“We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods
Jonathan R Cartwright’s movie Demu is a perfect combination of thriller and horror. The film deals with Issac and Ben, two college friends who were supposed to be on their spring break party with the rest of their college friends. But in a turn of events, they are about to encounter something dark and terrible that causes them to see and hear things from the dark.
The film brilliantly builds upon the theme of fear and thrill from the beginning. The character trope of Demu refers to a primitive myth that no human mind can decipher. In this film, Cartwright hints at the perpetual struggle between good and evil. He achieves the distinction of being both a fabulist and a realist by seemingly blending two irreconcilable polarities. The narrative talks in binary- innocence and experience, courage and fear, good and evil, light and dark, spirit and flesh, pleasure and pain, joy and grief- to display the daring diagnosis of sickness and the afflictions of the modern world. The characters are representatives of the modern world, and likewise, their souls can be easily profaned in darkness, making the ordeal a terrible and destructive one. Their power to resist the darkness is low and eventually, they succumb to the calls. The transition to dark wolf at the end of the film signifies how evil feeds on the good extracting the best out of it.
Jonathan R Cartwright is preoccupied with the contemporary evils that challenge the souls of men in his movie. The conversion begins with the surge of violence and then the war mania among the characters unleashes their true potential as the symbol of experienced modern men. The connection between transformation and liberation is severed to highlight the outcome of the fall of man. Through this narrative, the filmmaker hints at or reinforces how evil is associated with experience and knowledge.
The merit of this movie lies in the exploration of man’s downfall and additional agents who provoke innocent souls. The movie uses all the elements of horror tropes yet succeeds to create an impact new to this age.
Jonathan has done an impressive job in the movie. The cast members were impeccable in their roles. The special mention would go to James Henson who portrayed Isac with much clarity and confidence.
Demu is a brilliant film Professionally created by Jonathan Ranard Cartwright. He happens to be a singer/songwriter, composer/producer, and CEO for Twilight Production Studio. He started his work in the year 2014 and since then they have worked on and produced some more projects related to music, films, and games. He proves his excellence in this short yet delightfully compact film.
