Night of the Demons
Angela is having a party, Jason and Freddy are too scared to come. But You’ll have a hell of a time.
Directed by Kevin Tenney
“Eat a bowl of fuck! I am here to PARTY!”
You KNOW this one’s getting 100%! And with very good reason. Now, although I was an 80s teen, I didn’t see this or any of its sequels in the 80s. I don’t remember the posters either. These are exactly what I would’ve rented back then if I had seen them about. That said, I don’t remember much from the age of 18 to about 28 so I dunno….?
Anyway, first time I saw Night of the Demons (1988) was this year in fact, I’d seen it floating about (They ALL float down here lol) on Facebook and it obviously caught my eye. This is pure 80s horror fun. Stars Amelia Kinkade as Angela (the gothette), the delicious Linnea Quigley as Suzanne (that’s her, saying hi in the pic), Hal Havins as Stooge (the guy wearing the pig’s snout in the film), Cathy Podewell as Judy, Lance Fenton as Jay, Billy Gallo as Sal, Alvin Alexis as Rodger, Philip Tanzini as Max, Jill Terashita as Frannie and Allison Barron as Helen. Also stars Karen Ericson as Judy’s Mother, Donnie Jeffcoat as Billy and Harold Ayer as Old Man (very funny scene).
A group of friends go to a Halloween party at a place called Hull House that used to be a funeral parlour where a mass murder took place. There is a legend that an underground stream completely surrounds Hull House, a tall brick wall marking its place above. So, the party begins and it isn’t long before they decide to hold a ‘past life seance’, staring into a mirror, seeing a past life. Anyway, they awaken something evil which possesses one of the girls….
Brilliant casting and writing ensures that this is never boring or irritating and that’s just for a start. Hull House itself looks great, inside and out, and there’s atmosphere aplenty. I fucking love the scene where Angela dances to Stigmata Martyr by Bauhaus, sticking that track in there was inspired. The special effects aren’t just well-done but they’re very inventive too, a feast in fact. Sometimes I wish they’d just do away with CGI, in horror films anyway, a big part of the fun back then was witnessing what these special effects people would come up with next, big part of the fun now too if you like discovering new 70s/80s horrors. Fans of the’ Evil Dead’ films and the ‘Demons’ films will definitely appreciate this, and be pleasantly surprised by how it manages to rival those films, and I don’t mean copy, I mean rival. Why it isn’t available on Blu-ray in the UK is an utter mystery, and a bit of a crime. It’s an out-and-out classic.
As I mentioned earlier there are sequels, two of them, and a remake (2009) too. I’ll be reviewing all those as I just want to watch them all again really. I don’t think I’ve seen any of these films more than once, well, apart from this one, that’s twice, but I’ll probably watch them a lot more, if I can find the time. I highly recommend this one, especially to fans of 80s horror (I seem to say that a lot but weirdly 70s/80s, ‘old’ horror, seems to be an acquired taste, beyond me, things have gone downhill – fact) and please, someone, get this out on Blu-ray, it deserves to be!
