When The Stepfather 2 is one of the only horror movies in your queue…you know you’re in trouble. I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel this Halloween season and reaching to the depths of Netflix’s catalog. This time, I luckily didn’t have to reach too far in order to find Lamberto Bava’s 1985 demon flick cleverly titled…uhh…Demons.
Unfamiliar with any of Bava’s work, I took a shot on this hoping that it would be deliciously 80’s, and it was right on par with what I was looking for. (Though it being co-written and produced by horror maestro Dario Argento made it a safe bet.) The movie starts with a creepy masked crusader stalking our leading lady Cheryl on an almost abandoned train platform (seriously…where is everyone!?) She panics and flees until the masked weirdo catches up with her…and gives her free passes for a movie! What a kind stalkerguy! He’s really thinking about others before himself! It would’ve been even more endearing if she showed up and he was behind the concession stand slinging popcorn, and making sure everyone’s drinks were topped off. But I guess you can’t be too greedy, because hey, free movie.
Cheryl talks her friend Kathy into going with her and the two wind up locked inside a movie theater from hell. Naturally. Thanks to the powers of a creepy mask hung up by the theater’s entrance (?), one moviegoer scratches herself (just go with it!), turns into a demon, oozes puss from gross boils, and then, you know, gets all demon-y. The epidemic starts spreading like a zombie virus, as more and more movie fans are brutally murdered and demonized themselves. (There’s also a cool death involving the actual movie screen that totally reminded me of the opening to Scream 2 – Wes Craven must be a Demons fan.) Then, the film turns into an every-man-for-himself survival story about a group of strangers who band together trying to escape their claustrophobic, horror-filled situation.
What Demons lacks in story and character development, it completely makes up for in gore, make-up, and special effects…which is understandable given the fact that it really is the epitome of a mid-80’s horror movie. Heads are impaled, blisters ooze and puss and explode, flesh is devoured. The tone of the movie was the perfect mix of camp and gore and by the beginning of the third act, I didn’t care that I knew absolutely nothing about the characters; I was having too much fun watching them get gruesomely picked off and eaten.
Demons makes for a very fun-filled Fall viewing for a horror fan tired of the regular haunts and looking for something new, foreign or slightly under the radar. Though it may not be as epic and culty as say, Dead Alive, it’s still a fantastic horror romp that maybe you haven’t seen.
Grade: B+
