causing her to hallucinate badly, leading to a savage act that sends her over the edge.Family Demons is an Australian low-budget film written & directed by Ursula Dabrowsky, who is better known for her many novels for the young fiction market. With Family Demons, Dabrowsky attempts to branch out into filmmaking.I hate to nitpick on a film made by a fellow Australian but Family Demons is nowhere even near the stature of other Australian films. It attempts to shine a light on the effects of how abuse inflicted on children by their alcoholic parents but unfortunately the film's script is too simplistic & melodramatic to fully succeed.While not a bad film exactly, Family Demons suffers from an absurdly narrow narrative scope & the story goes nowhere – all it is consists of a teenager being abused by her mother, escaping only to be hounded by a pair of rowdy young men then being forced to kill her mother in order to finally escape the abuse but the emotional state of the girl causes her to accidentally kill her friend, an act that causes her to revert to the same life that her mother lived. The scope is too narrow to sustain the running time & Dabrowsky's heavy handed attempts at staging suspense fall remarkably flat, although the end revelation that the girl's friend is dead is a slight twist. The film's only saving grace is that it attempts to show the effects of how alcohol affects the Australian lifestyle negatively. I have seen the effects of alcohol as it destroys lives, mainly by having youths binge drinking & then turning violent as a result of it. There has also been a recent spate of fatal single-punch assaults on young men by those who clearly have been under the influence of this insidious drug. The only thing standing in the way of social reform is the heavy influence of Australian beer companies who make a (literal in some aspects) killing off the Australian public. That & some idiotic politicians who are clearly in the pocket of these alcohol companies – an attempt a few years ago at trying to curb the youth binge drinking culture by heavily taxing certain alcoholic drinks was defeated by a politician who was nothing more than a hypocrite. The film's attempts at showing the consequences of abuse were interesting but the script was nowhere even near the quality it needed to be in order to fully engage.

This is the perfect example that you don't need a bloated budget to make a creepy film and more importantly one that will remain with you for hours and days afterwards. I have to say the acting in this film was top notch especially with the main two leads. If I had 25 000 dollars right now and I was going to direct a low budget horror film about two young girls that were mentally and physically tortured throughout Cassandra Kane and the lead actress of the Loved Ones are my pics. Ms Kane you were amazing and I felt your pain throughout the entire film. In fact I felt your performance was tantamount to the poor tortured souls of the two leads in my favorite horror film of all time Martyrs and that is saying a lot considering it took two decades for Martyrs to exceed my previous fav film Hellraiser. I can't wait for this director to make another film and when people say they don't make horror like they used to, I laugh and say your right they make them better now.

Family Demons (Australian Horror/Thriller) is not strictly about a dead mother haunting her daughter. In fact, there are many components of this film that are very realistic and sadly very common in society. I couldn't help but feel for all family members in this film despite the complex family dynamics. There are some interesting twists and turns and, although the opening words at the beginning of the film discussing Adelaide didn't seem to resonate or make much sense with regards to the film itself (not sure what the writers were getting at as they didn't "fit" much), I was both enthralled by the entertainment yet cringing at the same time. There are important messages and lessons to be learned from this film about family, sexual assault, psychological and physical terror and much more. Yes, for supernatural horror and slasher fans, you will likely be satisfied as well as those that enjoy thrillers. It is my hope (but I have to be realistic) that the events that occurred in the film prior to the hauntings are less common in society than I'd expect. Sadly, I doubt that is the case which is why the message is so important.

Don't let this title slip under your radar, by far and away one of the most impressive low budget movies to come my way this year.Filmed to give a dark, foreboding atmosphere throughout, this movie will grab you by the throat and not let up until you get to the climatic ending.The relationships the director portrays throughout, are well developed and leave you in no doubt as to what the message is she's trying to put across. Very very impressive with a very dark subject matter, that whilst the horror elements adds to the feeling, the actual message contained in it, is far more frightening.Don't Miss This.