Demontown 3 – review

Director: Randall Zisk

First aired: 2002

Contains spoilers

Demontown was a short lived TV series originally entitled Glory Days. Scandinavian DVD releases of the series are split into three feature length ‘films’, each made by stitching two episodes together. One of the episodes that make up this feature was an episode entitled “the Lost Girls” and has a vampire related storyline.

So, the first thing to note is that, from a vampire genre point of view, you can ignore the first half of this, which involves a serial killer coming to the town of Glory and a couple of the lead characters becoming targeted.

Sonya Salomaa as Rosalind

The second half starts with writer turned reporter Mike Dolan (Eddie Cahill) and local Sheriff Rudy Dunlop (Jay R. Ferguson) in a bar bemoaning their lots in life. Mike has writer’s block and fears he will never write a second novel, Rudy is not making it with the ladies. He spouts a silly chat-up line and Mike promises to help him after a trip to the toilet. Whilst Mike is gone a woman, Rosalind (Sonya Salomaa, the Collector, Blood Angels), approaches him and uses his line. Then she hisses and reveals fangs.

Meghan Ory as Jade

The next day the two men are in the diner with pathologist Ellie (Poppy Montgomery) and Rudy mentions the fangs – though they are seen, by Ellie, as an externalisation of his own hang ups. Elsewhere teens Sara (Amy Stewart) and Zane (Ben Crowley) are fishing. He kisses her and she slaps him. Just then Rosalind and her two cohorts Jade (Meghan Ory, Vampire High & Sanctuary season 2) and Charla (Che Dorval) turn up. Jade makes insinuating noises towards Zane, mentioning that she appreciates his young, virgin blood. Sara gets a catch and it turns out to be a dead body.

out of the coffin

This then is the main story, an exsanguinated murder victim and, whilst the girls are suspects, I can safely say they have nothing to do with the murder itself. I won’t go into the murder part of the episode, as I won’t spoil it and it is not vampire based (despite the method of murder). It is, however, identical to another murder elsewhere and it was that murder that inspired the three girls to take on their vampire personas. Zane goes to meet Jade and is followed by Sara. They get to the house the girls are staying in and find three coffins. They open one and it is empty. Then the other two open revealing fanged and weird eyed Rosalind and Charla, a similarly made-up Jade comes through the door.

the jig is up

Back at the police station the girls come clean. They are studying fear responses for a college paper and this entire thing was an experiment – until the associated murder spoilt the experiment. They still pulled the stunt with Zane to try and salvage something. They were inspired by the other murder and felt that “vampires are allegorical counterpoints to a societal fear of mortality.” So, not vampires, nor those who believe themselves to be vampires. However it is an interesting thought that the vampire might be so embedded in culture and the subconscious that it could be used for such an experiment.

fake fangs and contact lenses

The trouble with scoring this is that I have only watched the two episodes on this DVD and so I am not bought into the series as a whole. That said I only score the vampire aspect as part of the genre but this was, in reality, background fluff. The murder itself was sold (sort of) as a vampire murder but in the end was nothing of the sort. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.