Night of the Demons Review

MPAA Rating: R
Released: 1988

In Night of the Demons a group of raucous teenagers decide to hold a Halloween party in Hull House, an abandoned funeral home that just lies on the outskirts of town. During the party they perform a ceremony that accidentally unleashes evil spirits that previously lie dormant. One by one the spirits possess the teens, turning them into vile, bloodthirsty demons.

Being a fan of Kevin Tenney's Witchboard, I was anxious to check out some of his other work, so I picked up Night of the Demons. Although I did not regret my choice, if you're familiar with his aforementioned work then you should know this film is definitely more conventional horror; think Evil Dead rather than Witchboard.

Whereas Witchboard focused on intelligent psychological horror featuring thirty-somethings, Night of the Demons is a typical horror featuring brassy teenagers that behave stupidly. It's not a bad horror flick by any means, but it's not outstanding or particularly remarkable either.

The background story for the film is uninspired, but it's interesting enough to serve the movie. Hull House was built on a plot of land said to be cursed; even the Indians wanted nothing to do with the place. Not everyone heeds the dangers of using cursed land, though, so a funeral home is built at that location with a grand brick wall surrounding the plot. Apparently the wall was built over an underground stream to prevent any spirits from escaping into the world – you see, spirits and demons cannot cross running water.

Before the funeral home was abandoned a fellow that was rumored to have a certain sexual fondness for corpses was maintaining it. Well, I can assure you if I died tomorrow and my body was sent to that funeral home that would certainly be enough to annoy my spirit! Luckily for the angry, evil spirits, the intellectually challenged teenagers decide to perform a séance and accidentally release one of these evil entities, allowing it to slowly possess the group of teens and unleash its bloody wrath.

How about the acting? Well, as the one of our teenage victims, Sal Romero (Billy Gallo), might say, "fugedaboutit." There's no real acting or talent to be found here, but since it's a horror film such matters generally take a back seat to death, dismemberment and nudity. I'm glad to say, horror fans, that these are areas where the film does not let you down.

On the gore front, you'll observe such graphic "delights" as a tongue being bitten off (yeah, it was a whopper of a French kiss), eyes being gouged out and an arm being ripped from its socket. Nudity? You'll find all the lovely leading ladies showing off a degree of skin, from fleeting posterior shots to full-fledged strip-a-thons. On the elements that matter most to a good portion of the horror population, Night of the Demons scores some serious points.

It's also a fairly twisted film overall, with a few scenes that just leave the viewer scratching their head wondering what the heck they just saw. For example, after one of the possessed party-gals, Suzanne (Linnea Quigley), has finished decorating her face and breasts in an interesting pattern with a vial of lipstick, she slowly slides the slender vial through her nipple and into her breast. I guess if you're not carrying around a purse then that serves as the next best form of convenient and accessible storage?

And I can't even begin to try to explain the oddball ending which features a cranky old man, a doting wife and a slice of fresh homemade pie. In fact I challenge any sober horror fan make any sense of it!

One of Night of the Demon's flaws for me was the soundtrack. Although it's not all bad, the music they chose to play during intense or frightening scenes was too chaotic for my tastes. I won't say it was inappropriate since the scenes were meant to be chaotic and fast-paced, but it just didn't work for me.

Night of the Demons ultimately disappointed me, not because it was a bad film but because I was hoping for something a bit more unique and intelligent such as Tenney's Witchboard. Judged solely on its own merits, the movie is a solid chunk of cheesy horror goodness that, while not exactly scary, should please most horror fans.

Movie rating: 6 stars

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