Demons

Demons (1985)

Runtime: 88 minutes

Directed by: Lamberto Bava

Starring: Urbano Barberini, Natasha Hovey, Karl Zinny, Fiore Argento, Bobby Rhodes

From: DACFILM Rome

Here is a famous Italian horror film I have known about for a long time but I've only seen bits and pieces of. That's even after many people on messageboards I read have said in the past how great it is and how hilarious the character known as Tony the Pimp is. Finally, I found a copy to watch-nevermind how, althought it actually wasn't one of the several copies of the movie that is floating around on YouTube right now-and I decided to take the plunge. It was written and produced by Dario Argento, back when his name attached to a film is a good thing. I have to have to qualify the statement, but his work in recent years has gotten a lot of flack; I can agree with everyone on his film Giallo. I saw that awhile back and that was just incredibly dull more than anything else, and it was sad.

The plot to this movie, stolen from the IMDb as it's pretty concise: “A group of people are trapped in a large movie theater in West Berlin that is infected by ravenous demons who proceed to kill and posses the humans one-by-one, thereby multiplying their numbers.”

It's an Italian horror movie so things don't always make sense, and I can not always deal with such things; that's just how my brain works. However, in this case I thought this was a wildly entertaining movie. There is plenty of gore and viscera and it's all done pretty well, so you'll enjoy it if you dig that sort of thing. There are transformation scenes as you see people turn into the title creatures; some of it was highly creepy.

There is a great 80's electronica score from Claudio Simonetti (the ex-keyboard player to Goblin, a band that often provided weird and yet awesome scores to Italian films in the 70's and 80's), and it rules. 

Also sweet is that 80's rock songs are also heard, from the likes of Motley Crue and Saxon... but also Rick Springfield and Billy Idol's White Wedding, which rules but is more pop/rock than anything else. The highlight, though, is that awesome German rock band Accept provided Fast as a Shark (an early speed/thrash metal tune), which is aces on its own but in the movie you hear it during an incredible scene where an unnamed character-I don't want to spoil it too much-gets on a dirtbike and uses a samurai sword to F some S up, and it is great.

I don't want to reveal too much else but I do have to mention a great character, Bobby Rhodes as Tony the Pimp; that character actually is a pimp and he's always amusing. His clothing is what you'd expect a black pimp in West Berlin to wear, I suppose, and judging by his facial hair and voice, think Mr. T. Yeah, another movie where you're reminded of the 80's icon. Oh, and there's obvious dubbing which happens; as all Italian movies used to do for years and years, everyone spoke dialogue in their own language and it got dubbed over into whatever language the movie was sent to for distribution. That does lead to some unintentional hilarity.

Overall, if you watch this movie it's not for the plot but rather to have a good time with evil demons, gore, insanity, and plenty of instances where you're reminded of the 1980's... to me, a great recipe. I'll be back Saturday night.