Pratik Handore
‘Demonic’ is a horror film with a sci-fi twist about a young woman who discovers that evil supernatural forces are the cause of a traumatic incident that changed her and her mother’s life. It is written and directed by Neill Blomkamp. The film’s narrative is a mirage of complicated memories and virtual reality that takes the audience on a genuinely bone-chilling journey. However, does this scary tale have connections to real events or true stories? We got curious about the same and did a little investigation. Here’s everything we learned about the inspiration behind ‘Demonic.’
Is Demonic Based on a True Story?
No, ‘Demonic’ is not based on a true story. The movie is based on an original idea from writer-director Neill Blomkamp. Blomkamp desired to make a small, self-financed horror film. The global Covid-19 pandemic provided the perfect opportunity for him to execute such a project. Thus, he developed the script for the movie. Interestingly, Blomkamp did not refer to any pre-existing works of fiction or real events to come up with the story. Instead, the director — whose films such as ‘District 9’ have earned him a passionate fan following — relied on his imagination to write the story.
“Weirdly, I wasn’t really referencing anything. I can’t remember anything that I was looking at as (a) reference, but I was using a bunch of separate, disparate ideas that were brought together for the film. I wanted to use volumetric capture, and I wanted to have demonic possession as a horror trope. So they just all went into a melting pot,” Blomkamp said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
In a separate interview, Blomkamp revealed that he was “loved the sort of ingenuity” of movies such as ‘Paranormal Activity‘ and ‘The Blair Witch Project.’ The director also said that he focused on making interesting storytelling choices rather than relying on preexisting mythic creatures to develop the expansive mythology seen in the film. The idea for the bird-like demon, which is the menacing presence of this horror film, was inspired by medieval plague masks.
While the movie isn’t influenced by reality, it heavily features the use of virtual reality (VR), and some of the events take place inside a simulation. To create this VR world, Blomkamp used a technology known as volumetric capture, which records the actors in a three-dimensional way to generate graphical imagery. The director kept the technology in mind while developing the story. He created clever in-story answers to explain some limitations of the technology, such as the low-quality graphics.
During filming, Blomkamp embraced the uncontrollable elements of nature to give the movie a sense of realism. All things said, ‘Demonic’ is like a collage created from a number of colorful ideas. The basic premise is a result of the director’s desire to use VR technology in a horror movie. The Covid-19 pandemic also dictated some of the creative decisions behind the film. The end result is a compelling and terrifying narrative that strictly belongs in the realm of fiction.
Read More: Where Was Demonic Filmed?
