Demons (1985)

Acting:		Partying:		Girls:
Blood:		Language:		Gore:
Violence:		Humor:		Sexuality:
Torture:		Predictability:		Overall:

"They will make cemeteries their cathedrals and the cities will be your tombs."

We all have those moods where we want to sit down and watch a film that offers little more than some cool visuals and a lot of gore. Well, straight from the minds of Dario Argento and Lamberto Bava (yep, that's Mario's son) we are presented with a film that does just that. Demons is simply an excuse to stylishly slaughter a group of people trapped in a movie theatre, and really, that's all it needs to be. It has about as much use for a plot as audiences do for another Saw sequel, but the nature of the film is so completely ridiculous that it works.

Set in Berlin, the film begins with college student Cheryl (Natasha Hovey) on the subway attempting to elude an ominous 'Phantom of the Opera' character who has been following her. She eventually does bump into him only to find that he's giving out tickets to a free screening of an unnamed movie. She gets a second ticket for her friend Kathy (Paola Cozzo), whose response is "I hope it's not a horror movie." The two girls decide to skip class to go see the movie at the new 'Metropol' theatre. The venue itself offers no hints as to what movie they'll be watching, the only thing in the lobby is a medieval suit of armor riding a dirt bike holding a samurai sword and a demon mask. I wonder if those items will come into play later in the film..

In the lobby, our diverse group of moviegoers start to trickle in which, among others, include: two strapping young college boys, a blind man and his assistant, a young couple looking to make out, an older couple, and Tony the Pimp (Bobby Rhodes) with his two hoes. On the way in one of the hookers decides that it'd be fun to try on the demon mask, which cuts her face when she takes it off. "That will teach you to touch things."

Once the movie begins it is, in fact, a horror movie. An obviously low budget Italian film about two couples that go in search of the tomb of Nostradamus. This film includes the very same mask from the lobby and when one of the characters cuts himself in the same way, we know that something isn't right. Things start to parallel what is happening on screen and when the hooker goes to the bathroom, her face pulsates and bursts ...

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