Noted special effects artist Steven Boyle makes his directorial debut with The Demon Disorder, a new Australian horror film. It may not be the most inventive of features but it proudly does what it says on the tin, infuses it with a distinctly local vernacular, and provides some excellent moments of well-realised body horror. Fans of the genre will find much to enjoy here.

Reclusive mechanic Graham Reilly (Christian Willis) is unwillingly drawn back into his broken family when his younger brother Phillip (Charles Cottier) starts to exhibit the same signs of possession that killed their father (John Noble).

There is a genuinely nice blend here of well-established horror tropes and well-considered family drama. Agriculture can be a challenging business, and The Demon Disorder‘s set-up echoes many of the stories that you hear about Australian farmers today. The father, George, is dead – and the film takes time to slowly unravel the circumstances of his death. Since then the farm has fallen into a level of disrepair approaching ruin. Graham has coped by fleeing his siblings entirely and pretty much keeping to himself. Phillip is exhibiting the same behaviours that their father did. Middle brother Jake (Dirk Hunter), with nowhere else to go, has stuck to repairing the collapsing farm and drinking himself to an early grave. The film is littered with emotional wreckage, and that provides a level of depth to underlie the more overt horror elements.

Those elements represent vivid and bloody physical effects in the mode of early Cronenberg and Raimi. Whatever supernatural presence is haunting the farm is embodied by tumour-like growths and viscerally expelled creatures. Boyle’s long experience in effects work serves the film brilliantly well: there is a wet, sickening physicality to everything that adds a lot of charm. It also feels nicely symbolic, as the pain of the past is rendered physically as something to be regurgitated or violently cut out.

There is also an awful lot of humour at work. It mostly comes from contrast, pitting the uncanny eruption of malevolent entities against the very blunt, matter of fact rhetoric used in country Australia. Disbelief, pain, and panic are expressed through coarse language, which is liberally shouted at the top of one’s lungs throughout the piece. It is not a surprise to see the Spierig Brothers (Michael and Peter) credited among the film’s producers: this wonderfully abrasive tone was riddled through their own countryside horror Undead (2003).

These broadly expressed, roughshod characters are wonderfully realised by the film’s cast. John Noble is the film’s most famous performer, adding some genuinely touching scenes in flashback. His scenes also draw a slightly provocative comparison between possession and dementia; the film leaves a lot of story potential on the table with this element, as if Boyle was concerned about causing offence.

The three brothers are all well-performed, particularly Dirk Hunter as the drunken, panicky Jake. He is undeniably a work of pastiche, but one that is immediately recognisable to anyone that has ever in rural Australia. He is the source of the best comedic moments, yet still has space to show an awful lot of emotional pain as well. Tobie Webster makes a likeable and very welcome contribution as Graham’s apprentice Cole – particularly during the film’s effective third act.

The Demon Disorder is a rock-solid, hugely entertaining genre piece. It knows its audience, and while it does not provide anything specifically innovative or new it demonstrates a keen understanding of audience expectations and horror conventions. Put simply: if it sounds like something you would enjoy, it almost certainly is.