How to Scare Yourself Silly - Watch Demons on DVD

Demons (AKA Demoni); is another great classic film by Italian Master filmmaker Dario Agento. Inspired by George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, Agento took the concept of the zombie movie giving it a brilliant twist. Demons, is a film within a film. Director, Dario Argento plays on your worst fear of being trapped inside a building in complete darkness, and spices it up by including flesh eating monsters in the mix.

The film begins when a masked man wearing a long blue cape give two women two tickets to a grand re-opening to an old movie theater. One of the girls convinces her girlfriend to skip class to attend the re-opening. They leave the train and walk across the street to the theater, which is a gothic building.
It is not explained why the tickets seem to be only distributed to seedy misfits. The ticket is given to a pimp and his two hookers and punk rock teenagers. The only normal people who receive the tickets are the two college students and a blind man who is accompanied by his daughter.

Once inside the gothic theater, one of the hookers tries on a mask prop displayed in the lobby of the theater. She scratches herself with the mask when she takes it off before joining everyone into the theater to see the film. The house lights turn down and the film begins. The film is about a youth who turns into a demon after he tries on an old silver mask he found in a cemetery and brutally murders his friends who are with him. The two college girls, in the audience are sickened by the gore, and blood in the film but decide to stay to finish it.

The hooker also feels sick. She thinks it's the film and goes to the bathroom to go throw up. There, she slowly turns into a demon, and then bites and infects a woman entering the bathroom. The now infected woman leaves the bathroom and finds herself behind the film screen where the film is still playing. The woman rips the film screen to stands on stage while she turns into a snarling, hideous bloody demon from the film. In a classic moment, the demon jumps on a frightened man sitting at the first row and rips his chest opened with her long sharp fingernails.

The petrified audience scream and run to the entrance of the theater and begin to frantically scratch off the false facade with their fingernails only to find that there are only solid walls underneath. The audience, runs to the back and sides of the theater to find the same fake doors. They are sealed inside with the demons, which are accumulating rapidly as people are being bit in the complete darkness.

The film is a great roller coaster horror fest. The blood does not look real by today's standards. It looks more like the melted thick red goop found swimming around inside lava lamps. The demons are hideous creatures with glowing white eyes, you see in the dark, sharp teeth and nails and stalk you. There is another great scene in the film where one of the survivors rides a motorcycle while wielding a samurai sword he took from the display in the lobby and begins to decapitate the demons. I wasn't able to sleep or go to the movie theater for a month after seeing this film.

The soundtrack includes 80's pop artists such as Billy Idol, Saxon, Motley Crue, and Go West. All in all it is a great ride of a film with tension, action, fear, suspense, and oh yes there will be blood! So, click onto your neighborhood Netflix or Blockbuster online and get yourself a copy for this weekend. Then lock all doors. Turn off all the lights and pop some corn. NO Weenies allowed! Enjoy.

*Don't watch this movie alone.
Directed by Lamberto Bava
Produced by Dario Agento
Copyright Ó 1986.

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