When it comes to the horror fantasy feature “The Demoness”, I think it may be helpful to go back all the way to my first ever professional film as producer and writer-director, the 2015 thriller short “Just One Drink” (which starred Barbara Nedeljakova from the horror film “Hostel”) as that started several thriller / horror cinematic productions of mine featuring a female in the lead role, culminating in my most recent one “The Demoness”.
As a brand new filmmaker entering the scene, “Just One Drink” exceeded expectations by scoring a 100% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes and releasing on Cable TV as an Editor’s Pick by ShortsTV, the world’s leading short film distributor. In 2017, I wrote and directed both the horror-thriller short films “The Twisted Doll” (which would later be adapted into the 2024 TV series of the same name) and “Queen of Hearts”. Since 2017, in addition to “The Demoness”, I’ve also written and directed 10 episodes of the Cpics Original psychological thriller show “The Twisted Doll” as well as the horror-thriller feature “The Seductress from Hell”. In January of 2026, my latest feature, the horror-fantasy “The Demoness” was released on Prime Video.
As an indie filmmaker always looking to do something different but respecting horror classics at the same time, in terms of how I came up with the concept of The Demoness, it was essentially a combination of three overall inspirations.
The first was the psychopathic character Nicole Gerrard (played by Chelsea Gilson) in my thriller TV series “The Twisted Doll” which is currently streaming on ZEE5 and Cpics. The other was classic 80’s horror films like “A Nightmare on Elm Street”, “Child’s Play” and “Hellraiser” which always inspire my work as a filmmaker in the genre. Iconic characters like Freddy Krueger, Chucky and Pinhead inspired me a lot when I created and wrote “The Demoness” as in a way she is a love letter to those characters.
The third inspiration was the “Terrifier” series. I really like the character Art the Clown so it was really cool that in his review of “The Demoness”, Elements of Madness critic Douglas Davidson wrote “In an era of Art the Clown, where violence can occur for the sake of it, sometimes mayhem can scratch an itch something more cerebral can’t satisfy”.
I wrote the script for “The Demoness” from November to December of 2024 and we started pre-production at the start of 2025. Pre-production lasted from January to April 2025. The film was shot in May of 2025 and post-production I believe was around five months in total. The edit took about two and a half months and then we spent about two and a half months on the color grade and sound design. The scoring process started before filming started as I had an idea of what types of music I wanted when I was writing the screenplay.
In terms of casting, since it was an ensemble cast (even though the Demoness is technically the lead), we had to find great actors for each role. We spent several months doing auditions and callbacks (and reaching out to agents / managers) to find the best cast for the film. I was really grateful to have had Akihiro Kitamura (“The Human Centipede”) and Riley Nottingham (“V/H/S/Halloween”) join the cast of the film. Their association with big horror franchises has been helpful for us.
The makeup design was designed by Brittany Jamison-Lackey (“Carnival Row”). Her and I also collaborated on my previous horror feature “The Seductress from Hell” in which she did special effects makeup. On the set “The Demoness”, the face prosthetic took almost three hours every day to apply on our lead actress Sydney Culbertson. Our cinematographer was Matt Fore who I’ve been working with for several years. He also shot my first feature, the 2019 critically acclaimed sci-fi drama “The Bestowal” (which is streaming on Tubi).
The film was edited by Ivan Ortega (who also edited my 2024 horror-thriller feature “The Seductress from Hell”) which I think was really helpful as he and I know each other’s workflow and the way I like to tell a story. Sound design was done by Steve Campagna (“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”, “Stranger Things”) who also worked with me on my series “The Twisted Doll” and “The Seductress from Hell”.
We premiered at the Los Angeles Fantasy Fest (where we won an Honorable Mention award) and released on Prime Video and Google Play on January 5th, 2026. Our goal is to start a series of films about the Demoness so hopefully this one does well enough to do a sequel!
This article was written by writer-director and producer Andrew de Burgh, who shares the inspirations, creative process, and production journey behind The Demoness.
