gwnightscream This 1986 horror sequel is sort of a revamp of the original, but the terror unfolds from the TV rather than the big screen. It features random people in an apartment building viewing a demon-themed horror flick on TV which unleashes a demon coming into the real world. Soon, demonic possession spreads to most of the tenants and the remaining struggle to survive. This isn't bad, except for the poor dubbing like the original and one of the demon creatures is annoying as hell. It does have good, gory make-up effects and a couple cheesy ones as well. I'd still give this a view at least once if you're into horror.

tomgillespie2002 The names Argento and Bava alone are enough to cause the average gore-hound to salivate, and fans of over-the-top splattery were treated to an exercise in excess with the Argento-produced, Bava- directed Demons in 1985. While I still felt the film sucked despite the talent behind the camera (although this is Lamberto Bava, not his legendary father Mario), there was still enough bone-gnawing and blood- spraying to enjoy amidst the terrible 80's fashions and soap opera-level dialogue. For the follow-up, the horror maestros inexplicably took out the bite and accentuated the goofiness, and the result is a clumsy, camp and somewhat annoying mess of atrocious acting and even worse film-making.The film begins with what looks to be a documentary based on the events of the first movie, with a bunch of disposable teens trespassing into an quarantined city deserted following the demon outbreak. It turns out to be a film-within-a-film, with 'reality' taking place in an apartment block as loathsome teenage brat Sally Day (Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni) locks herself in a room during a birthday party tantrum to watch the movie on her television. Thankfully, a demon quickly bursts through the screen to turn her into a poster-girl for tooth decay and drip bile through the various floors, turning many of its residents into blue-skinned monsters. Amongst the many archetypes fighting for survival, douchebag George (David Edwin Knight) must get back to his apartment to rescue his pregnant wife and badass gym instructor Hank (Bobby Rhodes) leads his group of oiled-up bodybuilders into battle.It all sounds like a lot of fun, and it really should be. An apartment building is the perfect setting to induce feelings of claustrophobia, with a vast labyrinth of corridors and narrow vents for our heroes to fight their way out of. Instead, Bava ignores the need for any resemblance of atmosphere or tension in favour of a never-ending stream of badly executed set-pieces, where grisly attacks tend to take place away from view. There's also the matter of the ending making little sense and a scene in which an unexplained demon monster thingy that looks like a discarded prop from Troll bursts out of the chest of an infected young boy, in a special effect so bad you wonder why on Earth the film-makers left it in. Only the antics of Hank (a winning combination of Fred Williamson and Mr. Motivator) and a terrific British new wave soundtrack gloss over the abominable acting and frankly unprofessional direction.

morrison-dylan-fan Getting set to order the new DVD of director Lamberto Bavas demons from UK DVD company Arrow,I was delighted to find out that Arrow had also done a new DVD for Demons 2,which led to me getting ready to see the demons enter TV land.The plot:As the residences of a large tower block get set to do night time activities such as working out at the gym,and holding a huge party,a mock-doc Horror film plays in the background of the residence flats.The film involves a film crew visiting a city which has become a wasteland since demons suddenly appeared,and attempted to kill everyone in the city.Finding nothing but dead demon bodies,one of the characters cuts their hand,and accidentally causes a demon to rise from the dead. Transfixed by the demonic baddie in the flick,a resident of the tower block soon discovers that she may have to change her plans for the night,when the demonic baddie from the movie breaks out of the TV,and enters her reality.View on the film:Leaving behind the "mob rule" of part 1,the screenplay by Dario Argento, Franco Ferrini, Dardano Sacchetti and director Lamberto Bava instead use the tower block setting to give the film a delightfully episodic approach,with the writers entering each of the flats to show the residences individual fights against the demons.Along with the episodic approach,the writers take an excellent bonkers approach to the residence,which go from the wonderfully animated,fighting gym bunny, (a fantastic Bobby Rhodes) to a luckier than they know couple trapped in a lift (played by a very good David Edwin Knight,and a pretty Virginia Bryant).Changing the soundtrack from Heavy Metal to British Indie,thanks to Simon Boswell slick score and a number of fantastic Indie songs, (including one from The Smiths!)Lamberto Bava gives the tower block an extremely stylised appearance, with Bava superbly using smoke to show waves of hell covering the tower block,and also giving the movie a wickedly comedic atmosphere,thanks to splashing buckets of gore across the screen,as the demons become "real" reality TV stars.

happyendingrocks This relentlessly absurd follow-up to Lamberto Bava's solid cult classic certainly doesn't boast as many top-shelf gross-out moments as the original, but if you're in the mood for a mindless blood-fest with loads of unintentional comedy, there's plenty of fun to be had here.The action unfolds inside a swanky high-rise apartment complex, in which seemingly every tenant in the building is raptly watching a docu-film about the aftermath of the monstrous infestation we saw in the first Demons. The broadcast portrays four overzealous youths trudging deep within the "forbidden zone" to document the macabre remnants, and when they stumble across the body of a demon, they inadvertently awaken it when a member of the group drips their blood onto the creature's fossilized lips.After dispatching its unwitting discoverers, the monster somehow pushes its way through the television screen and into the apartment of one of the people watching the show: unlucky tenant Sally, who quickly finds herself transformed into a lady demon. Once she's finished slaughtering a roomful of friends on hand to celebrate her birthday, she begins oozing acidic blood, which melts through the floor into the apartments below hers, infecting all who come in contact with it and triggering a full-on demon uprising.The film then basically jumps back into the dynamic of the first movie, with creatures prowling their way through the building attacking everyone they find, and the panicked prey (who are trapped inside the complex because of a power outage, which makes all of the exit doors impossible to open for some reason) fighting back any way they can. This sense of deja vu is bolstered by the presence of Bobby Rhodes, who also appeared in the original Demons, and even though he's playing a completely different character this time out, his function and actions as the order-barking de facto leader in Demons 2 are nearly identical to what we saw him do the first time the creatures struck.If you still intend to take this movie seriously after reading my brief plot synopsis, good luck trying because the whole film is pretty much wall-to-wall silliness. Some of the highlights include a group of heavily-oiled shirtless bodybuilders in uncomfortably skimpy shorts who combat the demons by throwing barbells at them, and a pint-sized child demon whose stomach inexplicably hatches a rubber puppet that looks like it was borrowed from one of the Ghoulies sequels.I'm not sure if it's the screenplay or the dubbing that is responsible for the often perplexing dialogue, but there are some real obtuse gems here, my favorite being the touching moment when lead protagonist George assures his pregnant wife Hannah, "don't worry, I won't leave you two alone," and then bounds down several flights of stairs while she remains behind, by herself, in a darkened hallway. George reinforces his action hero acumen toward the end of the film, when he forces his long-suffering lady to ride on his back while he takes hold of a rope attached to a grappling hook and rappels down the side of the apartment building (a healthy form of exercise for a woman about to have a baby, obviously).The action-packed showdown between the demons and the crew led by Rhodes in the building's subterranean parking garage is particularly mirthful, and I can't remember ever seeing a group of bloodthirsty creatures this limber and acrobatic in my life. These demons are a great match for the gym rats and aerobics babes they're up against, executing full-on flips off of car roofs and somersaulting over walls of fire to converge upon their victims.Most of the creature make-up is as ghastly and effective as it was in the first Demons, but the more elaborate FX set-pieces are largely cheesy and hilarious, such as the aforementioned plastic tummy demon and the lime-green-painted mannequin which is tossed off the roof to simulate a demon falling to its death.The baffling finale finds George and Hannah escaping to a television studio, where Hannah impressively gives birth without a drop of blood being spilled, and after a pretty anticlimactic final confrontation the film sort of just ends, leaving several plot threads hanging unresolved. We never really find out who survived the parking garage showdown, and a few other ancillary characters drop off the face of the earth as well. Most glaringly, extended portions of the movie follow a group of punk rockers racing through the city to attend Sally's birthday party, which results in them getting into a car accident near the apartment building. After they crash, the members of the injured cohort stumble out of their car, where they are greeted by another minor character who has been waiting out front for them to arrive. After this quintet is united, we never see any of them again, and the mystery of why 10 minutes of the run-time was centered around this subplot goes unsolved.Clearly, this isn't mandatory viewing by any stretch of the imagination, but Demons 2 makes up for its general ineptness and lack of coherence by offering a healthy dose of gross, goofy fun. In this case, that's good enough for me.