Demons 2 (1986)

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Lamberto Bava, Dario Argento, and the demons may be back, but it's just not quite the same this go around. For lack of a better term, I have sort of a love-hate relationship with Demons 2. On the one hand it successfully taps into the style, make-up, and mayhem of the original; but on the other hand it has almost none of the gore or bite that made that film so much fun. What should have been a crazy sequel set in the apocalyptic world we were left with at the end of Demons, ends up being a fairly tame rehash of virtually the same story with even less of a plot (if you can believe that). There are still some things to like here, but it definitely feels as if the filmmakers just wanted to quickly churn out whatever they could to ride the success of the first film.

The set up takes far longer than it should for how little it matters. This time instead of a movie theater, the action takes place in an apartment building where the tenants are all going about their normal business. A young girl is having dinner with her parents, a young boy is left home alone, an expectant couple talk about their day, a bipolar woman flips out at her birthday party, and a group of muscle men led by Bobby Rhodes (who's back in a different role) are hitting the weights. Most of these people are connected by the fact that they're watching what seems to be a bad PBS re-enactment of the events following the first film. They're glued to the screen as the survivors inadvertently revive one of the demons and are chased down one by one. The unstable birthday girl, who has locked herself in her bedroom, seems to be especially terrified, so perhaps the TV demon sees this as an opportunity when (in one of the best effects shots of the movie) he ...

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