For the past 20 years, a town had tried to forget the massacre that took place in Ice Climber Sean McIntyre’s now deserted house. Sean massacred his family and committed suicide by hanging himself by his climbing rope in the attic after going crazy from altitude sickness and exposure on a very treacherous climb. Financially savvy Richard, from the local college, has decided to resurrect this urban legend by hosting a live webcast on Halloween night. The object of this pay per view streaming video is to watch as 3 teams of couples compete to find clues in order to escape the McIntyre estate before morning. What the college kids do not realize is that they are not alone…

The movie starts out on a very promising note, with an enactment of the McIntyre family massacre. The gore for this is well done and sets the bar fairly high for the rest of the film. There is also a notably well done effect with Sean’s 2 children as they take on a ghost like countenance. Unfortunately, the writers didn’t include the 2 ghost children in the movie past the beginning, because I think it could have added a creepy effect to the whole haunted house vibe. We move on past the opening with some gratuitous T and A and some character setup. The thing is, the writers really want you to dislike all male characters in the movie. They steriotyped the Jocks as being so mindless and self centered that the actors came off as extremely annoying, almost to the detriment of the film. The girls were also typical, with a lesbian goth girl, a porn star, a party girl and the smart girl who is a lot more intuitive than the rest. They played their characters a little more believably than the male roles, well, except for the porn star and their performances didn’t come across so badly exaggerated. As I said earlier the gore effects were good, except for a scene where they zoom in on 2 severed hands that were so fake looking it was laughible. The character of crazed killer Sean McIntyre, resurrected during a seance at the beginning of the night, is original. I felt, however that the choice to have him come across as very detached a la Michael Myers may not have been the best choice. It would have been cool to have that character developed a little more and made a little more distinctive. Anyway, the plot, like most haunted house/reality show slasher movies, is by the book for haunted house with a resurrected killer flicks. There is a bit of a change up at the end that saved it from being totally predictible and I liked the way they wrapped up the movie.

Overall, I enjoyed watching Death On Demand. While certainly not a cerebral horror film, it is a good movie to drink beer and watch with the guys on movie night. It is a fairly fast paced, straightforward, no analysis required slasher flick, which I enjoy watching periodically. If you like the 80’s slashers then you will probably enjoy this one, as it has all of those elements. I recommend checking Death on Demand out, its a fun watch and I give it a bonus point for a great decapitation scene at the beginning.

Death on Demand is available from MTI Home Video beginning on July 8th, 2008.

To request a switch for Death on Demand or to purchase it directly from Amazon.com, clickHere