There are dark movies and then there is Toshio Matsumoto’s samurai revenge drama. Demons opens with a sunset and from then on the sun will never be seen again. Not a moment of the story occurs in daylight. The film is not underlit, but the balance of black and white is so high contrast, the blackness surrounding the characters becomes the point of the film. The sense that only nothingness is to be found beyond them. Violence is bloody, slow and painful. No one dies with a quick flick of the sword. They suffer. None of it is honorable, by the end there is no one to root for. It is savage and senseless. It’s not often that a horror film wants you to think. The story here can be easily explained – tricked samurai takes his bloody revenge – but the style and Japanese code of honor turn it into something far more complex. Like Blue Ruin, you question the very nature of revenge, which goes on to solve nothing. Violence is directed toward the most vulnerable. Grounding the violence in drama and emotional performances is just another cruel irony.
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