WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Neill Blomkamp's Demonic, out now via IFC Midnight.
In Demonic, Carly (Carly Pope) discovers her mom, Angela, is possessed by a demon, with tech-exorcists from Therapol believing their machines, which will probe Angela's mind, can draw the entity out, allowing them to banish it to hell. While things don't go according to plan, Carly manages to save the day by using, of all things, an iconic John Constantine weapon.
This is none other than the Holy Lance, aka the Spear of Destiny. In the real world, it's said to be the spear the guard Longinus used to stab Jesus Christ during the crucifixion in his side while he was on the cross. Pieces of this biblical relic are said to be in various museums around the world, and in the DC Universe, due to the holy blood it touched, it's said to have magic capabilities.
Plenty of powerful men have tried to harness it, with the weapon being used against the Justice League on several occasions. It was also a MacGuffin recently in DCeased: Dead Planet when Constantine wielded it to kill Trigon and stop a demonic invasion into the zombie-ridden Earth. However, its mainstream popularity came in 2005's Constantine, in which Keanu Reeves played the title character.
The spear tip was found accidentally by a man named Manuel during a derelict church in the film's opening, wrapped in a Nazi flag, and upon touching it, he became possessed. He then traveled from Mexico to the U.S. so Gabriel could use it to kill Angela, allowing Mammon to cross over to Earth as part of the plan to overthrow his dad, Lucifer. Luckily, Constantine was able to foil the plot and give the spear to Angela to hide.
In Demonic's case, however, the Holy Lance is used as a weapon to directly kill demons. When Carly gets to the sanitarium, her mom becomes possessed and she finds priests dead nearby a dying Daniel. He admits the spirit left Angela and jumped into the leader of the priests, Michael, and in order to banish it, Carly needs to stab Michael and send it back to Hell.
As she stabs Michael, the plan appears to be working, with the weapon burning him at his touch. And while the demon then jumps into Carly, having wanted her as its vessel all along, she thankfully regains some measure of control. Carly realizes she's got an opening, grabs the spear, and stabs herself. This draws the spirit out into the open and allows it to be incinerated. So, unlike Constantine, which needed the weapon to bring evil in, Demonic uses the Lance to expel its malevolent entity.
To see the Holy Lance in action, Demonic is out now via IFC Midnight.
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