Emily Hagins sure knows a thing or two about horror. If you are to take the words of someone who feels a bout of nausea coming in at the idea of romantic comedies, the 30-year-old director also knows more about rom-coms than some of the biggest names in the genre. The 2022 Shudder initiative derives a near-perfect horror comedy by not only bravely delving into but also exploiting all the haunted house cliches.
We have a lovable guy, and with our infinite experiences with 21st-century aimlessness, a relatable dork in the adorable loser of a lead. Hagins creates a 20-something man from the finest ingredients vetted by the most observant millennial insecurities. And Will (Jon Michael Simpson), a jack-of-all-trades, only gets to confront his inner demons when faced with an actual demon whose criteria for stealing souls may be higher than some of our dating standards. Aiming ferociously to draw embarrassing humor from the most expected gimmicks is how Sorry About The Demon distracts you just enough to deliver punch after punch of truly shocking frights.
Sorry About The Demon (2022): Plot Summary and Movie Synopsis
Little Grace has a demon after her. But that’s nothing the Seller family can’t handle with a little bit of sweet talking and a sweeter negotiation with Deomonous. And who could be an infinitely better substitute for human sacrifice than someone with hardly any friends or family? Enter Will. Customer service executive for the excessively salty Presto paste by night and baker/woodworker/candle-maker by day, Will makes cake pops for his soon-to-be-ex girlfriend Amy, a better way to celebrate her big promotion than actually attending her work party. If there’s one thing Amy finds more difficult to tolerate than his stinky candles, it’s his lack of ambition in life. And by the time you see the breakup coming, you’re also seeing Will inviting a ride to hell by giving in to Ken and Tammy Seller’s manipulations and renting their extravagant haunted house.
It’s not too bad for Will as long as he ignores the creaking floors, the indistinct whispers, the spontaneously opening doors, and a piano-playing ghost that mocks his skills. He can even go as far as to justify piled-up chairs and open cabinets with a draft theory. Where he draws the line, however, is when Deomonous bakes him a cake. Whether it was the ghostly cake that unnerved Will or his hurt baker-ego (trust me, that’s a real phenomenon), Will doesn’t take demon-treat very well and calls up his plaque-phobe friend Patrick.
Patrick believes the haunted house theory even less than he believes Will’s theory that it was Amy who broke in, baked him a cake to profess her love and left. Even if Will could come to terms with a cake-baking demon, you can’t possibly expect him to be cool with a t-shirt-thief Salem’s Lot-Esque ghost boy and a ghost girl who uses every opportunity to call him a loser whose soul isn’t good enough for Deomonous. If that isn’t bad enough for Will, paying a visit to Amy breaks his heart even more when he discovers she is seeing a certain Nick.
An Unlikely Possession
Enter Aimee with two e’s–Patrick’s colleague who happens to dabble in “cleansing” houses off spirits. Aimee, Will, and Patrick, unaware of the dangerous extent of the haunting, attempt to banish the restless spirits from the house by overusing Will’s stack of sage and what appears to be a tub of Morton’s salt. While Aimee does manage to get rid of the spirits, she soon realizes that what really haunts the house is Deomonous, a demon who wants to possess souls and drag them to hell at 3:15 AM. By bringing his friends home, Will practically offers a better meal for Deomonous, who deems Will’s soul unworthy of possession.
He grabs Patrick instead. Why? Because Patrick at least works out and has a respectable career. While possessed, Patrick digs up a plaque-like substance in the ground to open a portal that appears to lead to hell and Will breaks his arm while saving his friend. Aimee ultimately does manage to banish Deomonous for the time being. On the other hand, Will has finally found a purpose in his wayward life. He decides to stand guard and live in the house forever to protect innocents from Deomonous’ demonic claws.
What do we have here? Oh, it’s another unlikely possession
Amy decides to visit Will to check on his damaged arm and to hopefully get closure about why he didn’t attend the work party on the night they broke up. This is the part that makes this movie a far better and much more heartwarming rom-com than most genre movies, thanks to perfect dialogue and fantastic performances. They spend a cozy evening cooking spaghetti, watching a movie, and gradually regaining their intimacy.
But why would life let Will catch a break? After a night of hopeful lovemaking, Will wakes up to find that Amy looks like a character from the Exorcist. Yup, Deomonous has claimed his next victim. Will’s attempt to use exorcism methods he discovered on the internet while being yelled at by his boss for failing to show up for work does not go as planned. That is until Aimee and Patrick show up at the ominous house following a hunch that “empath” Aimee felt.
Sorry About The Demon (2022): Movie Ending, Explained
How Does Will Save Everyone From The Demon?
It’s a whole hell-party at the house with the Sellers showing up with an “are you done yet” attitude toward’s Deomonous’ demonic endeavors. With Will locked in the basement and keeping possessed Amy company as she digs through the hell portal, Aimee decides to perform a dangerous seance after all. For a seance, they need an analog radio of sorts, and for that, they use Will’s barely used workout walkman. The ouija board reveals that Deomonous has been holding the spirits in the house hostage and puppeteering them at his whim. The biggest shock for the Seller family comes when the demon possesses Grace again because why settle for one soul when you can have two?
When Aimee concludes that Deomonous is currently not at his complete, vicious ability as he is splitting his powers into controlling Grace, Amy, and the spirits, she decides that this is the only opportunity they have to beat the evil. The spirits pass on a message through the analog walkman. They are to find something created by the demon and destroy it before the clock hits 3:15. But how do you find a demonic creation in a house full of monstrosities made by Will? Thankfully, they have to look no further than the fridge with the black demon cake sitting right there waiting to be grabbed.
Meanwhile, Will has found a way to communicate with the real Amy. Wearing his headset, Will finally gives Amy the closure she came looking for. It wasn’t that Will wasn’t overjoyed with Amy’s career flourishing. He didn’t want to go with her to her promotion party because of his insecurities. He was worried that Amy would see that while her life was moving forward, Will’s path was leading nowhere meaningful. Ironically for poor Will, Amy had come to that conclusion anyway on the night of their breakup. Thanks to Will’s exhausting monologue, Deomonous finds it intolerable to be in Amy’s body and leaves her be.
But little Grace hasn’t stopped digging. When they all come down to the basement, the clock has hit 3:15, and the portal is already open. But Deomonous isn’t taking Grace if Patrick has something to say about it. He throws the carton full of Presto toothpaste into the hole, and hell freezes over. A sweet homage to Sam and Dean’s Supernatural expeditions teaching us all how much demons hate salt – the main ingredient in Presto paste. But Deomonous isn’t one to be defeated that easily.
When the portal opens up again, and Grace falls right in, Amy goes in with her. Too bad no one in the group thought to stab the demon cake and banish Deomonous before he took the two souls he had marked. But since the demon gets a part of him demolished with the green gunk shooting out of the cake and splattering all over the group, Amy and Grace manage to crawl out of hell covered in filth.
All fun and games aside, through this bizarre ordeal, Will does get his life together, well, somewhat. He is no longer a guy without a purpose. In fact, Patrick quits his day job to start a Hell Jell brand of paste with Will. He is a proud owner of a gorgeous house now if you can look past the ghosts that could not be kicked out. The Seller family isn’t particularly happy to give up their haunted house to Will. But they will be even more unhappy when they discover that Grace has managed to get possessed by Deomonous for the third time. A sequel possibility? I wouldn’t say no to that.
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Sorry About The Demon (2022) Links: IMDb
