Just a friendly warning: Demons From Her Past, despite the title and the evocative cover design on the DVD case, is in no way, shape or form, a horror film. Seemingly coming straight off the Lifetime Movie Channel prime-time line-up, Demons From Her Past is a thoroughly tame and routine revenge melodrama, not worthy of a repeat viewing on cable, let alone a trumped-up DVD release that tries to sell the movie as something it most decidedly is not.
Allison (Alexandra Paul from Baywatch) returns to her home town after living in Paris for ten years - and after serving three years in prison for the vehicular manslaughter of a young boy on his bicycle. Despite Allison's pleas to the police and to the townspeople, no one believed that she wasn't responsible for the accident. Although she was driving, her boyfriend at the time, K.C. (Rob Stewart), had been drinking, and grabbed the wheel of the car while pushing her foot down on the accelerator, hitting the small boy. Quentin, another passenger in the car and the brother of Ray (Michael Woods), the town's sheriff and the person responsible for supplying beer to the underaged teenagers, hightails it out from the scene of the crime, and goes along with the lie that K.C. and he were never with Allison - backed up by future doctor Jeremy (Kevin Jubinville), who provides a false alibi (believe me, I'm not giving away too much plot - this all comes out in the first five minutes of the movie).
Now, Allison is back for revenge (unfortunately not the violent type), and starts to work on poor guilt-ridden Quentin, who was in love with Allison during high school, but who now leads a dead-end existence. Unfortunately for Quentin, somebody doesn't want him to help Allison, and soon, both are targeted for death.
Demons From Her Past is yet another variation on Bad Day at Black Rock (can this great movie be left alone in peace, already?), where a small town holds secrets to a violent crime, and a stranger (or returning resident) ferrets out the truth, causing mayhem and death in their path. Demons From Her Past is so generic, so bland, so utterly predictable and by-the-numbers, I'm frankly at a loss to explain why it's even being released on DVD. The actors, many of whom look vaguely familiar, do absolutely nothing but yeoman work enacting the one-dimensional characters. The direction, such as it is, is 1-2-3 talking heads style, with absolutely no passion or even the faintest spark of originality in its setups. In short, Demons From Her Past is odorless, tasteless crud that can't even muster up enough energy to be blah.
The DVD:
The Video:
The framing on the full screen video image for Demons From Her Past looks a little tight. The colors are as bland as the film itself, but I saw no transfer issues to speak of here.
The Audio:
There's an entirely adequate Dolby Digital English 2.0 stereo mix for this largely dialogue-driven drivel. Spanish and English subtitles are included.
The Extras:
A few anonymous trailers are included on the DVD.
Final Thoughts:
The front and back cover of Demons From Her Past (including what looks like a dead, desiccated hand holding a photograph!), are obviously designed to trick unsuspecting buyers into thinking they've got a nice little horror chiller in their shopping cart. However, the only truly horrifying thing about Demons From Her Past is its absolute dearth of original ideas, competent scripting, and performances with an ounce of energy. You don't even need to rent it; you can safely skip it.
Paul Mavis is an internationally published film and television historian, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the author of The Espionage Filmography.
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