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| Images courtesy of Synapse Films |
Back in October 2021, Michigan based boutique label Synapse
Films in competition with Arrow Video overseas in the United Kingdom released a
deluxe 4K UHD boxed set of Lamberto Bava’s signature Italian horror epics Demons
and Demons 2 from 1985 to 1986.
Considered by many to be the pinnacle of modern Italian horror before
the heyday started to wither in the 1990s, Demons is the natural evolution
of horror directing legend Mario Bava continuing through his son Lamberto
Bava. An assistant director on Planet
of the Vampires, Lamberto Bava got a firsthand education from his father
and also found himself working with Cannibal Holocaust director Ruggero
Deodato at a few points.
No stranger to horror, Lamberto soon debuted as a writer
director in 1980 with his Italian horror film Macabre before assisting Dario
Argento on Tenebrae which landed a working relationship with the
then-explosive Italian horror maestro behind Suspiria. It was this pairing, this meeting of the
minds between Argento, his longtime screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti (a frequent
Lucio Fulci collaborator) and Lamberto which resulted in the Demons film
series. Planned originally as an
anthology horror film before Lamberto zeroed in on one of the stories which he
and Sacchetti began crafting with contributions from Argento, the film Demons
and its sequel Demons 2 concern a cursed movie which unleashes an
evil force that transforms its viewers into murderous demons from Hell.
A showcase for the makeup effects artists, stylish
cinematography and wild heavy-metal infused soundtracks with frequent needle
drops akin to The Return of the Living Dead including but not limited to
a group of teenage punks who segue into the pandemonium unfolding, the film is
an explosively gory romp that takes the impetus behind Sam Raimi’s The Evil
Dead and Romero-Argento’s Dawn of the Dead for demonic possession as
zombie outbreak. Aided in both pictures
by a pulsating electronic score by Claudio Simonetti who recently toured
Michigan’s Redford Theater for a special screening of Demons, perhaps
the most notable characteristic defining both movies are the meta film-within-a-film
echoes with horror art onscreen playing out in real life.
Maybe the definitive horror film set within a movie theater,
the kind of Italian designed movie house that could only exist in amplified
giallo fare, the ensemble Demons finds music student Cheryl (Natasha
Hovey) wandering a subway station when she bumps into a metallic masked figure
(The Church director Michele Soavi) who hands her a complimentary pass
to a mystery movie at the remote Metropol Theater. Dragging her friend Kathy (Paolo Cozzo) into
it, they meet a couple college kids George (Urbano Barberini) and Ken (Karl
Zinny) as well as well-dressed Tony the Pimp (Bobby Rhodes) with his two
prostitutes. Maybe the strangest attendees
of all include a blind man and his guide who is having an affair with another
patron, making kisses in between describing the film to the blind man.
Anyway, in the lobby is a silver demonic prop mask from the
film they’re about to go see which one of the prostitutes Rosemary (Geretta
Giancarlo) fools around with the mask and puts it on, nicking her cheek. As everyone sits and watches the film, a
violent horror movie about a group of kids who dig up the grave of Nostradamus
only to discover a silver demonic mask.
When one of the kids puts it on and nicks his face, he becomes infected
and zombified with a demon virus that turns him into a violent murderer and
anyone who is bit and scratched becomes infected as well. Just then, Rosemary feels something strange
on the spot where she nicked her cheek and before she can make it to the
bathroom the spot explodes in a gross mess as her teeth fall out and she exits
the bathroom now a fully transformed demon.
From there, it becomes a survival horror film with
supernatural elements as the theater itself seems to be cursed with the
entrance to the theater now bricked up while hidden corridors lead to even more
Hellacious basement arenas. As the
survivors try to band together and barricade off doorways to keep the demons
from getting through, one demons gets out while a group of punk cokehead
teenagers who seemingly drove right out of The Return of the Living Dead are
thrown into the mix. All the while as
the body count rises and the amount of demon hordes increases, the film boils
down to George and Cheryl who fight tooth and nail to escape the cursed theater
as an all-out demonic apocalypse outbreak is ensuing.
An enormous tectonic Italian horror epic that seems to be
the high watermark and point of which the genre eventually began to recede, Demons
like eventual The Church creator and co-star said is ‘pizza schlock’
of the highest order. A Dawn of the
Dead offshoot with elements of The Evil Dead, The Exorcist and
the aforementioned The Return of the Living Dead, the film is an effects
bonanza thanks to stunning makeup work by visual effects artist Sergio Stivaletti
of Dario Argento’s Opera and a dazzle for the eyes and ears. The visuals by former Popeye and Phenomena
camera operator Gianlorenzo Battaglia, restored in crisp 4K UHD, are
radiant and lush with incredible lighting.
It goes without saying even without seeing the film, you hear Claudio
Simonetti’s score and you know right away which film its for. Driven by heavy-metal and Italo-disco sonics,
it as perfect for this horror universe as it is for Halloween parties.
Acting and performances are secondary to the makeup effects
work, the sets, the soundtrack and the story requires some serious suspension
of disbelief for it to work. That said,
everyone gives their all with the demons getting the most-heavy lifting to do
being buried in makeup and having to run about and wreak havoc against
terrified humans. Perhaps the most
memorable face is Bobby Rhodes as the over-the-top stereotypical black pimp
turned survivalist hero who feels cut-and-pasted right out of a blaxploitation
epic ready to turn his street smarts against an army of the undead. The other major face in the film is Gerretta Giancarlo
as Rosemary, a Portland, Oregon resident who became the signature face of the
film as the very first titular Demon to appear onscreen.
Such a success in Italy, surpassing many American horror
films playing theatrically at the time including Cat’s Eye, Silver
Bullet and A Nightmare on Elm Street in addition to becoming an
unrated theatrical hit in the United States as well as a hot VHS and laserdisc
release, Demons is more or less an instant modern classic of the
genre. While no main characters in the
film take center stage, instead being an ensemble survival piece in the mold of
Night of the Living Dead involving people barricading themselves inside
a building, Demons for all of its logical and narrative gaps including
unnecessary scenes of punk kids that don’t get developed further is a
check-your-brain-at-the-door blast.
Naturally a profitable guilty pleasure, it was no surprise the team
behind this still-enduring beer-and-pizza film would reunite for what
ultimately became Demons 2.
Moving the action away from movie theaters to home television
screens inside an apartment complex, structurally a progenitor of sorts to [*REC],
Demons 2 posits inside a high-rise apartment building ala Poltergeist
III where the demonic supernatural hijinks and movie-within-a-movie play
out in much the same fashion as it did in the first Demons. However instead of having a demon mask in a
cursed movie theater, here a group of various characters including a young
woman named Sally (Coralina Tassoni) who is having an unhappy birthday party,
Hank the Gym Instructor (Bobby Rhodes again), a little girl named Ingrid (Asia
Argento), a pregnant babysitter named Hannah (Nancy Brilli) and her husband
George (David Knight). Needless to say,
if you’ve seen the first film, you know what’s ahead.
Upping the ante this time around by including a demon dog, a
demon child and a demon infant that frankly looks like one of the Gremlins,
the film brings back cinematographer Gianlorenzo Battaglia who restages many of
the same shots from the first film including an iconic image of demons with
glowing eyes running towards the camera in slow motion. There’s also a weird kind of James Bond final
set piece that cranks up the weirdness to untold heights. Switching composers this time around however
to Simon Boswell, the attitude of heavy-metal synth infused electronica is
still present but somehow just not as memorable as Claudio Simonetti’s score in
that kind of Michael Jackson’s Thriller way. Despite the amount of screaming and gore in
the film, it is worth noting that Argento and Lamberto Bava toned down the gruesome
factor to obtain a lesser Italian rating.
Released theatrically in 1986 in Italy followed by a 1987 release
in the United States, Demons 2 while strong and fun with the
compartmentalization of the apartment setting adding to the film’s sense of
claustrophobia and maze-like doom doesn’t quite achieve the full-blown sense of
reckless abandon the first film still does.
Admittedly the additional surprises are good like the demon dog and
screeching gremlin monster are unexpected but the movie-within-a-movie setting
inside a theater remains that much more meta and one of the quintessential examples
of horror movies set within a cinema house.
The gore and makeup effects remain stunning to look at but you wouldn’t
be wrong if you accused the picture of being more-of-the-same.
Incidentally, a third film was being planned by Argento and
Bava loosely dubbed Return to the House of the Demons which would’ve
seen an airplane make an emergency landing only to be stranded on an island
with a volcano with demons lurking in the passengers’ midst. However, the idea was scrapped and
screenwriters Argento, Franco Ferrini and Sacchetti devised a new plan of an
underground passageway that would lead into Hell. Ultimately becoming The Church with Demons
star turned director Michele Soavi redesigning the piece as a classier horror
film jettisoning the movie-within-a-movie conceit completely, the unofficial
third Demons film shifted gears entirely and its place in the series is
contested to this day.
Even without considering The Church which is a more
serious minded and ethereal horror experience, its presence in the horror world
doesn’t diminish the staying amusement park rollercoaster thrill power of the
first two Demons films. The first
one remains the best while the second one is good but not great. Fans of these films who were previously stymied
by the exorbitant price tag (can you guys dial it down a little, Synapse?) will
be pleased with these less expensive standalone releases which come with their
own bevy of unique original sleeve artwork.
You’re not going to get a lot of intellectual acumen out of these
flicks, but as pure Italian phantasmagorical visceral horror it excels and is
widely considered by Italian critics to be the high crest wave of Italian horror
before the tide broke and the waters receded.
--Andrew Kotwicki
