Slamdance 2024 Film Festival – While Demons in the Closet may clock in at only a little over a minute long, the claymation short is still a heck of a lot of fun. It moves so quick and is filled with so many gnarly looking demons that you’ll want to watch it at least a few times.

The concept is simple. A man, voiced by the short’s writer/director James Smith, literally fights demons in, you guessed it, his closet. He’s also joined by his adorable little dog. Indeed, mostly using an axe, the man fights one demon after the other, some more threatening than others. There’s one that burps out a human head, while seated around a dinner table with other demons. While watching this, I couldn’t help but think of the early Evil Dead films and Ash, maybe because of the weapons used and the man’s blue shirt, which resembles Ash’s clothing of choice.

As already stated, this is a short that warrants a few watches. There’s so much going on here with the claymation and quick cuts that if you blink, you’ll miss one of the demons, and they’re a feast upon the eyes. There’s also some cool fight sequences and bloody deaths. Again, this is why I can’t help but think the Evil Dead films were an influence here.

Because this film is so brief, and because claymation can be such a painstaking process, there’s really nothing developed about the man and the setting, other than the demons attacking from his closet. What’s here certainly works, but in a perfect world, I’d love to see this fleshed out more. Demons in the Closet is a heck of a lot of fun. Please, give us some more demon-slaying action.

8 out of 10