Demons (1985)

There's not much to say about Lamberto Bavas Demons, except it's extremely stupid - and extremely entertaining. The idea is just to get a bunch piece of meat inside a big cinema and unleash the demons on them. Nothing more. There's not side stories (if you don't count the ugly gang of punks that enters the cinema a little bit later), and the characters are flat and shallow. It took four screenwriters to come up with this story, and they didn't focus on characters or story.

The gore is plenty, colorful, graphic and slimy. It's also a very cryptic story, with no explanations to what's happening - which is okey for me - but it would be fun to get some clue who started it all, and why it's all connected to the movie within the movie (a movie that are even more retarded than the main feature!). Michele Soavi shows up in the beginning, in the movie they're watching - and in the end, dying a terrible death. He's obviously connected to everything (and so seem that freaky woman that works in the cinema), but nothing more is said about their connection.

But it's all about action and gore anyway, so why care about story. I've heard Lamberto Bava said many times that he don't like gore, but that's not visible in Demons. Every time I watch it I forget how gory it is, with throat-rippings, decapitations, limb-chopping, slime-spurting, stabbings, stranglings and everything else under the pale moonlight. It's a bit plastic, but still made with energy and a lot of blood. There's a couple of shots during the end when one of the characters are driving around on a motorcross and shopping demons to pieces with his sword that somehow echoes more modern Japanese splatter-cinema.

I think the final twist underlines the whole movies stupidity, when they are stuck in the cinema with no way to get out... and suddenly a helicopter crashes down the ceiling and they can climb up through the hole. No warning, from nowhere. A helicopter. I guess the screenwriters gave up there and just used the first idea that they could come up with.

No, don't misunderstand me now. I love Demons, it's fantastic gory fun splatter-flick from the eighties. It's creative, visual, gory and never boring. Bava directs with flair and style, the sets and lightning are superb - and you sit there with a big smile all over you face, hopefully with a beer in your hand and with good company.