According to the film’s official synopsis, the film follows Katie, a young woman who flees a backwoods cult and takes a job at a care center for special needs adults in her determination to do some good with her life. But despite her best intentions, Katie can’t escape the signs that “the devils” are coming for Stephanie, a woman with Down Syndrome she cares for, who keeps getting sicker despite Katie’s rituals to ward off evil spirits. Brandy Edmiston, Katie Groshong, and Eller Hall also star in the film, which was an official selection the Nashville Film Festival and the Chattanooga Film Festival.
“Dementer” is written and directed by Chad Crawford Kinkle, director for “Organ Grinder” (2011) and “Jug Face” (2013).
Said Kinkle about the film, “A year ago, my mother mentioned she had a dream that I made a film with my sister Stephanie, who has Down Syndrome. I don’t think that I told her, but for a few years now I’ve had the idea of building a horror film around my sister.
Back in the late ‘90s, I was in film school and even then the idea of making a film with my sister would enter my mind. But what would I do? A documentary? And why would I do it? To make people feel sorry for her? While my sister is “special?”—the events in her life haven’t been such that would warrant a film, particularly a feature film.
After watching “The Tribe,” a film set in a school for deaf teens, I slowly changed my mind. What if I did make a film with my sister in the unique environment that she lives in and what if it was a horror film? What would that even look like? I didn’t know, but I felt the idea had something to it.
The resulting film is something that I’ve never seen before. While certainly a horror film, it needed another description like: experimental, abstract, dream-like, nightmarish, or even art house. What seemed best is that it is more of a dark poem, since much of the script was written on intuition and not traditional story logic.
In the end, my hope is that “Dementer” will be remembered as a unique horror film, created under equally unique circumstances.”
IMDb page: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8992690/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
You can watch the official trailer below:
