Demons



AKA: Demoni

While getting off the subway, a young college student named Cheryl is handed two promotional tickets to a new movie theatre in town called Metropol. Deciding to skip class, Cheryl talks her friend Kathy into going with her. Much to Kathy’s dismay, the movie being screened is a horror film, in which a group of teens discover a cursed mask, and when one of them tries it on and cuts themselves on it they accidentally unleash a demon uprising. Oops.


Well, you’re gonna get that.

What the two ladies don’t know, however, is that another movie patron tried on an identical looking mask in the lobby not long before the movie started and – wouldn’t you know it – suddenly life begins imitating art and the unfortunate patron suddenly turns into a demon herself. So now a bunch of movie goers are trapped in the theater and have to figure out for themselves how to survive their own demon uprising.



Demons is an Italian horror film from 1985 that was directed by Lamberto Bava (A Blade In The Dark), and co-written by Dario Argento (Suspiria), two of some of the most well known names in Italian horror. So if you’re any kind of fan of the genre, we’re already off to a raging good start.

Originally the film was conceived as the first part of a loosely connected trilogy, but unfortunately that plan didn’t 100% pan out. There is a Demons 2 (I’ll have to get to that eventually), which was also created by Bava and Argento. But a third Demons film, the original plan for which involved something to do with a plane full of passengers getting stranded on an island with a volcano, never got much further than the conception stages. Instead, some general ideas from the earlier films got re-used and re-conceptualized into a similarly themed film, The Church from 1989, which was directed by Michele Soavi and produced by Argento, but had no involvement from Bava (Though Bava did release a sequel novel titled Demons 3: The Rebirth in 2025.) So there’s kind of a trilogy if you squint, but… not really, no, since The Church isn’t connected narratively to the other two films in any way. Not that a plot-line really matters, because for films like this the story isn’t the main point. The point is watching random characters deal with unholy demon mayhem.


The poor saps.

And to be perfectly fair, this film fulfills its main point most admirably. Here are a bunch of idiots, here are a bunch of demons, and now here is a lot of running and screaming and people getting num-num-ed upon while they ooze and gooze all over the place. So it’s kinda like your standard zombie film, but filled with a lot of more serious acting Evil Dead villains. That’s what it aspired to be and, by god, that’s what it is. An unrepentant Italian spaghetti horror film that could never be described as “deep” but, once it gets all of its introductions out of the way, moves at a rather fast-paced clip and does its best to appeal to its target “Ew, gross, look at that. Cool” audience. Does a lot of it make sense? Hell no! But once it gets past the boring part of introducing its eclectic  cast of morons it does its best to be as entertaining as possible. Comprehensiveness be damned!


Wait, so, the prop bike in the lobby was just sitting there all gassed up and ready to go?… Why?

Now, the downside to all this “cool” stuff, is that most of the movie makes no flippin’ sense. Why is any of this happening? Where did that mask come from? How did the doors suddenly get bricked up (and yet you forgot that one important one in the basement)? How did that demon manage to get up into that closed-off balcony? Who the hell put gas into that dirt-bike? How is that prop sword causing so much mayhem? Why are all these people acting so incredibly stupid? We do not know the answers to these questions. And the writing and dialogue does the audience no favors either, because most of that is some of the dumbest shit you’ve ever heard. So don’t expect any help there either


Please stop talking.

But, to be fair, at no point does the movie ever try to explain any of those questions either. Especially the first one, so if you’re expecting ‘clarity’ about…. Well, anything really, then you’re going to walk away sorely disappointed, because at no point is there any kind of explanation whatsoever about WTF is going on. And trying to figure it out for too long will just cause you to ask yourself more unanswerable questions. Like, if the movie the characters are watching is meant to be predicting what will happen, does that mean that the architects of this evil little plan – whoever they may be, since we don’t know anything about them either – went to the trouble of spending months making a movie detailing what was going to happen – you know, paid a crew, actors and numerous production staff, the whole deal – and then rented out a whole theatre to show their film, just on the off chance that someone would cut themselves on their evil mask and start a demon apocalypse? Because, if so, good gracious that plan feels convoluted as fuck. Seriously, just shove the mask on some unsuspecting schlub’s face in an alleyway and be done with it. Not only is that plan way less stupid, but it also would have saved them a TON of time. But whatever, that’s the kind of logic this here film is working with. So if you want to watch the movie  and get any kind of enjoyment out of it, you just sorta have to accept its (piss poor) rationale and roll with it.



Now, on the plus side, if you just want to turn off your brain, don’t care to spend any time trying to decipher shit, and just want to see demons running amok while ignoring the plot (should be easy, there isn’t much of one anyway) then you’re in for a treat, because that part of the movie is all rather spectacular. The effects are all practical and VERY well done, not just people running around with fake blood on their faces. The partial metal mask the one guy wears looks kinda weird, and I feel like they relied a little too heavily on the demons drooling green ooze. But for the most part the make-up and other special effects are pretty cool. People lose part of their faces, one person gets scalped, and at one point a demon tears off its human ‘husk’ and emerges from the corpse like some kind of demented matroska doll. It’s all pretty gnarly.



So, basically, Demons is a very fun, and fast-paced, spaghetti-type horror film, but it’s not a very deep one. So if you’re the type of person who likes to see things like characterization, motivation, or any kind of rational reasoning whatsoever, then you’re likely going to be annoyed by this. Because though the movie may be a mild commentary on the dangers of media, its point is so vague that it’s really easy for the viewer to gloss right over it. However, if you don’t care about any of that crap and just want a movie with a lot of blood and guts, and screaming, and fun make-up effects, then you should walk away from Demons feeling pretty pleased. It aims to be a fun, bloody time, and I think it does well in accomplishing that goal.

Demons is available on a variety of streaming services.

Demons is also available on DVD and Bluray.

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