The Demon Detective This looks like the pilot episode of a supernatural TV series that someone accidentally released as a two-hour movie.
That’s a compliment and that’s also the problem.
Miles Mako is a Catholic outcast who works as an exorcist for hire. He takes on business with his partner Pin, tries to earn rent, and carries with him many untreated messes from his childhood. A new client named Clara Donovan brings a supernatural problem that ends up returning to Miles’ past and the death of his sister.
Yes, there is an obvious comparison there. Every reviewer does it. Let’s move past that, because the really interesting question is whether the world De Witt constructs is strong enough to survive the limitations of the film that contains it.
This is mostly the case.
The work
The best thing here is that exorcism is treated like a job.
Not a sacred ritual with candles and Latin and a priest in a crisis of faith. A job. There are rules to follow. There are customers. There are bills. There are other people trying to make money through supernatural activities, which tells you that the world has an economy attached to it.
This basis is what gives personality to the mythology. Many low-budget horror films invent a demon and rules. Very few of them make you believe that someone has to do this on a Tuesday for money.
De Witt built enough implied story and structure that the film constantly gestures to things happening off-screen. Different types of spirits. A larger occult ecosystem. People with a reputation. There’s a sense that the story could go in six directions from here, which is not something I say about most possession movies set in one house.
Eugene Young is a real asset as Pin. He brings energy and personality to the partnership, and there are times when he is the more engaging half. Pin is the character I’d most like to see more of, and that’s worth noting considering he’s nominally supporting.
The bench is deeper than the budget suggests. Vivica A. Fox and Adrienne Barbeau are both here, and Doug Jones plays Uzgarath, whose casting is so apt it barely needs explaining. None of these roles are huge, so don’t expect a Doug Jones showcase. But their presence gives the film a weight it wouldn’t otherwise have.
Length
Now the part that hurts.
At approximately 111 minutes long, it’s too long for the story it tells. The middle sags. Clara’s story takes a while to fully become the focus of the film, and until it does, the film feels like it’s going in circles.
A 95 minute version would be much better, and I don’t think it’s a money issue. Effects cost money. Editing doesn’t do that. This is why pacing bothers me more than any visual limitation.
The related problem is that Miles’ story comes late. It’s the emotional driving force of the entire film, and when it finally lands, it recontextualizes a lot of things. But that means the earlier stretches play out without the fuel they need, and it shows.
The title problem
For a film titled The Demon Detectivethere is not much detection.
It’s much more supernatural action and occult fantasy than supernatural noir. The premise sets up an investigator, and then the story mostly asks him to confront things rather than understand them. This is a structural gap between what the film promises and what it delivers, and it’s worth pointing out as a genuine criticism rather than a cheap attempt at the title.
The effects
The film’s resources go further when De Witt trusts the atmosphere. Supernatural figures simply existing in the frame, the shadow, the staging, the implication. This material works.
The tension arises when the film asks its effects to do the heavy lifting, particularly in the area of large-scale magic. The problem isn’t that an indie horror film doesn’t have blockbuster money. Nobody expects that. The problem is that the film sometimes gives its effects more weight than they can carry, and you notice the seam.
Dustyn Gulledge drew some criticism for playing Miles too flat. I think this is partly an unfair reading, because Miles is written as exhausted, guarded, and emotionally closed off. The fair version of the complaint is that the film doesn’t always make the difference legible. Restraint and emptiness look the same from the outside, and the film needed to make it clearer and earlier which one it was doing.
Is it worth your time?
This is where I land.
The Demon Detective is better at building a world you want to return to than telling a tightly constructed story. This is a real flaw and I’m not going to dismiss it. But I’d rather watch someone assemble a strange occult universe from ambition and spare parts than watch another perfectly competent horror film with nothing in mind.
I would watch Miles and Pin take another case. That doesn’t solve this one. This means that De Witt has built something worth pursuing.
It’s free with ads on Tubi, The Roku Channel, and Fandango at Home Free, and Hoopla also offers it. All via Miracle Media. At this price, the ambition is more than worth the complaint in execution.
Luna Verdict: Flow
