Director: Lamberto Bava
Cast: Urbano Barberini, Natasha Hovey, Karl Zinny, Paola Cozzo
Have I Seen it Before: Never. The Blu Ray itself is a relic from a time—as I’ve mentioned in recent reviews—when horror movies had become a chore and I cast a wide net for possible titles in service of that chore. As I’m trying to work my way through a stack of DVDs and Blu Rays I had been acquiring over the last several years but had never watched, I inevitably would come to this one.
Did I Like It: No.
I’l assume you—or at least the minimum word count I have set for these posts—are wanting more. As I mentioned, I have had a certain ambivalence towards horror lately, finding myself unable to find anything more in the genre other than the basest impulses which have continued to ghettoize the genre.
I came into the proceedings with a modicum of hope. Dario Argento lent his name to the proceedings, and his a pedigree not to be blithely dismissed. Also, my recent screening of Drag Me to Hell (2009) had turned out to be far more enjoyable than I would have initially thought. What’s more, the notion of taking in a cult film like this—especially one which had not been so thoroughly vetted by film culture at large can be excited.
And things started out well enough. The notion that people who go see a horror movie in the theater are not safe is a clever enough one, although in 2020 safety in the theater is no laughing matter. Making the theater and the movie these people are watching cured in its own right is a perfectly fine way to start off a horror film. Had it delivered on any of its promise, I could see moviegoers in the 1980s having more trouble than average trying to rationalize themselves out of their own fears.
Unfortunately, the rest of the film is average makeup and gore, strung together by—at best—overly enthusiastic performances. If you like that sort of thing, or a soundtrack of metal standards that would be resoundingly dubbed “classic rock” these days, then you will find something to enjoy in the film.
If not, the film doesn’t add up to be more than the sum of it’s parts. Sadly, it’s something less than.
*Titled “Dèmoni” in the original Italian.