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Night of the Demons (1988) - The Bratty Little Cousin of Raimi and Waters

 

Linnea Quigley is an absolute Goddess of low brow horror shlock and it is almost entirely because of her that Night of the Demons has occupied a spot on my Peacock watchlist for a long, long time now. I was excited the the situation finally arose to watch it, when I got about 30 minutes into Downfall (the Hitler movie) on Peacock and decided it was far too heavy for my mood at the time but didn’t watch to have to search another streaming service for something to watch or deal with ads at so many of them.

I only have a couple big criticisms of the experience. The first is that outside of Quigley and Amelia Kinkade the acting here ranges from “passably bad” to “Omg, get this person in the next 5 acting classes you can find just to function” awful. This isn’t too uncommon in low budget horror films of any era but especially the late mid-to-late 80s where they saved money on unknown slaughter fodder and frequently hired women from the modeling world who would be more comfortable with showing skin which I assume is especially the case here as I think there’s only one member of the central female cast who isn’t asked to do some sort of nudity. Now obviously, this can be a big part of the appeal of such films, people come in EXPECTING bad performances and enjoy them, and I can often feel the same but there’s only one that is in the category of so bad it is funny. The second criticism is that there isn’t a great deal of creativity to the kills for a movie that seemingly designed many of their characters in such a way that you kind of root for their death. The SFX work is passable and not extensive outside of makeup and facial prosthetics, and many of the deaths kind of just quickly happen and then it moves on with only a couple that really qualify as bloody fun.

The good outweighs the bad though by a good deal. Sure, with its nudity and obsession with upskirt shots it is one of the sleazier of its era but at the same time these are played with such high camp value often times that they almost have a John Waters esque grotesque “celebration of sleaze” quality to them. So much of the film obviously plays as broad and cartoony as it can, reveling in filth and B-movie stereotypes that it cannot have been an accident that the film has such a high camp value which is why I didn’t include these elements in the “bad” section of the review because to me they seem entirely with purpose.

The film is remarkably well directed and shot, every section of the house they are in has its own distinct atmosphere but especially the main room where much of the action takes place and it seems every camera movement was lovingly planned and prepared, the camera is kinetic and there’s a lot of lovely shot construction from scene to scene including even a very strong Raimi-esque fast steadicam “Demoncam” shot that traces through much of the house. I literally added multiple other films from director Kevin S. Tenney, a veteran of the video store-oriented low budget horror scene of the late 80s and early 90s, to my watchlist purely because I was so impressed with his eye and ability to channel influences like Raimi and Carpenter seamlessly. Not to make a third comparison to the Evil Dead, but also the makeup and prosthetic work for its small budget can sometimes compare favorably to that beloved series, it obviously isn’t as good pound for pound but it does its job effectively. Linnea Quigley should be given an award for her fearless and extremely fun performance that instantly is up there with the like of Return of the Living Dead as her most memorable, she repeatedly steals the show.

I feel like anybody who views screencaps or posters with Night of the Demons, let alone watch a trailer, have a pretty good idea of what kind of film they are getting into and know that it isn’t promising to be high art. So you probably don’t need to hear me be talk about shot composition to watch this film. The best way to recommend it is purely to say that this film was seemingly perfectly designed to fit every standard of a “cult horror film” and it lives up to its status as such. Watch it, get a laugh, get a thrill. Just please do not ever tell your sister she has "bodacious boobies". 

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