Sorry About the Demon, on Shudder

Will is such a neurotic millennial nothing, even the demon terrorizing his new house doesn’t want to live with him. It looks like he has watched way too much of the Magnolia and Food Networks, because he is constantly baking cakes and making his own noxious candles. Consequently, it is easy to understand why he ex-girlfriend Amy dumped him. Unfortunately, that meant he had to find his own place—necessarily someplace cheap. The owners of the demon house make him a suspiciously good deal in screenwriter-director Emily Hagins’ Sorry About the Demon, which premieres tomorrow on Shudder.

In addition to his baking and crafts, Will works as a customer service rep for the saltiest toothpaste on the market. He really is as pathetic as he sounds. After Amy dumps him, he continues obsessing over her, until he starts notice the strange things going in his new home. He didn’t think he could afford to rent an entire house, but the Sellers Family are motivated landlords. Their daughter Grace was possessed by Deomonous in the prologue, but they made a deal to lure a replacement sacrifice for him to drag to Hell in her place.

That is where Will is supposed to come in, but for some reason Demonous wants nothing to do with him. Although terrified, the nebbish loser feels somewhat rejected again. He is still disturbed by it all, but his only friend, Patrick the lawyer, is skeptical. However, Patrick’s work friend Aimee (same name, different spelling), happened to work her way through college as a spiritual cleanser, so she can pick up on his house’s seriously bad mojo.

Some of Hagins’ pay-off gags are pretty easy to spot, but the demonic humor is still pretty amusing. It is probably about as funny as Hell Baby, without the earlier movie’s somewhat recognizable cast.

Jon Michael Simpson plays Will as a woeful sad sack, but he serves quite effective as the butt of the film’s demonic jokes. Jeff McQuitty probably lands the most laughs combining acerbic sarcasm with nervous kvetching. He is also the easiest character to identify with. Dave Peniuk and Sarah Cleveland are also amusingly horrible, in a Seinfeld kind of way, as the duplicitous Ken and Tammy Sellers.

Sorry should definitely be classified as a comedy but it devotes sufficiently time and thought developing the demonic horror business that it will pass muster with most genre fans. Hagins and the cast definitely know what they are satirizing and they have fun with the infernal evil they conjure up. Recommended for fans of horror comedies, Sorry About the Demon starts streaming tomorrow (1/19) on Shudder.