Another aspect of Dementium that floored me was the highly creative indie tricks Sunderland uses throughout, adding production value without dependence on budget. A lot of the most complicated bending of reality is done solely through clever editing. It is the kind of work that makes me proud to be a reviewer in the Indie league, as it is this kind of homemade magic that you can’t get from a dream factory. While Hollywood productions parade huge expenses onscreen, Sunderland instead parades imagination by using the tools in ways unimagined. The actual FX are used so sparingly that at one point I wondered if they would be best avoided altogether. Does the scary-looking witch really need the CGI black mist swirl, especially when she looks terrifying by just clapping her hands in the background?
“That this jarringly emotional portion feeds directly into the insane horror is pure evil genius.”
The DMT angle is a good hook for a horror picture to get the curious viewers to try out Dementium, as we haven’t seen the spirit molecule in nearly any spook shows. Sunderland doesn’t really utilize the properties of the DMT trip, instead using the drug as a storytelling lantern to light our way through Wyatt’s haunted head. This is fine, as the creative license to thrill is fully employed to the sharpest degree. However, this is far from the afterlife revelations and monumental visions that accompany the DMT experience, which is like astral plane bungee jumping. Those who wish to experience an actual recreation of a DMT trip should check out Renegade (a.k.a. Blueberry), the French psychedelic western based on a comic book. Or you can go out and smoke some DMT, which occurs in nature regularly, including in your body when you are born, and when you die.
What makes me happiest about Dementium is that it stands high amongst hard drug Christmas pictures. What Less Than Zero did for holiday freebase, Dementium does for Yuletide heroin shooting. Sunderland’s deliberate use of the holiday setting on a Christmas tree farm adds an unusual tilt to the ghost waltzing, with an honest-to-goodness Christmas message at the core. This means you get to re-watch this movie during Christmas, instead of having to watch the same bad Santas, cousin Eddies, and flagpole tongues you are sick of. Connoisseurs of unusual holiday offerings will rejoice over Dementium, as this is a holly jolly mind fuck. The hope for humanity shines hard in the finale, which is odd for a genre that usually celebrates the demise of that same hope. But odd moves are what Dementium is all about, as this is that rare film that is so maverick it cannot be predicted.
"…parades imagination by using the tools in ways unimagined."
