Movies

The Avocado Movie Club #27: Demonlover (2002)

Welcome to the Movie Club! Today’s movie is Olivier Assayas’ neo-noir corporate espionage thriller, Demonlover!

Korean poster that makes it look like a very different sort of movie

Demonlover follows Diane (Connie Nielson), a business executive working for the French company Volf Corporation, who are competing with an American company called Demonlover (who has been accused of running a secretive torture porn site called The Hellfire Club) to buy a Japanese hentai studio that is working on a new style of hentai using 3D animation. Diane secretly works for Demonlover’s competition, Mangatronics, and when her position is discovered by her coworkers things quickly begin to spiral out of her control. 

Demonlover first premiered at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival before being released in France on November 6, 2002, followed by a staggered release in various North American cities in September the following year. It grossed $568,063 against a budget of $8 million, and critics were divided on its merit, as it earned a 52% on Rotten Tomatoes, although it has slowly earned a cult following over the years.12

Trivia:34  

  • According to an interview on the Criterion Channel, Assayas was inspired by the works of author Don DeLilo, as he felt like his books had captured something about the world that film had not.
  • Chloe Sevigny opted to take this role over one in a much more mainstream film: Legally Blonde
  • The film’s score was created by Sonic Youth! 

What did you think? Share your thoughts below! 

Up Next: Our next movie will be Bill Forsyth’s comedy-drama, Local Hero. We’ll meet to discuss it on July 25th at 12 EST. Check out the trailer and where it’s playing below:

USA

  • Stream: Fandango At Home, Kanopy, Plex (through JustWatch?), Tubi 
  • Rent or Buy: Amazon, Google Play, YouTube,  Apple TV, Fandango At Home

Canada

  • Stream: Nada!
  • Rent or Buy: Apple TV, Plex, Google Play, YouTube

UK

  • Stream: Pluto TV
  • Rent or Buy: Amazon, Apple TV, Sky Store, BFI Player

General Updates: Going forward we are going to forgo monthly themes. I felt like it created some unnecessary confusion regarding the selection process and when movies were going to be discussed, and this allows us to bump a bunch of films up so people won’t have to wait months and months for their selection to show up. I’ll still try to preserve some themes though, like it’s always fun to watch horror movies in October, and important to give a spotlight to minority artists in months like February and June.

  1. https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Demonlover#tab=summary ↩︎
  2. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/demonlover ↩︎
  3. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/19-things-probably-didnt-know-134000868.html ↩︎
  4. https://www.criterionchannel.com/videos/demonlover-intro ↩︎