Look, I’ve tried. Really, I have. Italian horror has its devoted cult, its passionate defenders, its think pieces about “giallo as art.” But Demons? This cinematic junk drawer masquerading as a movie? No. This is the moment where I stand up in the middle of the theater, popcorn stuck to my shirt, and declare, “I am not having a good time.”
Directed by Lamberto Bava, son of Mario Bava, this 1985 neon-lit fever dream about demonic possession in a movie theater is supposed to be a classic of Italian splatter cinema. But here’s the thing: just because something’s loud, colorful, and drenched in blood doesn’t make it good. Sometimes it just makes it exhausting.
The premise — and I use that word generously — is this: a mysterious guy in a Phantom of the Opera mask hands out movie tickets in a Berlin subway station like a promotional demon Santa Claus. The recipients show up at a gothic-looking theater, where the interior design screams “post-apocalyptic Chuck E. Cheese.” The movie they’re watching is about demons. Then people in the real audience start turning into demons. That’s it. That’s the plot. Hope you weren’t expecting The Exorcist. Or coherence.
Right out of the gate, Demons hits you with the kind of acting you’d expect from mannequins trying improv. The cast includes a random cross-section of human stereotypes: two giggling girls on a double date, a blind man and his “guide,” some punks snorting cocaine out of a Coke can (subtle), and an usherette who seems like she’s only here because her cousin worked on the crew. Dialogue is dubbed — poorly — which is par for the course in Italian cinema. Everyone sounds like they’ve been possessed by voice actors who forgot to read the script.
But the real star of the movie is chaos. Demons doesn’t build tension so much as chuck it out the window. One moment someone’s watching a movie, the next they’re vomiting green slime and attacking fellow patrons with their newly sprouted claws. There’s no escalation — just an immediate jump from “What’s going on?” to “That woman just ripped a man’s throat out with her demon teeth and we’re still on Act One.”
The effects, to be fair, are ambitious. You’ve got eye-popping (literally), clawed hands bursting through flesh, and one sequence where a demon is born out of someone’s back like it’s Alien on acid. Gore hounds probably had a field day. But for the rest of us, it’s a special effects sizzle reel masquerading as a movie. And once you’ve seen the third person mutate into a snarling latex-covered gremlin, the shock value wears off. Fast.
Then there’s the soundtrack, which is a strange mix of heavy metal and synth that feels like someone hit shuffle on a “Bar Fight in Hell” playlist. Billy Idol? Check. Motörhead? Absolutely. Claudio Simonetti? Naturally. The music is fun, in a detached kind of way, but it often drowns out whatever faint wisps of dialogue were trying to happen. You don’t watch Demons to hear characters talk, apparently. You watch it to feel like you’re trapped in a haunted music video.
Characters die. Others scream. Some scream and then die. And in the grand tradition of Italian horror, no one behaves like a human being. There’s a moment where a woman sees her friend mutate into a demon and instead of running, screaming, or calling a priest, she stands frozen like she’s watching someone assemble IKEA furniture without instructions. It’s baffling.
Oh, and the ending? Strap in. Just when you think things can’t get any more ridiculous, a man on a motorcycle — yes, inside the theater — starts slicing through demons with a samurai sword while “Fast as a Shark” by Accept blares like Satan’s karaoke night. It’s like a deleted scene from Mad Max: The Musical. And you’d think that’d be the climax, right?
Wrong.
Because then a helicopter crashes through the ceiling. Out of nowhere. No explanation. It just falls through the roof like divine intervention from an entirely different movie. The characters look at it for about five seconds and then start using it as a prop. At this point, I was halfway expecting Godzilla to show up and start taking notes.
The final moments involve our surviving couple escaping the theater into a now-demonic apocalypse, which raises more questions than the movie even remotely tries to answer. Why is the whole world infected now? Was this some kind of demonic transmission? Was the movie cursed? Did I accidentally take mushrooms before watching this? The film shrugs and cuts to credits.
Let’s talk about Lamberto Bava for a second. The guy clearly grew up in the right house — Mario Bava was a genre master, a guy who could make dread ooze off the screen. Lamberto? Not so much. He directs Demons like a man with ADHD and a trunk full of fog machines. There’s no sense of rhythm. No tension. Just endless screeching, strobe lights, and green goop.
To be fair — and this is as charitable as I’m willing to be — Demons does have a certain trashy energy. It’s like a punk rock horror show: short on melody, long on noise. If you’re twelve years old and hopped up on Mountain Dew, this might be your Citizen Kane. But if you’ve got even a passing interest in story, structure, or acting, you’re gonna feel like you’ve been dropkicked through a meat locker full of VHS tapes.
And yes, I know Italian horror isn’t about logic. It’s about mood, surrealism, and operatic madness. I get that. But there’s a difference between dreamlike and nonsensical. Demons lands squarely in the latter category. It’s not a fever dream. It’s a fever tantrum.
Final Verdict:
Demons is an incoherent, over-the-top splatter-fest with all the subtlety of a jackhammer to the face. It’s beloved by fans of Euro-horror and midnight movie chaos, and if that’s your thing, more power to you. But for the rest of us? It’s 88 minutes of beautiful people screaming in dubbed English while covered in goo. If you want atmosphere, go watch The Shining. If you want gore with brains, try The Thing. And if you want Demons, just bang your head against a neon jukebox and set your living room on fire.
As for me? I’m done trying to like Italian horror. I gave it my best shot. But after Demons, I feel like I need an exorcism. Or at least a nap.
