Anthropologist Dr Harry Ballard's (Karl Urban) life seems ideal – he has a challenging and interesting career and a girlfriend, Celia (Sally Stockwell), who is a beautiful and intelligent lawyer. But after his brother commits suicide under strange circumstances, Harry, already a sceptic, becomes increasingly cynical and immerses himself in de-bunking cults and mysticism. Harry and student protégé Johnny (Tony MacIver) – a stoner to whom Harry is an older brother figure – engage in a series of practical jokes that open Demons on a scary/ light hearted note. Harry's encounter with the seriously weird Benny (Katie Wolfe) accentuates his mood when she delivers a bizarre warning: a sinister cult is out to get him. He dismisses Benny as just another crazy, attributes a gory, threatening message to the lunatic fringe, and sets up for a sucker-punch. His world is invaded by freaks – namely archetypal evil-fucker Le Valliant (Jonathan Hendry) and his henchmen, Lawrence (Peter Daube), Wank (Kelson Henderson) and Alice (Mel Johnston) – and he's immersed in a maelstrom of horror, violence, and possibly, drug induced insanity. The production team, rather than trying to fight the elements, decided to embrace Wellington's wet, winter conditions and give the exterior night shots a slick, glossy look. Standring's script is tight, with twists that keep you guessing for the entire 90 minutes. The shock and horror isn't relentless and Standring shows restraint in his use of dramatic build-ups to tense moments; some parts really made me JUMP! The actors' performances are credible, the cinematography (Simon Baumfield) superb and Standring shows an exceptional eye in setting-up his shots. The Irrefutable Truth About Demons sets a high benchmark for local movies in 2001 – not only in the horror-thriller genre but one for all New Zealand film makers to aspire to. Following in the fine tradition of his fellow New Zealander Peter Jackson, director Glenn Standring shows great promise in his debut feature The Irrefutable Truth About Demons. It is inspired by a nightmare magic mushroom trip that lasted for weeks, his student love of metaphysical philosophy and his admiration for Jacques Tourneur's scary classic Night of the Demon. Shown in competition at the Sitges Fantasy Festival 2000, Standring's shocker doesn't do anything particularly new but wraps up its generic plot in well sustained tension, high gloss atmospherics and amiable grisliness, layered together with an unusual neo-punk aesthetic, that keeps its electric visual style firing on all creepy cylinders. Packed with heart-grabbing gore – and I do literally mean heart-grabbing in the remarkable set-piece where Ballard (Karl Urban) is operated on with just demonic hands – elliptical CGI devils that suddenly appear on train tracks and climb up the sides of buildings, and numerous surprise tweaks, Standring's nifty little miniature remains well-paced and intriguing. And despite its somewhat unwieldy title, the film has enough thrills and satanic suspense to satisfy the pickiest of palettes. This is also a stupid movie but stupid in a good way. Being a movie about the supernatural and physical incarnations of evil and all that it's always gunna be a few genitals short of an orgy, that's the nature of the genre. The good part is that this lovely little country hasn't done a lot of horror movies and this is definitely closer to the successful end than most. It looks great, from the glowingly dark photography of Simon Baumfield to the unusually fine CGI animated demons of Euan Frizzel. The two lead performances by Karl Urban and (especially) Katie Wolfe are more finely nuanced than those in most horror flicks. The script is occasionally hilarious in its expectations of our suspension of disbelief but finally manages to carry it off with a bit of a swagger without feeling the crushing need to wrap it all up neatly at the end. It's tough doing genre films in a small country, you hafta look at selling into a lot of markets worldwide to get any money back. Happily horror fandom is such that a little positive word of mouth can go a long way. Mind you, it ain't all fabulous, Urban wakes from maybe two or three too many nightmares, Jonathon Hendry's Aleister Crowley-style black magician is a little too fey and easygoing, the last few frames are cliched and redundant and the holes in the plot are oft-times of the black variety. Still, I've gotta applaud director Glenn Standring for this aberrant little movie. It shows our local industry is growing up a smidgen when it can embrace an ugly duckling like this, knowing that it may well grow into a big, strapping, ornery, black swan. The latest in CGI gives an added dimension to this horror thriller from New Zealand, about a university lecturer who is obsessed with exposing cults due to the death of his brother. As he delves deeper into the world of fanaticism and devil worship, he learns that there are some things not to be messed with, such as demonic creatures capable of strolling across the ceiling. Together with his only ally, an ex-cult member herself, he sets out to avenge his brother. Laughter and fear go hand in hand in this slick debut feature which has helped rejuvenate the Kiwi gore industry since Peter Jackson went off to make Lord of the Rings. The last horror film to come out of New Zealand would be... ooh, Brain Dead, I guess (Dead Alive to our US readers) but don't expect Peter Jackson-style gore in Glenn Standring's debut feature, which screens at the Edinburgh Film Festival on Sunday. The Irrefutable Truth About Demons is a genuinely unnerving, but also hugely enjoyable film which veers - with confidence - between psychological and supernatural horrors. Karl Urban plays Dr Harry Ballard, a knowledgeable and intelligent university lecturer who has no time for mystical mumbo-jumbo about 'dark forces'. But when he runs afoul of a Satanic cult, he is forced to confront the possibility of real demonic entities and powers - not unlike Dana Andrews' Dr Holden in Night Of The Demon 40 or so years ago (Curse Of The Demon to the Yanks). Except that Andrews' character never found himself on the run, accused of the particularly grisly murder of a relative. Ballard is faced with an impossible decision: either he committed the murder of which he has no memory (in which case he's going mad) or he has been framed by the cult (in which case there really are demons on his trail). The demons, when they appear (or are we only seeing them through the eyes of Ballard?) are effectively done creatures - humanoid but very clearly not a man. The film's budget was tight, but as so often at this end of the industry, that makes the selective use of visual effects even more powerful. There's a certain Kiwi je-ne-sais-quoi-mate to the film - maybe it's just the accents - that instantly sets it apart from typical Hollywood movies of this ilk. Above all, it's made with obvious passion for the medium and love for the genre - that shines through. Altogether a more interesting demonic entry was Glenn Standring's film The Irrefutable Truth About Demons which, although it hasn't been released theatrically in any territory yet, is already one of the highest-grossing New Zealand titles of all time based on sales to worldwide distributors. Standring is the first to admit that his glossy shocker pays homage to Night of the Demon with an additional edge provided by a neo-punk aesthetic propelling its visual style. Karl Urban plays the apathetic professor of esoteric cults and mysticism whose life becomes a paranoid nightmare when Satanists kill his brother and make him their next target. With only a reformed black magician Katie Wolfe to help him, he must fulfil an ancient prophecy to end the sect's reign of terror. Packed with gore, elliptical CGI devils and numerous plot surprises, Standring's debut feature is a creditable chiller that calls to mind the early work of Peter Jackson. The Irrefutable Truth About Demons is a dark cautionary tale for those too caught up in the wonders of a new millennium, where the gods of science and technology rule all. Anthropologist Dr. Harry Ballard is a professional skeptic bent on exposing fringe religious cults. After crossing the wrong people, Harry is abducted and tortured by the minions of the mysterious cult leader Le Valliant, barely escaping with his life. The police blame the incident on drug-induced hallucinations, but when he discovers his girlfriend strung up by barbed wire, a warning inked from her dripping blood, Harry is forced to re-examine his beliefs. Director Glenn Standring creates a maze-like world of perpetual midnight where forces reaching beyond myth and lore lurk unseen around every corner. This is one of the best movies to come out of New Zealand in years. It is a spine tingling horror movie which will keep you on the edge of your seat. You will wonder what is real and what is not. Are there really demons or are they the figment of the lead characters' imagination? You decide. There are great visual effects of real cockroaches being poured into someones mouth, demons scaling walls and hearts pumping in hands. If you like horror, you'll love this. Thumbs up to the Kiwis for a brilliant spine tingler. If there's one cardinal rule of Midnight Madness at the Toronto Film Festival, it's this: there's horror, and then there's NEW ZEALAND horror. And while Standring is hardly setting out to remake Bad Taste, he certainly doesn't let the standard droop. Good thing too, considering the mess his film leaves on the floor. The Irrefutable Truth About Demons is a solid entry into the 'initiation' canon, wherein a supremely confident character is shaken to his very core by revelation and enlightenment the hard way. Harry (played by Karl Urban, Xena's Caesar) is a cult debunker who gets a tape in the mail covered in (he hopes) pig's blood. He's the target of a particular baddie named Le Valliant, and while he dismisses the threat, the fact that he's soon chained by the neck to the floor of a warehouse clues him in that it's serious. Events spiral even further out of Harry's control, as he's implicated in the bloody crucifixion of his girlfriend, this nutty chick named Benny (Katie Wolfe) is following him around and La Valliant's friend, the eight-foot tall wall-climbing demon, keeps killing Harry's friends? Another film (like Ginger Snaps) made on the cheap to great effect, ITAD is an amazingly effective horror thriller for a first-time director. Standring has a good feel for when to give the audience some slack and when to tighten the thumbscrews. Recalling the absurdist bloodletting of fellow kiwi Peter Jackson, Glenn Standring's debut feature is a clever, gleefully ludicrous flick about demons, disembowelments, and bloody death. Like all good B-movies, The Irrefutable Truth About Demons brings a bag full of cliches and conventions to the screen and reassembles them into something that, if not radically new, is clever and entertaining. While the plot itself is pretty silly, the thrills and chills are fast and frequent, featuring baddies leaping out from street corners, ghoulish dream-sequences, and one of the most weirdly romantic endings in recent memory. Standring creates a sustained mood of dread and desperation without seeming heavy-handed. Moreover, Demons is filled with little details that keep the film fresh: the Satanist punks resemble Lollapalooza refugees, Benny looks like a second-hand Cinderella with funky shoes, glitter, and gobs of blue eye shadow, and Wellington's inky streets seem to radiate with malevolence. Demons is a loopy, wild ride that engages and unnerves. A man of science is forced to swallow his skepticism about the mysterious forces of evil and the entirely flexible nature of reality in The Irrefutable Truth About Demons. While the generic plot doesn't bear close examination and the dialogue is not always Pulitzer material, writer-director Glenn Standring conjures a creepy, brooding atmosphere and enough thrills to keep young horror enthusiasts glued. Presold to a handful of European territories, this slick New Zealand production should score some minor theatrical play en route to wider coverage on video.