UR, 88 min.
Director: Lamberto Bava
Writers: Dario Argento,
Dardano Sacchetti, Lamberto Bava, Franco Ferrini
Starring: Urbano Barberini,
Natasha Hovey, Karl Zinny, Fiore Argento, Fabiola Toledo, Nicoletta Elmi,
Stelio Candelli, Nicole Tessier, Geretta Giancarlo, Bobby Rhodes, Guido Baldi,
Bettina Ciampolini
Speaking of b-horror movies…
Sometimes they’re bad, but they’re also good. For some reason, horror maestro
Dario Argento didn’t feel like directing his script for the movie “Demons”, so
he passed the directing duties off to his long time second unit director
Lamberto Bava, who comes to the Italian horror tradition with his own family
history as son of the legendary director Mario Bava, known for such classics as
“Bloody Sunday”, “A Bay of Blood”, and “Danger: Diabolik”.
“Demons” doesn’t strive for
the sophistication of most of Argento’s work, so I suppose that’s why Bava got
the helming duties. It’s a simple story about a group of strangers who get
invitations to see a free private screening of a movie. The movie depicts an
ancient relic, which unleashes a plague of zombie-like demons on the world.
When some of the movie patrons begin to disappear it becomes apparent that the
film is meant more as prophecy than entertainment. Soon the missing patrons
show up again as zombified demons intent on turning the others, who find
themselves locked in the theater with no means of escape.
It’s certainly an acquired
taste, but there’s something about the brash nature of this movie that just
appealed to me as a horror aficionado. There’s no great message to be found
here. There certainly isn’t any great, or even good, acting. The zombies ooze
green slime from their mouths, not unlike that stuff on Nickelodeon. It’s not
so much scary as it is disturbing and fun. More fun than disturbing, though. I
love it when the filmmakers try to trick the audience into thinking something
innocent is going on, but then it turns out somebody is turning into a zombie,
which couldn’t be more obvious if they flashed a title card across the screen
telling you that this person is really turning into a zombie. Little of what
happens makes much logical sense in terms of storytelling, but that’s part of
its charm.
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