Cody Hamman has a double feature of Demons movies for Film Appreciation.
DEMONS (1985)
The VHS covers of the Demons movies had been intriguing me at the local video stores for years by the time I finally got around to renting the tapes, and the first time I brought a copy of Demons home I was actually nervous to watch the movie. A couple years earlier I had rented Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead, and that movie provided the scariest viewing experience of my life. Since it deals with similar subject matter, I thought Demons might freak me out in the same way. It didn't, it's a different sort of movie than The Evil Dead, but I quickly gained an appreciation for Demons because of the type of movie it actually is.
MTV ruled pop culture in the 1980s, and since that channel and horror movies were both primarily aimed at a teenage audience, some filmmakers started trying to bring an MTV vibe to their horror movies. For example, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master was clearly influenced by Music TeleVision. Demons feels like another movie that drew inspiration from MTV, as it's fuelled by a soundtrack that includes Billy Idol, Mötley Crüe, and Rick Springfield. At the same time, it's an Italian production that was filmed in Berlin, so it also has a uniquely odd European feel to it. Well, it feels odd to this American country boy, anyway.
Director Lamberto Bava drops the viewer right into Demons' rock 'n roll style with a lengthy title sequence set to an awesome piece of music composed by Claudio Simonetti. I've seen Demons on the big screen twice, once at an all-night marathon at a drive-in and the other time at an all-night theatrical marathon where it was the last movie to be shown. Simonetti's theme plays over the end credits as well, and that was some very cool music to have playing while walking out of a theatre after thirteen and a half hours of horror.
Demons is set in a movie theatre itself. The characters are a group of people who have accepted free tickets to an unspecified movie at a newly renovated and re-opened theatre called the Metropol, tickets that were handed out by a strange, silent fellow with what appears to be a metal prosthetic covering half his face. Or maybe the flesh of his face is peeling off to reveal that this metal is underneath. It's tough to tell. Regardless, this man is played by Michele Soavi, who has directed several horror films himself, including StageFright, a slasher about stage actors getting picked off in a theatre.
You're not likely to care very much about any of the characters in this movie, most of them don't last very long, but they include a college girl named Cheryl (Natasha Hovey), who is most likely the heroine because she's the seemingly nice girl we follow into this situation, Cheryl's friend, a couple young men they strike up a flirtation with at the theatre, a teenage couple, a miserable middle-aged couple "celebrating" their anniversary, and an older blind man who comes to the theatre with his niece, who starts off describing what's going on in the movie that starts playing but soon sneaks off to make out with her balding secret lover.
The most important character in the movie is a pimp named Tony, played by Bobby Rhodes. Tony is a fan favorite thanks to Rhodes' performance, which is highly entertaining. Tony is accompanied by two of his prostitutes, but it's not clear why he would go anywhere with these women since he's deeply annoyed by everything they say and do.
One of those prostitutes is Rosemary, played by Geretta Geretta. Rosemary makes a big mistake. In the middle of the theatre lobby there sits a dirtbike with an armored knight sitting on it, holding a samurai sword in one hand and a metallic demon mask in the other. (You might notice that the demon mask resembles the metal stuff on the ticket guy's face.) Rosemary playfully grabs the mask and holds it up to her face, accidentally scratching her cheek with it. And this is where the horror begins.
A small audience gathers in the Metropol and the movie begins. In this movie, some young people on dirtbikes investigate some ruins where the body of 16th century seer Nostradamus is said to be entombed. While searching for Nostradamus's tomb, these characters find a creepy inscription that says "They will make cemeteries their cathedrals and the cities will be your tombs", something that may be linked to the Nostradamus prophecy of "the coming of the demons". They also find a mask just like the one in the Metropol, and a book provides the information that whoever wears the mask becomes a demon, an instrument of evil. One of the movie characters playfully puts the mask to his face... and it cuts his cheek, just like what happened with Rosemary. Within moments, this character has become possessed and begins attacking his friends.
The same thing starts happening with Rosemary. Her scratch starts to bleed, pulsate, and spew puss, and soon she has become possessed. Green foam pours from her mouth, she grows claws... Much like the possessed characters in The Evil Dead, the demons in this movie are monstrous creatures out for blood, these things aren't like Regan in The Exorcist. The demonic Rosemary pursues her fellow prostitute from the ladies room to an area behind the screen, and when Rosemary kills her former pal the body goes tearing through the screen. That really ruins everybody's night. Especially since the demonic possession can be passed from person to person - anyone killed by a demon then becomes a demon themselves. As the second prostitute quickly demonstrates.
With roughly an hour left in the movie, the characters realize they are now trapped inside the Metropol with these demons. Doors and windows no longer exist, the place is now completely bricked up. Like it was never renovated and re-opened at all. Writers Bava, Dario Argento, Dardano Sacchetti, and Franco Ferrini don't provide any explanation for any of this stuff, so don't overthink it. Just sit back and enjoy the sight of demons ripping their way through these movie-goers.
To make things even more fun and crazier, the movie starts cutting away from the action inside the Metropol to show us a carload of punks with names like Ripper, Hot Dog, and Baby Pig - the sole female of the group, Nina, didn't get a neat nickname - who are driving around the city while sniffing cocaine out of a Coke can. Which they manage to spill. This group will eventually make their way to the Metropol as well (after they run away from some cops while Ripper yells "All pigs suck!"), helping increase the body count.
Demons is an insane, frequently gross movie that features some great creature attacks that are often set to rock or heavy metal songs blasting on the soundtrack. My favorite monster moment comes when the back of a possessed person gets sliced open and an actual demon creature emerges from their split flesh. Rather than make any attempt to get away from this thing, the idiotic characters just stand there and watch the monster the whole time it's being "born". That happens right before the most spectacular sequence in the film, which features a person ripping around inside the theatre on the dirtbike from the lobby, swinging that samurai sword around, cutting demons to pieces. And that happens right before a deus ex machina ending where the "machina" involved happens to be a helicopter.
This is all complete nonsense, but it's a hell of a good time. I'm glad I rented Demons all those years ago, I enjoyed watching it at the drive-in and in the theatre, and I have had many viewings of the DVD copy I own.
DEMONS 2 (1986)
Director Lamberto Bava and his Demons co-writers Dario Argento, Dardano Sacchetti, and Franco Ferrini returned to craft the sequel, which began filming seven months after the release of the first film and reached theatres in October of 1986, following the October 1985 release of its predecessor... But even though the end of Demons left the door open for a follow-up that could be set in a post-apocalyptic world filled with demons, that's not the direction that was chosen for Demons 2. Instead, they decided to tell a story that's set in a different reality.
At first, Demons 2 might trick some viewers into thinking it's set in the same world as the first movie. The film takes place in a high-rise apartment building called The Tower, and nearly everyone in the building is watching a show on TV that's presented as being a documentary about the aftermath of the demon outbreak. We're told that humanity found a way to fight back against the demons, and after defeating them they walled off the city where the outbreak took place, deeming it a Forbidden Zone. Now a group of documentarians have infiltrated the Forbidden Zone in hopes of digging up hidden truths about the demons... But the fact that this "documentary" is shot like a movie gives it away. This is another movie-within-a-movie, just like the film that was showing at the Metropol in the first Demons. The movies-within-movies even share a cast member; Eliana Hoppe plays "Edith, woman in tent" in the first one and came back to play "Pam, girl with camera" in this one.
Hoppe isn't the only Demons cast member back for Demons 2. Lino Salemme, who played the cocaine-snorting Ripper in the first movie, returns as a Tower security guard, and Bobby Rhodes is back as Hank, an instructor at the building's gym. Because Rhodes was so awesome in the first Demons, there's no way they could have made a Demons 2 without him.
Soon enough the documentarians have accidentally resurrected a demon in the Forbidden Zone. The demon attacks - then turns to the camera. And it ruins the birthday party being thrown for teenage Tower resident Sally (Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni) when it pushes through her TV screen and emerges into her reality. What sense does this make? None, but it's an Italian production so we don't expect things to make much sense. And so, demons begin rampaging through The Tower with roughly an hour of movie left.
Demons 2 is a fine sequel that moves along at a good pace and features plenty of gory mayhem, but I don't find it to be nearly as entertaining as the first movie. I've seen Demons many times, but I've only put on Demons 2 a handful of times, even though I own a copy. (Both Demons came in a two-movie set.) There's just something lacking, even as we're treated to bigger set pieces and the demons go after characters like a little girl played by a 10-year-old Asia Argento, a pregnant woman, and a dog owner - who is notable because she gets mauled by her possessed dog.
Simon Boswell took over as composer here, and while his score isn't as cool as what Claudio Simonetti came up with for Demons there are some nice elements to it; particularly when it's reminiscent of the music Boswell did for Dario Argento's Phenomena the year before. Going hand-in-hand with the choice of Boswell as composer is a change in the style of music on the soundtrack; Boswell decided they sound replace the rock and heavy metal with new wave, so there are songs from the likes of The Smiths, Peter Murphy, and The Cult. I like the songs we hear in Demons 2, but the rock, heavy metal, and Simonetti of the first made for a livelier movie.
Demons 2 even has another carload of people driving around the city, disconnected from what's going on at The Tower, but they just can't live up to Ripper and his friends. There's nothing interesting about this group. That's a good representation of this movie as a whole for me. It covers the same ground as Demons, but does everything in a lesser way... Well, everything except for the scene where a monster comes ripping out of the body of one of the possessed. Here the monster comes out of a little kid who actually made for a creepy demon, and the thing that comes out of this kid is a goofy puppet with wings. This thing can fly, sort of, and having a goofy-looking puppet that can half-assed fly is a great way for a movie to earn extra points from me.
I may not like Demons 2 as much as part 1, but I do enjoy it and am glad that the first movie got an official sequel that is so good. The Demons name got dragged through the mud from this point on. There are really only two Demons movie and one side movie of sorts, Michele Soavi's The Church, but a ton of movies got called Demons sequels by distributors wanting to cash in on the name.
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