Whoa, well welcome to yet another installment of my countdown. For those of you that are new to the game, this countdown is done in Joe Bob Briggs fashion - featuring the amounts of gore, breast count and all of the ridicioulsness that runs rampant in these great horror films of the 80's. You'll find tidbits of info and plots for the films - so here's what we've gotten to so far: 10)A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3: The Dream Warriors 9)Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives 8)Return of the Living Dead 7)Dead Alive (aka Brain Dead) 6)Re-Animator and now for the next film on the list
5)Demons
1985, written and directed by Lamberto Bava (also written by Franco Ferrini {with story by Dardanno Sacchetti})
Ah yes, I can remember when I was watching Demons for the first time. It was my first true taste of the Italian horror genre, which are most commonly known for their Giallo type films. Giallo is an Italian word that basically comes from yellow, and it's the color of the paper that these sorta cheap pulpy crime stories that were printed out in the 20's and 30's. The Giallo films take the elements of a detective-esqu story and also mixing in the elements of horror or fantasy. Demons has an element of why there is this terror being caused when all of these people are mysteriousily invited for the screening of a film, someone gets possessed and all hell breaks loose.
I don't know if it happens through translation or what, but even John Carpenter can be quoted specifically about Dario Argento's films: "The thing with Dario's films is.....they never make any sense - but he kills people so beautifully." Those of you who DON"T know who Dario Argento is, he is the modern day master of Italian horror. He pretty much took over the reigns for Mario Bava (the father of the Lamberto and director of the film I'm trying to get into) This man takes a blend of the surreal, bright colors, infamous POV shots, and his gloved killer. In fact, John Carpenter saw quite a few of Dario's films and instead of a gloved killer - he created a masked one: Michael Myers in Halloween - and thusly creatign the whole slasher genre - so thank you Italian horror films for all you do for us over here.
Before I can keep on blowing Dario more (whose also done a lot of work with George Romero such as on Dawn of the Dead, the fine people of Troma and not to mention a slew of some of the finest shockers, slockers and gorey pieces of almost beautifully massacred cinema.
Profondo Rosso_pics.jpg (40075 octets)
Like I said, he took over the before master of the Italian genre Mario Bava. Mario was close friends with Alfred Hitchcock and some could even consider Mario as the Hitchcockini. In fact, between some saying the that Psycho was the first slasher film, then Bava's Blood and Black Lace is the first body count film in color - and the genre exploded ever since then - all thanks to them Italians.
So now lil Bava created a HUGE hit with this film, this third generation Italian film maker had worked with Dario Argento quite a few times so far. Where Bava ended up as an AD and various other tasks for Dario's films. With Demons, Lamberto wrote it and directed with Dario writing it as well and produced the film - this becomes a match made in Heaven - or Hell speaking in horrorific terms. This film has some great special effects, lots of murder and an awesome Heavy metal soundtrack with bands like Billy Idol, Scorpions, Motley Crue and Goblin (aka The Goblins or to eventually become Daemonia) Dario's favorite metal band. Ah yes, I forgot that heavy metal also plays an awesome part in these films. It excites and totally brings up the pace in the film once people start to die on out.
Now, the only downside to the Italian films is that they lack major bits of continuity problems - let's take the "Zombie" films for example. Now Lucio Fulci -another fine Italian master of horror made his best hit would be Zombie (but it's known as Zombie 2 B in Italy) Now the reason for that is going back to Dario Argento. Dario was the producer on George A Romero's Dawn of the Dead. It's really only known as Dawn of teh Dead in the US It's primarily known as Zombie or Zombies (mainly due to my ranting about the zombie title rights found in my countdown for Return of the Living Dead)
So Argento got the foreign producer rights to Dawn of teh Dead, he even made his own cut of the film and it was called Zombie in Europe. Lucio Fulci became the director for the second film called Zombie 2 in Europe, but plain old ZOMBIE in the US. THere is no continuity connection with this film, and actually utilizes mainly voo doo esque connections for causing the dead to rise. But I do enjoy the way the dead rise whom are covered in blankets and sheets, much like the dead found within Romero's Dawn of the Dead in teh basement apartment sequence. None of the zombie films are connected except in name only and just pretty much jump from one typical scenario to the next.
Same goes for the Demons series: Demons 1 I shall cover in the plot further on. Basically people are requested to view a horror film, there is something hidden and evily mysterious about the film. A girl gets scratched and a "zombie like virus" is spread from one person to the next whether from bites, scratch or death. People die like crazy and a few survivors.
Simulataneous death for art imitating life imitatind death
Guy dangling from his noose
People making out together and dying together for it
Blind guy gets it
THE FUCKING PIMP with the bitching sideburns. Bobby Rhodes shoulda stuck around for the whole film but he unfortunately gets turned. But he does return for the sequel along with his sideburns - but no mroe switchblade.
Demon rebirth through the back ..y count: 26 (plus lots of carnage out int he streets as West Berlin is destroyed)
Gore factor: 6 out of 10 buckets of blood. Not too BLOODY but gorey in every aspect of the film. Gorey with awesome special effects.
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