It's amazing what kind of horror movie you can achieve without the MPAA getting involved and slashing quality scenes. I highly recommend this if you haven't seen it before!
It kicks ass and for me is easily Lamberto Bava's best film. The FX are legit icky and pace-wise, it just belts along with something cool happening every 10 minutes or so and it's also surprisingly well shot, with some great use of colour. A film I never tire of revisiting.
And the soundtrack!
I used to the cover of this at the video store by my house - that alone gave me nightmares
It’s super metal now when you look at it
The second one is worth a watch also. Its set in a high rise apartment building and is just as bonkers and gory. Demons 2 has a terrific 80's new wave/punk soundtrack too!
Love it, almost enjoy it more. The soundtrack is killer. Love the 80’s cheese of it, like the gym scenes and the black dude as written by a white dude who thinks he knows how black people talk.
Wow I had no idea there’s a sequel!
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Lol I think Michele Soavi's The Church (1989) and The Sect (1991) was also alternately called Demons 3 and 4 :D
The Church was supposed to be Demons 3 but Soavi thought it was too good to be just a sequel. Soavi also plays the dude with the metal face that hands out the movie tickets in Demons.
I just read on a separate post about this movie that Demons 2 inspired Evil Dead Rise (high rise apartment) whereas Demons was inspired by Evil Dead
Not quite as good but still tons of fun. A great dummy toss down a stairwell too
It's Italian. If it made money they made sequels.
I felt like it wasn’t nearly as gory?? I saw it on tubi maybe censored… it was just ok. I LIVE the original tho!
Must have been cut down on Tubi. Its packed up in a box now but I have an Arrow Films Demons 2 movie bluray steelbook with both movies fully uncut.
I saw Demons for the first time a few years ago and it absolutely blew me away. Nonstop insanity, huge body count, great effects... Couldn't ask for more.
I'm also obsessed with Rosemary. What a kween.
It’s fucking metal as fuck dude! Music from Accept and Saxon made it even better
What the hell happened to Rosemary!?!
The titular demons are genuinely terrifying. One of my favourite Italian horror films.
I love any movie that features ‘Chekov’s Samurai Sword/Motorcycle’.
It’s a perfect movie . 10/10 in my eyes and top 3 horror flicks of all time
I prefer most 80s Italian Horror over US 80s Horror in general, just has that charm to it imo
They have much more creative legroom
Definitely agreed, I love 80s US Horror too but it felt too held back creatively and censorship wise
So many Friday the 13th kills held back.
Definitely agreed, imagine if the held back kills got the same treatment the Italian Horror and Gore movies did, and I know the stereotype is the Italian movies don't have as much as sensical plot but as I get older I've learned it's entertainment and for me it doesn't bother nearly as much now when there's little plot.
If you can pull off the gore and practical effects they did and atmosphere, honestly that's super impressive to me.
Rented this so many times from the movie rental store.
As long as you rewound the tape
I love Demons. Italian horror and giallo in general are just great.
I love the dub on Demons, it’s so OTT. Especially the pimp guy “WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO ROSEMARY?” Also love that one of the characters is a blind guy who has gone to the cinema with his daughter who just fucks him off for a random affair 🤣
One of my Top 2 movies of all time. Tony the Pimp is the greatest character in anything ever. Any movie where a blind guy gets his eyes gouged out by a Demons rancid claw gets my vote. Plus the samurai sword/ motorcycle scene is the most metal thing I've ever seen. The soundtrack was my first Internet purchase waaaaay back when. Love, love , love it! SMASH EVERYTHING!!!!
I was just appreciating this movie the other night. It's amazing how they pull off some truly freaky scares. Like when the characters on the screen become aware of the audience and it just gets all surreal and terrifying.
The last quarter of Demons is the best filmmaking that anyone has done ever in the history of cinema.
So metal
What a weird comparison. I guess the gore is more extreme.
Demons makes F13 look like friggin Casablanca in just about every other way. Im a big Demons fan but Friday the 13th makes basic sense and builds legitimate tension and has good performances in it.
My point was the MPAA cutting several scenes from part 5 and 6 which would have been metal as fuck
So good!
This movie messed with my head, especially since my dad took me to see Serpent and the Rainbow at a brand new, completely empty neon monstrosity of a cinema randomly opened on the edge of a state park nature preserve. I felt like I was walking into the Bava movie!
Great movie. Funny as well.
This movie messed with my head, especially since my dad took me to see Serpent and the Rainbow at a brand new, completely empty neon monstrosity of a cinema randomly opened on the edge of a state park nature preserve. I felt like I was walking into the Bava movie!
Is it the dario film?
Argento produced & co-wrote it, but Bava directed it.
Saw it in the theaters as a 10/11 yo kid with my dad 😄
It scared the ever loving sh!t outta me & I loved it!
It's on shudder, FYI
One of horror’s best for sure
Demons and demons 2 fucking rules.
demons is amazing and the blu ray has 2 different versions with subtle differences. Most likely music and mood and pacing.
the italian version is more italian style and the international or english version is more "americanized" with faster pacing more american music like crue and other stuff more an mtv era vibe.
If you enjoyed demons make sure you absolutely check out demons 2 cause it's a total banger and the soundtrack is great and more beautiful actresses. Sally's transformation in demons 2 is must see , like the female friend in the first demons who had a demon come right about of her back, that was such a cool effect.
you can also check out the very B movie BOdy COunt with Nancy Brilli cause she's the only reason worth watching that.
The church is the unoffical 3rd movie where took things in a completely different and wierd direction and doesn't even compare to demons and demons 2.
I'm going on record with demons 2 and saying poor sally on her birthday was suffering een before she becomes a demon with the worst b-day PMS ever.
I was never a fan of Giallo, but this changed my mind. So much fun!
I didn’t like Demons at all.
From my 2018 Letterboxd entry:
I can't do this one. Dialogue is way too bad. Story is ridiculous, and not in a "so bad it's good" sort of way. Just an eye roll sort of way. Not my style of horror at all. 2 stars is for the gore/practical effects. And that's the only positive.
I think this is one of the best horror films of the 80 ‘s.
Great effects and supernatural horror. Fun and humorous.
Good escapist horror that does not take itself seriously.
What a stupid assed statement. They are two totally separate things and types of movie with two completely different vibes.
You sound like a hand job.
Why are you so weirdly aggressive about this?
Hey
Too scary for me. Some movies have such a dirty, unsettling, grindhouse feel to them I just can’t rewatch. I acknowledge it’s very good at what it sets out to do but I don’t want to rewatch it anymore.
Totally fair, I respect that
It might also have to do with the fact the budget for demons was almost 2 million while the budget for Friday the 16 was only 550 grand
And about 1.5 million of that went into the helicopter crashing through the ceiling lol
For a second I thought we were talking about night of the demons. Tell her this is some B movie wonderfulness, The movie treats itself seriously but at the same time it lets you enjoy it and it's campiness. Also the sequel is incredible.
If anyone thinks Halloween and Friday the 13th are top 10 movies they are total noobs to horror. Slashers are not my genre at all but it’s like “tell me you haven’t seriously watched horror movies without telling me you haven’t seriously watched horror movies”. And not being exposed is not an excuse. You can go on Tubi, A FREE STREAMING PLATFORM (right now!) and see some of the most classic, entertaining and or well respected horror movies around from throughout the decades.
i love “halloween” and “friday the 13th” for what they are, but they’re absolutely the safe and mainstream examples of their genre. hell, “friday the 13th 1 & 2” both owe a shit ton to mario bava’s “a bay of blood”, which came out almost ten years earlier. “friday the 13th” is to horror what green day is to punk rock. and i love green day, especially the older stuff, but it’s undeniable that they were doing a watered down and safer version of something that had been done 10-20 years prior by bands most people never heard of. herschell gordon lewis and then a slew of italian directors ran so these motherfuckers could walk.
I still think the thing, alien, Blair witch, dawn of the dead, event horizon, even nightmare on elm street 2 could be better introductory horror than these “classic horror films” just cause they’re popular doesn’t mean they’re worth while
Peak 80s
Post Evil Dead and The Thing
Pre Aliens and Predator
It’s perfect 80s horror