Demons 1 & 2 ... finally got around to seeing them...

[MinionZombie]

...and I have to say, I didn't much care for them to be honest.

http://deadshed.blogspot.com/2010/12/double-bill-mini-musings-load-of-old.html


The Italians, when it comes to the horror genre at least, aren't especially known for particularly great plots. The Italians love the look of something, and that's their primary focus - and so it is with this Dario Argento presented twosome, directed by Lamberto Bava (son of Mario "Bay of Blood" Bava).

The first has a bunch of randomly dated characters (including a pimp-like dude who looks like he got lost somewhere between Saturday Night Fever and a dialogue-light bad guy for Pam Grier to pummel) all attending a secret movie premiere. So begins the movie-within-a-movie, featuring some random mask that cuts you when you put it on and turns you into a demon, who can spread the demon disease through their fingernails. Inexplicably, in the lobby, there is a similar mask (for some reason dangling off the handlebar of a motorbike ... what random movie was this display supposed to be advertising anyway?) that, you guessed it, cuts the cheek of one of the pimp dude's floozies.

She goes all demon on everyone's arse and soon enough the good stuff in the flick finally gets on the go - that being the gore and nonsense violence. Grandiose shots, agonising shots to boot, of demons having their human teeth slowly pushed out by their devilish gnashers (similiar with their fingernails) ... and then constant shots of them wandering around aimlessly screaming ... ... the cast of dated stereotypes and useless fodder, led by the white-suited pimp, barricade themselves and fend off the back-lit, glowing eyed, titular antagonists - and get picked off one-by-one.

Fast forward to a helicopter - for utterly no reason at all - crashing through the ceiling, as well as endlessly dull sequences of coke-headed punks driving interminably around a not-at-all-good-to-look-at Italian city from the 1980s, to simply become yet more fodder, and it's all a bit insufferable, I've got to be honest.

I was rather looking forward to seeing Demons and Demons 2, but neither have the grandiose, painterly vision of Argento's technically superior eye, nor the unmitigated sleaze of Fulci's grindhouse grot. These flicks sit somewhere, uneasily, between, and while Argento's flicks sometimes aren't the strongest when it comes to plot, at least they have one that makes a lick of sense. Demons, and particularly the inferior sequel, is just a bunch of random crap happening.

Speaking of which, the second movie is exactly the same - but in a building - not 'the same like Die Hard 2 is the first one in an airport', no, it's pretty much exactly the same. It again features a movie-within-a-movie, that's supposed to be important, but isn't really, it again features the pimp-in-the-white-suit (this time as a tough-talking gym instructor), it again features a useless rabble of punks insufferably driving around a naff-looking Italian city, it again features gruesomely detailed shots of demon-dental-restructuring, and doesn't make a scrap of sense.

Most of the characters, more so than in the first, are literally nameless, and it's all set in an exceptionally ugly apartment complex filled wall-to-wall with cannon fodder. A bunch of random nonsense happens scene-after-scene in this 'swish' prison, all loosely cobbled together under 'various people need to survive the siege' - and the overacting, just like in the first, is heinous. It's not just naff acting, it's stupendously bad acting, performed by apparently good looking people.

What's worse though is how long it takes for the monsters to transform for most of the movie, until the third act when - for, again, no good reason at all - every remaining side character (in a cast of side characters) instantaneously mutates for 'a scare' (and that's at the same time as being able to impersonate their former selves, which was never flagged up to be an actual ability ... especially as, again, they spend half the movie lumbering around, back-lit, eyes glowing, and screaming endlessly at nothing).

I was really quite interested to see these flicks - the trailers made them look rather enjoyable - but the horrendous scripts, overacting, and general lack of sensible pacing or interest - threw all that out of the window for me. Perhaps if I'd seen them as a young teenager, but there are countless 'lesser' horror movies with far better scripts, acting, and pacing. It wouldn't be so bad if they were 'so bad they're good' (like Zombie Lake, for example), but they're clearly supposed to be something spectacular and they just aren't by any stretch of the imagination. I usually enjoy movies like this, and to each their own, but blimey I really didn't get on with these flicks at all.

Thoughts?

[Purge]

They were both goofy, but part two was fairly watchable. I went out and bought The Cult's greatest hits CD after hearing the song "Rain" in part two.

[slickwilly13]

The first movie blew the sequel out of the water, but both movies had great soundtracks. I also think the gore and special effects in the first movie is superior in every way. The pimp stole the show. He should had survived longer or made it through the movie. "You dig?"

[MinionZombie]

The movies did have good make up effects, and I dug on the gore, and the soundtracks ... but everything else was abominable. I was really quite surprised, to be honest.

[EvilNed]

Thoughts? The Demons flick fuckin' rule. I think I'm gonna pop in the second film right now, actually.

Qb-B7edVfR4

[krisvds]

Thoughts? The Demons flick fuckin' rule.


Exactly.
Anyone not digging the demons films should go out and score better pot!

[shootemindehead]

Two of the most incredibly over-rated peices of nonsense ever.

The love for these things constantly surprises me, I have to say. Even as a kid I thought they were rubbish. I never got them.

[fulci fan]

@ Krisvds

For real

[bassman]

If a film requires pot to be enjoyed....well....that says a lot about the film...

[EvilNed]

If a film requires pot to be enjoyed....well....that says a lot about the film...

I'm going to assume you've never seen Koyaanisqatsi.

[JDFP]

Woah, shocked by all the hate...

I think "Demoni" is one of the quintessential 80's horror flicks. Completely over-the-top acting and melodrama. And it does what it does very well. It's also one of those great films (only in the 80's!) where the dorky guy gets the chick and proves his worth by taking out all the monsters to save her in the end (can you get any more 80's than that???) -- and of course, the soundtrack is essential to such an 80's film and definitely delivers. The soundtrack is fantastic. Yes, it's pure cheese -- but it's a premium cheese, not government issued. For me, it ranks up there with other greats from the 80's like "Fright Night", "Lost Boys", and "Near Dark". The only thing I hate is the dubbing and the picture quality on the DVD I have of it -- it would be fantastic if a blu-ray release could be created with subtitles instead of dubbing and remastered picture quality/sound.

I think it's fantastic for what it is -- including the Italian Mr. T. wannabe -- and had a hell of a lot of fun with it. I enjoy it every time I watch it. I guess different strokes for different folks. Personally, though I know it wasn't directed by Argento, I thought it was far superior in every way to "Suspiria" which I just find insufferably awful (while I respect Argento, only a few films by him I really dig -- like "Do You Like Hitchcock?" which is one of my favorites and a great homage to Hitchcock as well) -- and better than everything Fulci ever did or dreamed of doing.

As far as the second one, I'm not much of a fan of it like the first one -- but I do still smile at also fantastic soundtrack in it as well.

Here's some trivia from "Demoni" (Or "Demons" for the great unwashed) courtesy of wikipedia (so we all know it's ex cathedra):


* In addition to co-writing the script, Dario Argento also produced the film.
* Argento's daughter Fiore plays the character of Hannah.
* The building used for the exterior shots of the movie theatre still exists, it regularly hosts horror conventions today.
* Michele Soavi, a devotee of Argento's work and his assistant director on several films, also served as an assistant director on Demoni and has two starring roles, as the man wearing the silver mask and as Jerry, one of the characters in the film playing at the Metropol.
* Nicoletta Elmi, who plays the usherette, appeared in Argento's 1975 classic giallo Deep Red. She also had a small role in the 1971 horror film Twitch of the Death Nerve, directed by Mario Bava, the father of Demoni director Lamberto Bava.
* Posters for Werner Herzog's Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht and Argento's Four Flies on Grey Velvet can be seen hanging in the Metropol's lobby. There is also a AC/DC poster in one scene.
* This film was #53 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.
* In the PlayStation video game, Silent Hill (1999), there is also a theater named the "Metropol". The theater also has posters on the outside walls advertising for the film "Demons", which is a reference.[original research?]
* No gore was cut from the original script.[citation needed]
* Most of the interior cinema scenes were shot in an actual closed down movie theatre. The building still exists but is now a bank.


j.p.

[slickwilly13]

I think Nicoletta Elmi also played the demented little girl off of Flesh for Frankenstein.

[krisvds]

If a film requires pot to be enjoyed....well....that says a lot about the film...

't was a joke.
(BTW Bass, didn't you used to have Sir Paul as your avatar at one time? He the pope of pot ;)

The Demons films are good for a laugh though. Completely over the top, fun flicks.
Especially the first one.
How can you not enjoy a guy driving a motorcycle through the aisles of the cinema lobbing of demon's heads with a fricking samurai sword only moments before a helicopter crashes through the roof?

[MinionZombie]

't was a joke.
(BTW Bass, didn't you used to have Sir Paul as your avatar at one time? He the pope of pot ;)

The Demons films are good for a laugh though. Completely over the top, fun flicks.
Especially the first one.
How can you not enjoy a guy driving a motorcycle through the aisles of the cinema lobbing of demon's heads with a fricking samurai sword only moments before a helicopter crashes through the roof?

I can enjoy a romp, but Demons (1 or 2) didn't play like that for me. They felt like they were too self-important, and neither sticking to one vibe or the other - be it stylish Italian flash, or sleazy Italian grot.

The helicopter falling through the roof made no sense at all - it was entirely unmotivated, it literally falls out of the sky, and it's just the cherry on top of a succession of nonsensical tosh happening. Even films that are deliberately crazy have sense behind them, this is just a succession of random crap happening for 90 dragged-out minutes.

There are cool moments littered throughout, but goddamn ... I just didn't dig either of these movies at all. Frankly those involved have all done better work by a long shot - Bava's "A Blade in the Dark" really goes for the Italian obsession with architecture and style, and there's a cohesive plot running throughout in which random bullshit doesn't just happen ... and Argento has done many things better, perhaps not recently, but certainly around that time before and after. The fact it was cobbled together by four people speaks volumes about its muddled and messy plot ... it's like at least two distinct styles, perhaps even three, of Italian horror filmmaking are fighting with each other, with a half-assed sense of grandeur on a budget that is seemingly entirely incapable of supporting it. Dardano Sacchetti, also, has been involved in a whole bunch of superior films to this.

Demons 1 and 2 seemed very muddled and unsure of what they wanted to be, and poorly thought out frankly. Slap-dash, really.

[slickwilly13]

I do not understand why people are confused about the helicopter crashing through the roof. It makes perfect sense. Yes, it was confusing at first, until they escaped from the theater and it was revealed that there was total chaos in the city of Berlin. And it does not take long for shit to hit the fan in a large city when you are dealing with runners, who sole purpose is to murder and infect as many people as possible. And they are not zombies, either, but demons. There is a big diffrence. All it takes is a drop of blood, a bite, or a small scratch to infect a person in a matter of a minutes. A pilot or passager in that helicopter, who appeared normal several minutes earlier could have easily change while the helicopter was in flight.

[krisvds]

I can enjoy a romp, but Demons (1 or 2) didn't play like that for me. They felt like they were too self-important, and neither sticking to one vibe or the other - be it stylish Italian flash, or sleazy Italian grot.

The helicopter falling through the roof made no sense at all - it was entirely unmotivated, it literally falls out of the sky, and it's just the cherry on top of a succession of nonsensical tosh happening. Even films that are deliberately crazy have sense behind them, this is just a succession of random crap happening for 90 dragged-out minutes.

There are cool moments littered throughout, but goddamn ... I just didn't dig either of these movies at all. Frankly those involved have all done better work by a long shot - Bava's "A Blade in the Dark" really goes for the Italian obsession with architecture and style, and there's a cohesive plot running throughout in which random bullshit doesn't just happen ... and Argento has done many things better, perhaps not recently, but certainly around that time before and after. The fact it was cobbled together by four people speaks volumes about its muddled and messy plot ... it's like at least two distinct styles, perhaps even three, of Italian horror filmmaking are fighting with each other, with a half-assed sense of grandeur on a budget that is seemingly entirely incapable of supporting it. Dardano Sacchetti, also, has been involved in a whole bunch of superior films to this.

Demons 1 and 2 seemed very muddled and unsure of what they wanted to be, and poorly thought out frankly. Slap-dash, really.

All involved have done better things; that's for sure.
But I don't agree that the films are unsure of what they want to be. I feel they are meant as satirical, funny stabs at the genre. As you said; a romp.
Not to be taken seriously. Trash cinema. Miles away from something like suspiria which for me is prob one of the best horror films ever made.
And yeah, the helicopter does make 'sense.'

[MinionZombie]

A satire?! Satire is too complex a thing for Demons 1 or 2, to be honest.

And with the length of time it takes for someone to convert to a Demon (aye, Demons, not zombies - who gets those confused? :confused:), I'd have landed the chopper and kicked them out, or just kicked them out ... but then again, the conversions are so utterly inconsistent from one minute to the next - it can either take utterly ages for someone to convert so the cool gore fx can take the limelight for a while, or it can take literally a second ... as much time as it takes for not one, not two, not three, but four or more nameless side characters to do a 'jump scare' turn around reveal.

Demons might be a romp, but it's a shit romp ... like a quickie shag when you're just bored and not even all that randy ... a brief amount of goodness, but when compared to something even only a little bit better, it's just not worthwhile.

*edit*

Just found this - :lol: - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPdgouFtPDo
ZPdgouFtPDo

[krisvds]

haha. Great video!

And yeah, ok, satire is perhaps a bit too much praise. Cut a non-english speaker some slack. By the way: mijn nederlands is beter dan uw Engels.

The demons films aren't great cinema in any sense of the word, true, but I like them for a laugh. They are so over the top you know?
And please, applying logics to this kind of exploitation cinema is completely pointless.
Even producer Argento's best films (for me: suspiria, inferno) seldom are. They are more surreal, like nightmares. Be it quite dumb and juvenile nightmares in this case.
Too bad you didn't enjoy them.
Have you seen any of Lambero Bava's dad's films BTW? I reckon you will like them a whole lot more. Especially Black Sunday and Twitch of the death nerve.

[MinionZombie]

I saw Twitch of the Death Nerve/Bay of Blood - didn't care for it either. I appreciate it for it's position in horror cinema, but I simply didn't enjoy it that much. Again I was expecting that I'd dig it, but again it was the confused plotting and general muddle of it all that put me off.

On the other hand I watched The Bird With The Crystal Plumage last night, and that was a far better experience. Typically Argento (or rather, typically Argento when he was pumping out good flicks), but the 'twist reveal' ending was all a bit thrown in at the end, which didn't exactly clear things up properly. It was more interested in style - and the early sequence showing an attempted murder at an art gallery proves that in spades - and style is what it does very well indeed. The plot is a bit thin, but even still, it moves on in a sensible direction throughout - not a jumbled mess of stuff happening like Demons 1 and 2. There's a clear vision to Crystal Plumage, whereas Demons 1 and 2 feel very much a whole barrel of ideas from four different people splattered onto a canvas in some vague order.

I can enjoy a good old romp like the next person - something like Return of the Living Dead - but the key thing with that, compared to the Demons flicks, is that the plot makes sense and events occur not at random, but for a decent enough reason. The pacing is far better, the characters are better drawn (and all have names), and it's much, much clearer in its vision as to what it wants to be.

[krisvds]

I saw Twitch of the Death Nerve/Bay of Blood - didn't care for it either. I appreciate it for it's position in horror cinema, but I simply didn't enjoy it that much. Again I was expecting that I'd dig it, but again it was the confused plotting and general muddle of it all that put me off.

On the other hand I watched The Bird With The Crystal Plumage last night, and that was a far better experience. Typically Argento (or rather, typically Argento when he was pumping out good flicks), but the 'twist reveal' ending was all a bit thrown in at the end, which didn't exactly clear things up properly. It was more interested in style - and the early sequence showing an attempted murder at an art gallery proves that in spades - and style is what it does very well indeed. The plot is a bit thin, but even still, it moves on in a sensible direction throughout - not a jumbled mess of stuff happening like Demons 1 and 2. There's a clear vision to Crystal Plumage, whereas Demons 1 and 2 feel very much a whole barrel of ideas from four different people splattered onto a canvas in some vague order.

I can enjoy a good old romp like the next person - something like Return of the Living Dead - but the key thing with that, compared to the Demons flicks, is that the plot makes sense and events occur not at random, but for a decent enough reason. The pacing is far better, the characters are better drawn (and all have names), and it's much, much clearer in its vision as to what it wants to be.

I like Argento a lot. His films are often examples of style over substance, but on the level of style and photography very few horror directors come close. His Giallo's are fantastic. Out of those I like Profondo Rosso best (great music and art direction), with Tenebrae a close second. His later films, like GAR's, aren't THAT bad, just not as good as what they used to be. Sleepless however is worth a watch if you like Giallo.

ON Return of the living dead; that film is so great in all it's trashy silliness little else comes close. Shaun, of course, but that's about it.

[MinionZombie]

Shaun of the Dead - in the realm of "trashy silliness"? :rockbrow::confused:

*awaits the rumbling of the HPOTD masses* :sneaky:

[krisvds]

GREAT silliness bro, great silliness ;) Perhaps not trashy, but definitely silly.

Other than that: spite me with your scorn oh great connaisseurs of all things celluloid.