Speed Demon (2026) 3/10⭐ Missed opportunities & bad casting

Speed Demon (2026)

3 out of 10 stars Time to read: 3:25

A series of missed opportunities and bad casting

Movie poster isn't bad, better than the movie!

BASIC PLOT: 

Sister Lu is having a crisis of faith. She's using drugs, having sex, and questioning her life choices. She was raised by the Catholic Church after the death of her father. He died while in the employ of Father Novak, the Church's chief exorcist.

Sister Lu starts the movie with a
coked up threesome

Her father was a researcher for the Church, working mainly for exorcists, and died after encountering something evil. 

After his death, Father Novak honored his commitment to the family by making sure Lu was cared for. 

She was educated, and eventually became a nun. Since then, Sister Lu has been assisting Father Novak as he continues his life's work, fighting evil and performing exorcisms. She's not allowed to assist in any meaningful way because of her gender, another hypocrisy of the Church that she's having trouble reconciling.

These demons aren't scary...

... Sister Lu isn't believable...

....but the special effects makeup ain't bad

While traveling by train, Father Novak and Sister Lu encounter an antiques dealer who cuts himself on an ancient demon statue. He becomes possessed, the train goes out of control, and Sister Lu has to put her reservations aside, battle evil and mollify the past. Will she be able to save the innocent lives of the train passengers? Or will evil claim their immortal souls?

WHAT WORKS: 

* THE SPECIAL EFFECTS ARE GREAT FOR THIS BUDGET  I was pleasantly surprised by the special effects, both digital and traditional. Both were above what I was expecting from this movie.

The digital special effects are cool...

... they really work...

....so do the traditional special effects.

*MOST OF THE ACTING IS SATISFACTORY   Every character, except Sister Lu, is believable. Of course there's a dropped line here or there, but for the most part, everyone does a fine job, EXCEPT for Katie Cassidy.

The acting is fine from everybody BUT
Katie Cassidy

WHAT DOESN'T WORK:

*KATIE CASSIDY, FULL STOP!   She's terrible as Sister Lu! First of all, she's too pretty to play this character. She's more like a model than actress. Her delivery is wooden, her movements are stiff, it's more like she's posing in front of a photographer's camera, than acting in front of a director's camera. Katie Cassidy does not identify with this character in ANY WAY, and the performance is destroyed by it. She's the main character! It's not like you can just ignore her performance, like you could from some of the ancillary characters. She has none of the intestinal fortitude nuns always have. She looks like she's only just seen the habit, not been wearing it for years. Her look is wrong, her performance is bad, and any hope of saving a flawed movie died the moment she was cast in this role. She destroyed it! It could have been decent without her. I mean for God's sake, she's wearing make-up! Nuns are not allowed to wear make-up! Many orders make you shave your head when you join, to show the death of your vanity. But not Sister Lu! She has streaks in her hair, and make-up on her face, I mean c'mon!

Katie Cassidy with her makeup and streaks...

... is ridiculous, just like this stupid
demon statue!

*SOFIA IS A DEUS EX MACHINA 

Having a child genius on board who knows about demons, how to separate train cars, etc is just ridiculous! But it's something I could have forgiven if everything else has gone right. Sky Vaux Fuller does a fine job playing Sofia, the brilliant wunder kin. I just can't overlook it with everything else that is wrong with this movie.

Sky Vaux Fuller doors as fine job as Sofia,
but the wunder kin aspect is a deus ex machina 

*IF YOU'RE GOING TO RIP OFF SPEED, DO A BETTER JOB

If you are going to try to have a runaway train scenario, like in the movie, Speed, and even put Speed in your title, you should have played up the runaway aspect more. But here, it's more of an afterthought.

If you're going to have a speeding, out
of control train, make it interesting!

*THE WHOLE STORYLINE WITH HER FATHER IS CONFUSING AND RIDICULOUS

Sister Lu's father was an investigator for the exorcists in the Catholic Church. He finds, or gets into something he shouldn't, blah, blah, blah. The storyline was so convoluted, I couldn't be bothered to pay attention. Sister Lu can travel to the "netherworld", and it's just silly, not scary. None of this is scary, but it could have been interesting if this storyline had been dropped, and the passenger's backstories had been developed more.

Backstories of the other train passengers
would have been more interesting...

...than Sister Lu's Daddy drama

*HAVING SISTER LU BECOME A PASTOR AT THE END WOULD HAVE BEEN A GREAT CHOICE

It would have combatted the sexism that the Catholics still cling to, and would have been a nice way for Lu to realize it wasn't her faith she was doubting, but the institution she was committing it to. I thought for sure that's where they were going when I saw her in a priest's outfit, instead of a habit. BUT NOOOO! We have to have some nonsense about the Holy Father giving her secret orders and National security, OMFG are you kidding me?!

Having Sister Lu switch religions
would have been perfect...

...but the real ending is a convoluted mess!

TO RECOMMEND OR NOT TO RECOMMEND, THAT IS THE QUESTION:

I cannot recommend this to anyone. If you're watching for William H. Macy, you're wasting your time. He's on screen for about 12 minutes. It's really only two scenes, and that's it. The rest of the movie is just a series of missed opportunities that will leave you shaking your head, wondering what might have been with a good story editor and casting agent. This movie can't decide what it wants to be, so instead you get a haphazard mélange of genres (fantasy, horror, action), that combine into a jarring, nonsensical series of scenes that make little sense.

-Blondiee10 (aka Vans -Vanessa Hooper, I appreciate your opinions and comments about the review, it helps me understand other viewers)

William H. Macy is under used, and wasted

CLOSING NOTES: 

*THIS IS A LOW BUDGET MOVIE, please keep that in mind before you watch/rate it. Streaming movies like this have a much smaller budget, and so your expectations should be adjusted. 

*I HAVE NO CONNECTION TO THE FILM, or production in ANY way. I'm not writing this as a favor, or because I was paid. 

*CERTIFIED HUMAN WRITTEN REVIEW This review was NOT written in full, or in part, by a bot. I am just an honest viewer, who wishes for more straight forward reviews (less trolls and fanboys), and better entertainment. Hope I helped you out.