Lamberto Bava and Dario Argento bring you THE Gonzo Horror movie of the 1980s with Demons, a frenzied slice of gore heavy shock cinema that gives up on logic and instead assaults the screen with a riot of X-Rated violence, face chewing Zombies and pounding Heavy Metal.
In a mysterious cinema, an audience are watching a brutal horror flick when the horror rips out of the screen, unleashing a swarm of slathering Demons who are intent on spreading their evil plague across the globe.
Time to tool up and take no prisoners… The Demons are coming!
Directed by: Lamberto Bava
Runtime: 88 minutes
Studio: Ascot Films
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Lamberto Bava’s Demons is your typical eighties horror fest with plenty of gore, a sometimes good, sometimes bad soundtrack and enough cheese to top a pizza. Cheryl (Natasha Hovey) is pursued in a deserted Berlin subway by a mysterious man wearing half of a mask (Michele Soavi). He gives her a free ticket to a horror screening at a cinema. Cheryl takes along her friend Kathy (Paola Cozzo) and they settle down for a gruesome horror flick about demons attacking people and turning them into other demons. The transfixed audience suddenly find events on the big screen becoming a reality when one woman is infected and proceeds to turn the other cinemagoers into demons. Trapped inside, the remaining people face a desperate battle for survival.
In the build up to the film a trio – Tony (Bobby Rhodes), Carmen (Fabiola Toledo) and Rosemary (Geretta Giancarlo) – are inspecting an exhibition involving a motorbike, a samurai sword and a demon mask. For unknown reasons, Rosemary puts on the demon mask which leaves a cut on her face. Watching the movie, the crowd witness some friends unearth a book of Nostradamus including the same demon mask seen earlier. When one of the friends puts it on, he becomes a demon and attacks his friends. Rosemary dashes to the toilets not feeling well and suddenly becomes a demon. She attacks and kills the other cinemagoers with anyone bitten or scratched becoming a demon themselves. Cheryl and Kathy hook up with George (Urbano Barberini) and Ken (Karl Zinny), while Tony leads the resistance with cinema seats used as barricades to temporarily great effect. Even a group of drugged up teenagers gatecrash the cinema at one stage and wish they hadn’t.
Demons isn’t the greatest horror film but it is gruesome, cheesy and amusing in places which is all you need really. I do like the more serious and atmospheric horror films of today but you can’t beat a nostalgic trip to the eighties with a film like this. Silly but fun.
Verdict: 3/5
(Film source: reviewer’s own copy)
Film Review: Demons | Thank you for reading Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dave
