Intensity: 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Alexander Boyd Watson
Written by Janine Hogan and Alexander Boyd Watson
Demonetize documents the story of failed TV ghost chasers who concoct a scheme to recover their fame. They invite a group of mostly annoying online influencers to draw out ghosts that are attracted to content-creator vibes. Everybody gets more than they bargained for. This cute movie feels like empty calories. It has its moments, but for a film that promotes itself as a wild horror-comedy, the jokes didn’t hit often enough. This was a featured film in Popcorn Fright Film Festival’s streaming catalog this year.
Internet influencers are, for the most part, a home-brewed bunch. It takes a strong personality to stand out in a world with short attention spans and viewers who have thousands of options at the click of a mouse. The most popular content creators succeed in various ways. Some are beautiful and stand out in a crowd. Others take strong opinions in a medium that rewards taking extreme hot-take positions. Some creators break through because they shout louder and are too obnoxious to ignore.
Demonetize features all of these examples with the assembled lot of media stars who are summoned to the Ratliff House, the scene of grisly murders and probable haunts. The summoners themselves were glory chasers as well, capitalizing on the ghost chaser phenomenon but losing to their competition. If the stereotype of the over-hyped internet sensation is annoying, the fate of the failed wannabe star is a sad affair. Such is the world of the Ghost Pros. With the promise of a real haunt, they believe they have hit the gold mine and look to these extreme personalities to draw the ghosts out.
Demonetize’s premise is solid and fun. Unfortunately, its execution is a bit flimsy. The central concept makes you want to see the influencers get destroyed by the ghosts, as they are all over-the-top caricatures. I hate being placed in a position where you feel the pull to root against the protagonists. That said, let’s meet the victims.
The Cast of Demonetize:
- Janine Hogan plays Jane Lincoln, an online comedian who failed to build an audience and hasn’t succeeded in her other career attempts.
- Matty Cardarople plays Terrence, the technical expert of the Ghost Pros partnership. He’s an empathetic soul who is reluctant about the Ratliff House escapades.
- Cherdleys plays Paul Cory, the over-amped, brash bro influencer. (Clearly modeled after Jake Paul). He has a vast fan following who love his obnoxious antics. He’s got an MMA fight coming up, and wants everyone in the room to watch it.
- Sean Carrigan plays Martin, the face of the Ghost Pros. He knows that the Ratliff House haunt is his ticket back to acceptance in the cryptid community and will stop at nothing to make sure he gets as much ghost coverage as he can.
- Lexi Collins plays Tara Ahlquist, a beautiful but vapid media star who has become famous for being famous (and pretty). She also claims to have telepathic senses, but most of the time she is just channeling pop culture references.
- Alice Wen plays Brie Padilla, who recently managed to become a star without trying. She is a doll-like model who makes cute poses and gets millions of clicks. She obsesses about Jane.
- Juliano Hodges plays Spencer Adams, a highly successful YouTube tech advisor. Spencer dates one of his phone apps. Spencer is shy and awkward with the others at the house. He is the group’s resident skeptic.
- Doug Jones plays Hunter Zollinger, a media marketing advisor who wants to take advantage of the experiences of the survivors of the Ratliff House and bank on their recent buzz.
- Rehyan Rivera plays Myles, Terrence’s cousin who gets attacked at the Ratliff House when performing his twerking dance for online clicks.
A Synopsis of Demonetize:
Welcome to the Ratliff house, where a family lured runaways to their home, captured them, and ate them. The family eventually turned on each other, all of them dying, and now they haunt their old home. The Ghost Pros, Marty and Terrence, have purchased the house for “public protection.” Actually, they believe they can summon the burlap sack mask-wearing Ratliffs out in the open by attuning them to internet influencers. The Ghost Pros determine that the ghosts are attracted to content creator vibes when one of Terrence’s cousins was attacked in his room while staying at the Ratliff House with Terrence. Why? He was gyrating for online clicks and, in addition to getting fan reactions, caught the ghosts’ attention.
The Ghost Pros invite several content creators to the house. The invitees are excited to be there, as this could make great content for their videos. Marty spins the ghost story to his gathered audience, explaining the home’s grisly history. He unveils a trio of relics left behind by the Ratliffs: the dad’s pipe, a raggedy book, and their son’s natty teddy bear. If things get dicey, destroy these relics in a pentagram to scare off the ghosts.
The challenge? Spend the night at the house and draw out the ghosts. The Ghost Pros rigged up several cameras to watch over them. No phones allowed, but they provide digital cameras for the influencers to record the events. The Ghost Pros leave the house and monitor the events from a van parked outside.
The dubious invitees start their investigation. They scout the house with their cameras. It initially starts with mockery and skepticism, but when one of the influencers gets a chopstick through the eye, the group realizes they are really in a pickle. Unfortunately for them, they don’t refrain from the thing that put them in this dilemma. They keep up their influencer antics, so the ghosts keep hunting.
Evaluation of Demonetize:
Demonetize is The Haunted, for Dummies. Or, think of it as The House on Haunted Hill, with annoying YouTubers. The plot follows a tried-and-true script but swaps out the characters for a comedic take. Unfortunately, the antics prove more annoying than entertaining. The acting is capable, but broad. The problem lies more in the lack of character depth. These influencers are meant to have annoying traits, but that doesn’t make them particularly sympathetic.
The ghost story is standard fare. Not particularly notable. Also, the characters’ actions defy some logic. Though they find themselves trapped in the house, it is full of equipment that could break them out. This isn’t a prison or a reinforced bunker… It’s a house. Break a window! Act like your lives are at risk! Nothing anchors any of these people to stick around, other than maybe making it big online with this content. Not worth it!
I will shout out my appreciation for veteran character actor Matty Cardarpole. He is instantly recognizable as one of the great “that guy” actors in the business. Matty specializes in big, nerdy oddballs. You might remember him for his performances in Stranger Things, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Reservation Dogs, Fallout, Free Guy, or Carved. Even if he’s only in a movie for five minutes, you will remember him, and he’s the best part of this movie.
Concluding Thoughts:
It’s not a bad movie, but it is far from great. This movie lies in the muddy middle. Again, the premise is solid. Even though the characters may be annoying, they are sharply drawn. I appreciate the production values, and there are a few fun moments. Not surprisingly, the relics prove to be significant, and the teddy bear sequence is very entertaining: a well-executed practical puppetry moment.
Perhaps if more time had been invested in the Ratliff story, the ghosts would have had more impact. The Ghost Pros’ redemption story is a decent hook, and Martin’s desperation made sense. The film’s marketing promotes famed suit-actor Doug Jones, but he is merely a cameo. So, for every positive aspect, there’s a less impressive counterargument about whether I should recommend this film. Perhaps with a packed audience at the festival, I would have added an extra star. Honesty.
Demonetize is not rated. It could likely be a PG-13 movie, though it has enough gory content and profanity to push it into R. The movie is probably most appropriate for a teenage audience, who would appreciate the tropes more than this old reviewer. I am not the target audience for this movie, despite how much YouTube content I consume. This film is still early in its festival run, so it might be a while before it hits wide release or streaming. It has enough known names in its cast to land on a platform like Shudder, where I expect it to eventually end up.