The legend of El Demonio Negro, or The Black Demon, brings a mythical, almost supernatural, quality to this latest shark attack horror feature. Director Adrian Grünberg (Rambo: The Last Blood), working from a script by Boise Esquerra and Carlos Cisco, dials in on the folkloric aspect of The Black Demon to wield the horror as a cautionary entry in eco-horror rather than a conventional shark attack feature. Fresh mythology struggles to keep these shark infested waters afloat, however.
Corporate oilman Paul Sturges (Josh Lucas) brings his wife Ines (Fernanda Urrejola) and kids Audrey (Venus Ariel) and Tommy (Carlos Solórzano) with him on a visit to Baja. The family trip to explore Ines’ roots doubles as work for Paul, who hopes to boat out to his company’s rig off the Baja coast for an inspection before rejoining his family on vacation. Paul arrives at the crumbling rig to find it leaking oil, falling apart, and surrounded by a behemoth shark that’s left only two oil workers alive: Chato (Julio Cesar Cedillo) and Junior (Jorge A. Jimenez). Hostile locals force a family reunion on the rig, which spells bad news for them all, with time running out as the Black Demon works to destroy the rig and everyone on it.
Despite its title, the Black Demon is more of a totemic guardian, summoned by corporate greed’s interference with and corruption of nature. That means a more prominent focus on Paul’s role within the company and the rig over tense set pieces dedicated to the shark terror. It also means a less natural approach to the shark itself, a behemoth megalodon that’s a presented as a lurking presence with supernatural abilities meant to breed tension aboard the rig.
That means the central characters are prone to lashing out without provocation, particularly main protagonist Paul. The narrative struggles to bridge Paul as the affable family man to the willing pawn of corporate greed, creating whiplash as Paul’s angry outbursts come out of nowhere. The Black Demon lays blame at Paul’s feet without characterization or plotting to earn his erratic arc and leaves Lucas with little else to do other than portray Paul as volatile with a hair’s trigger. Cedillo brings a necessary warmth that instills rooting interest, outshining the paper-thin Sturges family, though it’s not enough to sustain the plodding time bomb setup.
The contrived human drama takes center stage, relegating the horror mainly to the background. The upside is that not showing the Black Demon too frequently keeps its VFX rendering obscured, but the downside means a low body count and moments of peril that never register. Grünberg relies on the same familiar tactics with shark encounters, but they make less sense here, considering the shark’s size. Further hindering the intensity is the troubled sound mix that makes dialogue hard to make out in stretches.
The concept of a mythic shark prowling the Baja coast, an actual enduring legend said to haunt the Sea of Cortez for decades, makes for a welcome addition to the increasingly crowded ocean of shark horror. The Black Demon only loosely explores the cryptid and instead uses it as a tool to spin a cautionary tale of manmade ecological disaster. But it never builds upon its shallow ideas, resulting in a messy effort sunk by its lackluster human focus.
The Black Demon swims into theaters on April 28, 2023.
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