The Demon Disorder

 Graham (Christian Willis) hasn't seen his brothers Phillip (Charles Cottier) and Jake (Dirk Hunter) since the patriarch of the family (John Noble) passed away. The old man apparently spent the last years of his life stricken by some sort of dementia which led him to harm his children. A dementia that's portrayed in flashbacks as a kind of demonic possession, which... hmmm*. It's probably not the most responsible of narrative devices, but it can work.

 Anyhow; Jake suddenly pops up at Graham's workplace, sporting a madman's beard and demeanor, and tells him the youngest, Phillip, has caught the same sort of insanity dear old da had. There's tension between the two - that old "you left us to deal with an ancient family curse on our own" chestnut. But they put their differences aside to help their little brother, and Graham returns to the creepily derelict family farm to confront something something father's sins etc.

 There's a glimmer of an interesting idea in the lousily named aussie creature feature The Demon Disorder: that of a curse as a fleshy, fleshy entity that desperately seeks to escape and take ever evolving forms like a refugee from an 80's horror movie. It's the debut film from Steven Boyle, a veteran effects designer and technician, and it's cleverly planned around both a limited budget and Boyle's areas of expertise. Expect a bunch of cool practical effects, with a decent variety of creatures and a smattering of effective body horror.

 Unfortunately they're sprinkled too sparingly in an otherwise unremarkable film. The script, by Boyle and Toby Osborne, never really takes its story of literal family demons anywhere interesting. The actors are game - watching Graham and the semi-deranged Jake interact is always entertaining - but their dialog, and the way conversations are framed, often strain to add an intensity that's not really warranted by the material. Worse still, by the time the third act rolls around the script kind of falls apart, with a series of idiotic decisions spiralling out of control in a not particularly entertaining manner.

 This'd be a stronger recommendation if the film could harness its premise better, or at least muster a better finale. For a mostly unpretentious creature feature, though, it's not that bad. I think the mayhem and the monsters make this one worth it. Just about.

*: That's the tasteful version - there's always The Taking of Deborah Logan, too. This film never really dares to actually make any parallels, which is both part of its problem and probably for the best.