Demons Season One

Director: Tom Harper,
Starring: Holly Grainger, Philip Glenister, Zoe Tapper, Christian Cooke, Paul Vigrass, Saskia Wickham, Mackenzie Crook, Richard Wilson,

Rate Demons Season One DVD Release:

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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DVD Review

Demons, the new series from ITV, is the channel’s answer to the BBC’s monopoly over prime time (and late night) fantasy horror shows such as Doctor Who, Torchwood and previous success stories like Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Sadly, like many ITV shows, Demons is considerably watered down when compared to its rivals from the BBC. What ITV fails to realise is that audiences who watch this type of show can handle hard hitting subjects like death without the need to dress them up in a comedic way, or refer to it as ‘smiting’, as Demons does with regards to killing the Demons themselves.

However, the show is still entertaining and while we have no Doctor Who series currently running, is worth a look. The concept of Demons is one that could have been torn (or even photocopied) direct from the synopsis for Buffy the Vampire Slayer as the parallels are glaringly obvious.

Luke (Christian Cooke) learns that he’s the chosen one and the final descendant from the legendary vampire killer Van Helsing. As such he has mystical abilities (almost ‘slayer’ like) that allow him to take on Demons and nasties in hand to hand combat. He is taught the old, grizzled Rupert Galvin (Philip Glenister) who acts as the Watcher type role from Buffy. The team operate out of a library setting buried within the sewer, one which even looks like the set from the Buffy.

Heck, there’s even a vampire with a soul helping them out! Seriously, this could have been copied from Buffy and just had the word ‘slaying’ replaced with ‘smiting’, as that’s what they do to the bad guys.

Despite the gripes, of which most are down to it being less than original, Demons is entertaining and I thoroughly enjoyed every episode. There was even one episode which was slightly chilling, involving a demon who stole the souls of children to devour later.

Demons could, and should improve, as even Buffy was less than spectacular in its first season. It was only in the second season that the characterisation came up. Hopefully Demons will be given chance to improve and grow as a series, and ITV will allow it to get that little edgier.

Darren Jamieson

Darren has enjoyed an interest in film for many years, studying the subject at Newport Film School where he worked on the film ‘Cop on the Edge IX: Prelude to Justice‘ in a directing and acting capacity. The official site can be enjoyed here. Darren setup WhatDVD.Net in 2003 to further his love of films and to write passionately about the movies he enjoys, and about those that he doesn’t.

Although his day-to-day activities mean that he now has less time to review movies than he would ideally prefer, he still tries to review new releases, and DVDs from his extensive collection, whenever possible.
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Rating: 68%

Website: http://www.itv.com/drama/cult/demons/