You won't be disappointed!

Too much of everything

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Warts and all, I have great fondness for this insane '80s splatterfest about demons running amok in a movie theatre, and I think a lot of its appeal is due to the setting, and the stylish gothic cinema where all the violent action takes place in this has a lot of cool retro visual flair to it, and it made for an inspired arena for horror once the fun really begins! I love the way it plays up to the movie-within-a-movie theme, I think it's done a lot more cleverly than the movie is given credit for, most of all in the excellent early sequence where the girl is screaming her head off behind the cinema curtain as the camera pans back and forth between her and the shocked audience, and the screaming character in the movie that they were watching! That tense hectic scene was brilliantly put together and was probably the most memorable one in the movie. This picture and its lesser but still fun sequel have a trashy, campy vibe which is something you can't really miss, but I wonder how much of that is down to the monstrous voice-dubbing job that made everyone sound like complete idiots, it's probably a quite different viewing experience in its original language.. For how over the top and cheesy a lot of it is, to me there's also something genuinely nightmarish in its atmosphere that gets to me a little, although none of them look quite as terrifying as Rosemary, the vicious crazed demons and all the frantic terror they bring is scary and the flick does have some genuine frights in its favor amid all the cheese. One of my favourite scenes is when the guy and his girlfriend are crawling through the spooky vent and they can hear the claws of a demon somewhere close by scraping against the metal but they can't tell where until it's suddenly revealed that it's actually his girlfriend who's been infected and has transformed right in front of him! it's a very eerie and effective little scene. Once the demonic chaos is really unleashed it all feels pretty hopeless and the patrons are completely doomed...unless of course there happens to be a spare katana and a working motorcycle handy! The famous motorbike demon slaughtering scene alone gives the rest of the movie a free pass, it's one of the most draw-dropping what-the-heck-am-I-watching sequences to be found in all of '80 horror and is both epically ridiculous and ridiculously epic!!! Effects-wise I love what they did with the mysterious and creepily alluring man who works as the herald of the demons and hands out the free cinema tickets of certain doom! His design is very striking, the metallic chrome half of his face looks like something that's grafted into his flesh rather than appearing like something that's just stuck on him, he looks amazing. And out of all the many and varied poor unfortunates who meet their demise down at the Metropol, my favourite is the big bald and black 70s disco pimp complete with hookers, he's so hilarious and entertaining to watch in action, and I really think they missed out by not having him be the film's main hero! The only thing I really do dislike is the everything with the completely unnecessary grimy gang of no good crackhead street punks who unwittingly let loose the plague of the demons upon the rest of the world in what must have been one very rapid apocalypse! A lot of the Italian dubbed horror flicks of yesteryear like most giallos that I've ever seen are so trippy and vague that they're kinda beyond me, but there ain't nothing deep about Demons, as a movie it demands nothing more from its audience other than that they hopefully have a fun macabre blast with it, and for me it's always worked just fine on that level. So while it isn't perfect by any means it is consistently entertaining, a little scary at points, and just so much fun that is earns itself a special place in my heart. Gotta love Demons, it's a classic x.

At a newly-reopened theater, a preview of an unnamed horror flick has dire consequences for the in-house crowd. The plot of the movie-within-the-movie has a group of kids digging up Nostradamus' grave and finding a steel mask that scratches one of the teens, his wound quickly becoming a bloody, festering sore that turns him into a raging zombie. One of the young ladies watching the picture realizes she was just scratched by a lookalike prop mask in the lobby--and now her cut won't stop bleeding. Italian-made gore-fest, produced and co-written by Dario Argento, designed to shock and repulse non-genre fans while tickling those who are. It has an appropriate hard rock soundtrack and wildly grotesque make-up effects, however there's confusion in Lamberto Bava's direction right from the start. The dialogue isn't very clever, the non-demons in the cast aren't very interesting and the finale is a cheat, but splatter-aficionados will take some delight in the throat-rippings and slashings, the kissing couple strangled together mid-lip lock, and the assorted post-"Exorcist/Dawn of the Dead/Evil Dead" gross-outs. Followed by "Demons 2" the following year. * from ****

Great Italian horror doesn't have always have to be a slow-burning giallo, which relies on storytelling and drawing out scenes to build the film's intensity. No, proof of that is Exhibit A, the film Demons. Lamberto Bava's Demons is one of the corkiest but thrilling movies to watch out there. The film is chock full with gore, which looks truly disgusting on screen. The most remarkable aspect of the film is the demons' makeup effects that are painfully ugly to look at, and pretty frightening too. There is also a good line up of characters all having your traditional silly one-liners in a film that has no ambition to take itself seriously. Highly recommend this high-octane action, demon fest to anyone that is looking for a fun, gross flick.

Before going deep into describing the glories and details of Demons, let it be said right off the bat (1) just how incredibly fun this film is, and (2) that its greatness has nothing to do with Lamberto Bava. There's a frivolity, joy and quasi-anarchy to Demons that was missing in a lot of Italian Horror since the overnight success of The Bird with the Crystal Plummage 15 years prior. That landmark in giallo ushered in a more adult-themed era within the Italian Horror industry, with the majority of films in the 1970s having less to do with evil, revenge, greed or fate, and more to do with psychological and sexual aberrations, and trauma, in particular of the Freudian kind. This is neither good nor bad, and there are certainly exceptions (Suspiria, Zombie), but even when Argento enters the world of the supernatural, he finds it difficult to let go completely of the psychological tether, going so far as to refer to the head witch of Suspiria, Helena Markos being not just an embodiment of evil, but mentally unhinged, insane. Demons, produced and co-written by Argento, is a return to not just a more pure form of Horror, but also of entertainment.Demons is directed by Lamberto Bava, the son of Mario, who had spent the first 15 years of his time in the industry (1965-1980) being an assistant director and screenwriter for not just his father, but for Argento and Ruggero Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust, Jungle Holocaust). Nothing L. Bava did up to Demons, or after for that matter, appeals to me very much. As is the case with Armando Crispino's Autopsy, I love Demons for what it is as a whole – the parts that make it up don't warrant as much individual, intellectual dissection as many of the other great Italian Horror films do. There's an interesting, if not fascinating, argument here that if one has a pristine script (Argento, Franco Ferrini, Dardano Sacchetti) and an excellent helmsman/producer (again Argento), then perhaps a director of optimal powers isn't necessary to pull off a superior piece of work.The plot of Demons is a delightful one indeed and will appeal to the legion of Zombie Film fans out in the world, although as with more contemporary films like 28 Days Later these aren't the living dead, or even the 'infected'. Instead they are exactly as the title of the film states – demons.The film begins with a music-major university student, Cheryl, riding the Berlin subway. The opening credits roll as she, and us, take a gander at the other occupants of the subway car – this firmly places the film in the 1980s, as the car is full of all the New Wave and punk rock denizens one comes to expect from a lot of Euro-horror at this time. Handed a free ticket for a new movie by a mute man in a metallic demon mask, Cheryl convinces her friend Kathy to go with her. Once at the movie theatre (named the Metrol), which is full of patrons who also received mysterious tickets, Cheryl and Kathy find some cute boys to sit with. In the lobby of the theatre, I should mention, is a sculpture that has hanging from it the same demon mask from before. One of the patrons, a fierce Apollonia 6-inspired hooker named Rosemary, teases her pimp by putting the mask to her face to try and scare him. Unfortunately for her, but fortunately for us, the inside of the mask cuts her face and causes her to bleed. At this point, anyone with even the slightest semblance of knowledge of Horror films, and Italian Horror in particular (see Black Sunday) knows that Rosemary has just become patient zero for something truly abyssal.Within 10 minutes (during which time the movie within the movie has already started, a movie that involves a gaggle of teens coming across a decrepit ruin, a ruin which has the same demon mask buried in a shallow pit) Rosemary feels ill and has to excuse herself to the ladies room (she has a meeting… with Satan!) Where the mask cut her face, Rosemary now has a large pustule, pregnant with demonic semen. Within moments it bursts forth, and the now hellishly infected Rosemary carries the Devil's contagion inside her. Soon, several more become infected (via a scratch or bite from Rosemary), and the theatre is eventually crawling with rabid demons. Meanwhile, one of the characters in the movie playing on the Metrol screen has also cut himself on the mask, and becomes infected with demon juice – the meta- fiction runs wild in this film.By Demons' climax, most of the patrons are Satan's converts (save Cheryl and her boy-toy), including some truly crazy young punks who entered the theatre by the back way. Without giving away the ending completely, let's just say that mankind's future doesn't look too bright in Demons.What sets this film apart is the quick pace, the truly horrific and terrifying special effects (including a particular demon-birth involving someone on all fours that still freaks me out to this day), the legitimate scares, the velocity of the demons themselves, the phantasmagorical lighting and ambiance, the heavy metal score (Saxon and Accept being the highlights), and one of my personal favorites in a horror film – the notion of apocalypse. In this way its influence is still with us to this day. But more than anything Demons is a truly wild, wild ride, and one of the most purely shocking films of its time.