Demons

It's about an hour and a half too long. It could have worked but unfortunately it didn't.

Demons (1985) is a movie that has to be seen with a nice stereo sound system because the music rocks. Demons is gooey and bloody. It's also nicely accompanied by an awesome soundtrack. Argento wanted to produce a movie that was a mindless and brainless exercise of absurdity, an instant popcorn movie that was going to make him and his investors a lot of money. Well, with the aid of Lamberto Bava he accomplished what he set out to do. The results are what you see on the screen. An action packed thrill ride. A movie from the 80's. A young woman and her friend are given tickets to a movie by a masked man who sort of resembles Lou Reed (Michael Soavi). Argento's daughter is in this picture (Fiore Argento), Lamberto Bava has a cameo appearence and 70's Italian child star Nicoletta Elmi (she's all grown up!) has a role as the theatre usherette. If you like cheesy horror films, this one's right up your alley. Highly recommended. A

Being a fan of 80's horror flicks i thought demons will be one of those watchable English dubbed film after reading too many positive reviews on the net.Boy i am wrong, except for the initial 15 minutes the film simply dragging with traditional horror clichés. Though gore effects of the movie is okay the cast isn't.There are many scenes in which, one could literally feel to give a tight slap for the actors. All the characters in the movie were so dumb and stupid that there is no claustrophobic tension on their escape from theater. The movie is full of plot holes and irritating unnecessary overreaction from characters. The only saving grace for this movie is its background score. Giving 1 Star for this movie mainly because of its Music. Don't buy the DVD,only rent it if you are an ardent fan of Dario Argento. Avoid it if you can

this is a fun, gory euro-horror film. i'm a big fan of argento and the main reason this film and demons 2 work so well is because it is decidedly tame as far as story line is concerned. very simple, people go to a screening of a film, and all gory hell breaks loose- 'nuff said. i've been enthralled by almost everything dario argento has made, with the exception of "phantom of the opera" (with julian sands) and the one about bugs (i can't remember the title off-hand...). argento usually uses complex story lines along with gore to make his films work (which they often do in films like suspiria, tenebrae, opera, etc...). but this film is just balls-out blood and guts. 9/10 - great euro-gore

Cheryl (Natasha Hovey), a student in West Berlin, travels the subway where she encounters an eerie masked man ('Phantom of the Opera' style), who offers her a free ticket to the cinema. Intrigued she asks for a second for her girlfriend Hannah (Fiora Argento). That evening they arrive to the Metropol, a long closed theatre on the night of its grand reopening. The premiere movie is a horror flick as if taken from the annals of "Evil Dead" (they even find a Necronomicon type ancient book). Swiftly and deadly the fiction on the silver screen transforms into reality as cinema-goers start changing into zombie-like demons... I can't help but feel that the undeserved high ranking of the movie is given in a large part due to the participation of the legendary Dario Argento, an icon of horror movies and poster boy for Italian cinema in general. But in general this movie is a total bust with over-the-top kitsch gore, bad acting and no interesting plot to hold it together. It's not frightening or entertaining and the special effects do not withhold time well (unlike i.e. the aforementioned "Evil Dead"). Additionally the storyline basically is a not too clever take on zombie flicks with a slight movie-becoming-reality twist. One of those movies which show that Dario Argento was slowly losing his edge in the 80s (albeit he is only culpable for scriptwriting to awful excuse for a movie). Somehow this gory pointless flick got a second outing and given it has no atmosphere or point I am audaciously surprised with the high marks this movie has. I fail to understand the cult status and stay by the opinion that this thing is almost as bad a "The Ghoulies".

WOW! The above quote is what the pimp says to his 'ho after she cuts her face on a mask. A prescient utterance indeed! With a pounding heavy metal score accented by a phenomenal opening track from Dario Argento's band Goblin, DEMONS grips from the onset and never stops, despite a paper- thin plot that appears as if the filmmakers made it up as they went along. As far as campy genre films go, this one is near the top. I don't consider this a B-movie however, as the production is smooth if not polished and the special effects are very well done. Some of the dubbing is atrocious and the acting is way over the top, but the characters are rich and well cast, and this colorful feature has entertained me greatly many a late night. The capricious nature of this film and its absence of levity call to mind the lighthearted works of John Carpenter (the throbbing keyboard of the aforementioned title track borrows Carpenter's trademark sound). Carpenter also introduces complex characters with little or no background information or explanation: Stevie Wayne, Adrienne Barbeau's character in THE FOG, obviously has a marked past but the only allusions to such are glances at old newspaper clippings and her deadpan utterance "It's nothing but water Stevie, but it sure beats Chicago." The delivery and structure of the dialog here possesses similar elan: the filmmakers seem to embrace that their work is fiction, celebrating the comical and inane. Characters are killed off with reckless abandon without sentimental moments or glib last words...In this type of film it's not about how long you live, but how well you die! This lack of pretension creates a freedom to enjoy without conceit, appreciable by viewer as well as production staff. This is integral to the success of many genre films that must compensate for light substance with abundances of style. DEMONS carves its niche in my heart largely with 80's pop culture and stereotypes. The actors here play caricatures more than real human roles. Halfway through the film we see coked up punks cruising Berlin in stolen cars. What needs to be said about them that isn't readily seen? They're all demon fodder anyway, right? 8/10* Terrifically entertaining! Best watched late at night.

Imagine watching a 90 minute home movie of a friend of yours running back and forth in a single room, frequently screaming as '80s heavy metal music blasts from a cheap radio. That right there gives you a pretty good idea what the Demons experience is like. The only difference is that instead of a single friend in a room, we have a whole audience of idiots running around a movie theater. Absolutely NO sense of pacing. Monotony. A complete bore. But throw in one or two scenes with interesting lighting, and some people with bad taste proclaim this a classic. Is there anything good about this movie? Well, sort of. A couple of good special effects, and some (one scene, actually) of the lighting is interesting. Some of the '80s fashion is amusing. But ultimately, it sucks.

Watching "Demons" I came to the conclusion that, no matter how many of the "Scream" films they make, nothing compares to this horror flick!. I'm not saying it's the greatest horror flick of all time. But it certanly entertains, and scares the hell out of you. Even after several viewings. The setting for the film is just right.The music terrific too! honestly I've seen this flick like 1000 times. And it still freaks me out. I've not seen parts 3 or 4 yet but from the reviews I've heard, they sound pretty interesting, so I'm certanly going to track them both down. For those of you who think that the 90's versions of horror films are the only saving grace to this genre, do yourself a favour catch a few of the 80's horror flicks like "Demons" they are what horror movies should be!

Demons epitomizes everything the early to mid eighties were about. A lot of things didn't make sense - but neither did the era so it fit in just fine. In the end, it plays out to be a great horror movie, with plenty of gratuitous violence and gore, a killer 80's soundtrack, and a couple of good scares! At the time this movie came out, Italian horror meisters Dario Argento and Lamberto Bava wanted nothing more than to have a hit in the American market. Dario had experienced a taste of that with his collaboration on Dawn of the Dead, but never from a full Italian production. To appeal to American audiences, they went with the soundtrack used here (songs from Billy Idol, Rick Springfield, etc.), and even used some American actors (like Bobby Rhodes who plays the pimp, in even comes back in Demons 2 as a different character). To add to the hype, they released it to limited distribution (not by choice I'm sure) in the states, unrated (just as "Day of the Dead" had just been released in similar fashion). Back in the 80's, it was real hard for an 11 year old to be allowed in to see an unrated movie, even with a parent (or someone posing as one as in my case!) - nonetheless, I got to see both of these - and although I was disturbed for weeks - I loved every second of Demons. Years later I have acquired it on a double DVD with Demons 2. I love the original, in all its uncut glory! Knowing more about the production, I get a kick out of the fact that the guy at the beginning giving out the theater tickets (the guy with the mask) was then aspiring filmmaker Michele Soavi, who would just a couple of years later become an Argento protégé with movies like Stagefright, and his own classic Dellamorte Dellamore (Cemetary Man). I also get a kick out of how many movies, older than the original Demons, claim to be Demons sequels and have even had name changes. Unfortunately for us fans, there were only two real Demons movies made, the third never saw fruition. Too bad - if a real one ever came out - I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd run out to see it.

In 1985, 'Demoni' (the original Italian title) was such an international success that director Lamberto Bava and producer Dario Argento quickly followed it with 'Demoni 2' in 1986. While mostly a proper sequel, there are several puzzling elements not the least of which was the reuse of actors whose characters were killed in the first film for new characters in the sequel ... yeah, I know!! After that, things get a little funky. In 1988, Lamberto filmed 'Casa del L'Orco' for Italian television. Internationally it was sold as another 'Demoni' sequel, hence the title: 'Demons III: The Ogre' for R1 DVD. According to an interview included on the Shriek Show release, Lamberto did not create this as a sequel to 'Demoni'. That title must have been made up by a distributor. Once again, you'll again find re-used actors from 'Demoni' and 'Demoni 2', but since Lamberto did not make this as a sequel, it's kind of a non-issue. In 1989, Michele Soavi (he played the masked man seen in 'Demoni') directed and co-wrote 'La Chiesa' ('The Church'). The script was co-written by many others, including fellow 'Demoni' alumni Dario Argento and Dardano Sachetti. This film further adds to the confusion by occasionally being titled 'Demons 3' internationally. In 1994, Michele Soavi made a big name for himself with the widely respected 'Dellamorte Dellamore' (released in R1 as 'Cemetary Man'). Why mention it here? Well, *THAT* film has also, rather inexplicably, been titled 'Demons 95' in at least one Region 2 DVD release. There may be others, but for my own two cents, I consider 'Demoni' and 'Demoni 2' to be the only proper 'Demons' films... although 'La Chiesa' is so close, it almost makes it as well. I hope this helped!