“Speed Demon is pulpy horror fun on a runaway train!”
It’s pretty easy to guess you’re in for a B-Movie experience when you sit down to watch a movie called Speed Demon. This is a horror movie with the dial turned just high enough to be self-aware, briskly paced at just about 90 minutes and more interested in being entertaining than impressing. The movie is set almost entirely aboard a runaway train racing from Montreal to New York City. It’s filled with the usual suspects: a demon, a priest, a nun, a soldier, a lover, a thief and, of course, the brainy kid. Our exorcist is William H. Macy, who adds a shot of star power. While his performance is intentional and well done, he’s not the main reason to stick around. The film’s real hook is Sister Lu, played by Katie Cassidy, whose performance carries much of the film.
It is easy to appreciate Cassidy here. The role feels like a feature-length episode of Supernatural, where she played Ruby in season 3, and later as Black Canary in Arrow. She feels right at home fighting monsters and kicking ass. Other standout performances round out the ensemble nicely. Sky Vaux Fuller brings a bright, grounded presence as the wide-eyed youngster caught in the chaos, offering just enough innocence to raise the stakes without tipping into cliché. On the opposite end, Allen McCullough’s turn as the curmudgeon reluctantly stepping into heroism adds grit and humor, his transformation unfolding with ease. Together, they form a strong supporting backbone that plays well off Cassidy’s intensity.
Director Jon Keeyes understands when to escalate, when to inject dark humor and when to let its characters breathe just long enough before throwing them back into chaos. He does this without unnecessary bloat. More importantly, he resists diving into unnecessary brutality or spectacle, a common trap in modern horror. There are no desperate attempts to shock the audience through excess. The movie is over the top without being exhausting, and tense without being punishing. The horror here is pulpy, kinetic and playful.The film also embraces its constraints. Shot in just 12 days inside a warehouse in New Jersey, Speed Demon has the bones of something scrappy and resourceful, and it uses that energy well. The confined setting becomes a playground for tension and movement, with narrow corridors, flickering lights and possessed passengers. The effects are modest but used creatively. The possession sequences rely as much on performance and staging as they do on visuals, giving the film an almost throwback quality.
That said, Speed Demon isn’t immune to predictability. The story often moves along familiar genre tracks, and the next turn is easy to spot. While the film’s campy tone is part of its appeal, it sometimes becomes heavy-handed in its most tense moments. Scenes that should feel sharp and suspenseful get bogged down by characters overexplaining or telegraphing their moves, undercutting the urgency the film works to build. It doesn’t derail the experience, but it does slow the momentum. It is a difficult balance between a knowing wink and narrative discipline.
While the story doesn’t reach for heavy thematic depth, it doesn’t need to. Sister Lu’s crisis of faith is sketched simply but effectively, providing just enough emotional grounding to keep the film from drifting. Speed Demon fits comfortably into the lineage of easy-to-watch horror, a popcorn B-movie that delivers. And just like a good B-movie, Speed Demon even throws up the promise of possible sequels at the end. It’s the kind of film you put on for a good time, and that is more than enough. A solid 6 out of 10.
