I’m going to review this one the same way I would any movie created for entertainment purposes, for that is assuredly what it is. It may pass as a “documentary”, and by the broadest possible definition it does qualify, but there is little to nothing of journalistic documentation to be found here. From the opening credits to the close, DEMON HOUSE is geared for titillation over information. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with that, provided no attempt is made to pass the product off as something other than what it is intended to be. DEMON HOUSE plays like a faux-documentary, like Found Footage, like a work. (Wrestling terminology, there.) It follows the formula for an entertainment-only movie to the letter, and their insistence on recreating the 12-foot goat demon, and having it show up repeatedly, tips their hand if nothing else does. There may in actuality have been something of a paranormal nature going on with that allegedly haunted house in Gary, Indiana. But you couldn’t prove it by anything presented in this “documentary”.
As a piece of entrainment, then, as fiction allegedly “based on a true story”, let us judge the piece. As such, it is imminently watchable and never dull, which Zak Bagins’ TV show GHOST ADVENTURES frequently is. In that regard we can say that DEMON HOUSE succeeds. It *is* entertaining. It isn’t anything beyond that, but if that’s all one is looking for, something to hold the attention for a couple of hours, the cinematic equivalent of junk food, such a viewer won’t be disappointed.
