Night of the Demons (1988)

Directed by: Kevin Tenney

I love the 80's. No, scratch that... I REALLY love the 80's, at least when it comes to horror movies. Maybe it's because this was my decade where I went from a little kid to a teenager and these were the movies that were around at the time, but this is not just a case of nostalgia on my part. I love the stupid hair and clothes, I love the totally non-PC stuff that we really don't see in movies today, I of course love all the unmotivated nudity (if there's anything that can be called "unmotivated" when it comes to nudity) that's thrown in there just for the sake of attracting even more horny teenage guys to the cinema. And I love the "real" gore in these old movies, I hate to see gory effects that are touched up with CGI like in most horror flicks that you see today. And I gotta say that I just love the cheesy synth soundtracks like so many of these movies had (like this one), just by listening to the music alone you know what decade it's from and from that you also know what to expect from the flick.

Something I also like with so many of these horror movies from the 80's is that all the clichés are there... When watching something like this you want the obnoxious fat guy, the slutty chick, the virginal heroine, the macho dude (who always gets killed in a very bloody fashion), the punk rocker outcast (which in this movie is also the obnoxious fat guy) etc etc. This movie has 'em all and more and you can't go wrong with a line-up like that.

Over to the flick now... It's set on Halloween and starts with a grumpy old guy cursing at the dressed up kids that are passing him on the side walk. Yep, old people are assholes and this one is a major asshole. This really don't have anything to do with the movie itself (although, the old dude is back at the very end of the flick), but sets up the tone nicely. Something else that sets up the tone nicely is the next shot, a close up of Linnea Quigley's white panties (or are they pink? I don't know, I'm colorblind... the important thing is that it's a close up of her panty clad butt!) - Linnea plays the boy crazy Suzanne and together with her friend Angela she's having a party at the local abandoned funeral home... It's Halloween after all and what other place could be better than that???

After the batteries in the tiny cassette player runs out and the music stops the gang decides to hold a seance... yeah, great idea considering the place they're in ;-). This is done by staring into a big mirror they were lucky enough to find in the house, and all of a sudden the most plastic looking demon doll ever is shown in the mirror letting us all know that this little "seanse" has set lose a scary demon in the house... The gang manages to miss this little tidbit and soon the party starts again, only to find Suzanne getting possessed by said demon and soon she passes it on to Angela (hey, the demon might look cheesy, but the girl on girl action when it's passed on doesn't!).

The gang splits up in the house only to be picked off one by one, and in the middle of all this the most memorable scene of all in this movie occurs. Where Suzanne puts her damn lipstick through her nipple... top that if you can! You know early who will survive and who will die, but that doesn't matter, it's the journey there that counts! (Oh, yeah... I almost forgot, at the end of the movie we also get to see what happens to grumpy old geezers who don't appreciate Halloween - a sweet and very gory finale to this great movie).

Even though the movie has some slow moments here and there it's nearly the perfect 80's horror movie. Like I said in the beginning it has all the cliché characters, synthesizer soundtrack and great 80's gore effects. It also has the typical wooden acting by the "teenagers" that feels very 80's, but nothing that drags the movie down one bit - movies like these should be like this! You know what to expect from the start and Night of the Demons truly delivers!

There are two sequels to this flick, but I have never watched any of those sadly. After having rewatched this one I do feel it's time to see more of Angela and her demon buddies though. There's a remake coming out later this year of this movie, but I think I'll stay away from that one... I have a hard time believing they could ever top the original (not that any of the remakes do... I did like the "My Bloody Valentine" remake though, but that one feels more like they got lucky once and that won't happen again).