The Black Demon

The Black Demon is a 2023 science fiction thriller film directed by Adrian Grünberg from a screenplay by Boise Esquerra and starring Josh Lucas, Fernanda Urrejola and Julio Cesar Cedillo. In the film, a stranded family on a crumbling oil rig in Baja faces off against a vengeful megalodon shark.

Nixon Oil company inspector Paul Sturges is sent to a small Mexican town in Baja California, to check on El Diamante, an offshore oil rig. He brings his wife Ines and their two children, Audrey and Tommy, along for a vacation. Upon arrival, the family are surprised to find the town in ruins. The remaining locals are suspicious and unfriendly, especially when they learn that Paul works for the company that commissioned the oil rig. Paul, seeking to see if the rig is worth revitalizing or decommissioning, takes a boat to it. He arrives to find the rig, dilapidated, hazardous and surrounded by an oil spill, crewed only by two remaining rig workers, Chato and Junior, along with their pet chihuahua Toro. After being harassed and stalked by the angry locals, Paul's family decides to follow in another boat. As the boat arrives, Chato and Junior begin to panic and fire flares as a megalodon shark, the "Black Demon" ( ), which has been attacking the rig, begins to chase the boat.

Barely managing to get onto the rig unscathed, the family is forced to watch as the Black Demon destroys the boat that brought them to the rig, killing its captain. After witnessing the attack, Chato reveals to Paul that the rest of the workers either escaped or were killed by the Black Demon, adding that the radio on the rig does not function and calls made to Nixon Oil for help were ignored, as they knew about the oil spill coming from the rig but never tried to fix the problem. Chato believes the Black Demon to be a herald of the god of rain, Tlaloc, who punishes those who take greedily from nature. While Chato and Junior dive underwater to restore power to the rig, Paul notices a demolition bomb attached to a leg of the rig. Junior is killed by the shark and Chato narrowly escapes.

Later, Ines discovers the safety reports for the rig and notices that the warnings have been ignored, and Paul signed the documents approving the rig's revitalization regardless of the dangerous conditions. When she confronts Paul about this, he admits that Nixon Oil developed self-inspections to get away with ignoring hazardous working conditions, and threatened Paul when he attempted to confront them over this. Ever since, he has been forced to work in Nixon Oil's self-interest, while the local community suffered as a result of the company's negligence and greed. Paul realizes that Nixon Oil are actually planning to kill him: realizing that their practices would be reported sooner or later and that they would be blamed for the oil spill, the company had Paul sign the paperwork so that he would take the fall and die when the bomb detonated.