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Night of the Demons

2/10

Stars: Shannon Elizabeth, Monica Keena, Diora Baird, Edward Furlong, John F Beach, Michael Copon, Bobbi Sue, Tiffany Shepis

Director: Adam Gierasch

Once upon a time, long, long ago, Ed Furlong starred with Arnold Schwarzenegger in two ‘Terminator’ blockbusters. Here he’s reduced to appearing in a second-rate shocker where he’s covered with fake gore. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he was covered with embarrassment, too, at being seen in this redundant remake of the 1988 alleged cult shocker which wasn’t that good in its own minor B-film right.

The most entertaining (using that word in its widest sense possible) bit is the silent movie opening sequence, shot in blood-shot monochrome and complete with period title cards, which shows a luckless lady leaping with a rope around her neck from the balcony of a New Orleans mansion in 1925, graphically decapitating herself while six people mysteriously vanished from the place.

Segue to Halloween night 1985 and a decadent party at the blighted mansion where the partygoers find themselves trapped by demons and the audience find themselves wondering when the diabolically wearisome seen-it-all-before-and-better-done-too show will come to its gaudy conclusion…

Says director and co-scenarist Adam Gierasch, “My aim for Night of the Demons was to make the ultimate film that my seventeen-year-old self wanted to see. Punk rock, demons, scantily-clothed women, gore and big scares…’ Give him his due, Gierasch has succeeded in including his movie menu in his film: but by now most 17-year-olds will have already seen and savoured these by now routine celluloid ingredients, only better written, performed and directed.

Alan Frank

USA 2009. UK Distributor: Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment. Colour.
96 minutes. Not widescreen. UK certificate: 18.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 3, Violence/Horror 3, Drugs 2, Swearing 0.

Review date: 15 Sep 2010