This week on the Silver Emulsion Podcast, Stephen and I talk about the listener-requested Italian horror flick, Demons directed by Lamberto Bava! Grab your ticket from the man in half a silver mask and enjoy! 🙂
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Music NotesIntro:
Outro:
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Fuck!
That last comment will make sense later. I apologize in advance if you read this on the podcast. This is going to be a LOOOOONG ONE!
DUDES! I have to agree with Steven that Demons is borderline retarded. The plot is awful and it makes zero sense. The characters are garbage with no depth. But that’s 100% why I absolutely LOVE THIS MOVIE! And it gets greater every time I watch it because of it and cracks me the fuck up. I saw Demons as a kid and I really liked it! Will I could’ve sworn I let you borrow it when we were in 6th grade!
Anyway, a horde of demons attack people in a movie theater! That’s it! So as a fat horror nerd kid with skidmarks in his undies, it was a blast! But there was a bit of “Italianess” that I never really understood at first. I remember my dad describing Italian horror movies and saying, “Italian horror movies are good and all, but I don’t know. Whenever someone dies they start playing jazz music.” And he went into a “tss-tss, tss-tss” mimicking a jazzy hi-hat. That stuck for the longest time and I couldn’t really get into Italian horror for decades! Because honestly, thats exactly what happens! So I was always a bit turned off from them and sometimes avoided them if the cast and crew had a name that ended in shit like “-elli”. That was until I revisited Demons again and ABSOLUTELY. FUCKING. LOVED IT!
It starts off with a fat thumping bass synth to let you know that you’re in for some shit. And then there’s a college girl on a subway who’s afraid of the punk rockers on the train FOR NO REASON! It already starts off ridiculous and hilarious. If this isn’t enough, she spots a dude in leather wearing a half-metal mask on the subway platform. And she runs away! Then the fat synth returns! Why the fuck is she even running away?! It’s goddamn side-splitting! And this is only the opening credits! Like imagine you were in a mall and saw a guy with a metallic mask and you start running away and pushing people aside! You’d be a big asshole! Turns out he just wanted to give free movie tickets to this judgemental lady.
Now that the opening is out of the way, we get introduced to the great cast of characters as they arrive to the movie theater. Each one more ridiculous than the last. There’s two studmuffins George who’s the main guy and… the other guy (Side note: I’ve seen this movie like 50 times now and hardly remember anyone’s name but who cares?!). There’s a husband and wife on their anniversary and the husband is the most angry person EVER! And again, for no reason! There’s two young naive lovebirds who give me one of the biggest laughs later. There’s Tony the Pimp and his two bitches. Just that concept that a pimp with a switchblade brings his two bitches to a free movie cracks my ass up. He might not be the deepest character ever, but he’s cool as fuck. And to top it off there’s a blind guy with his niece who abandons him later to fuck a dude that looks like he manages a Motel 6. How can anyone be bored with such a cast?! And we’re only 10 minutes in!
Listen to this next sentence and it perfectly describes the absurd entertainment in this movie. The Rick James-looking prostitute grabs a demonic mask that’s hanging off dirt bike handlebars that a mannequin is riding, complete with a samurai costume and samurai sword. This is a display in a movie theater, mind you. The hooker puts on the mask, gets scolded by her pimp, and the mask scratches her face (just like in the movie!). So what movie are they actually getting to sneak peek? I don’t know, but it’s equally hilarious!
The movie they’re watching opens with a fucking banging heavy metal tune, so it’s already great. Then there’s a sleazy narrator who says, “The sleep of reason, gives birth to monsters.” Whatever that means, but it sums up Demons pretty much. The movie they’re watching follows four dipshits who stumbled upon the tomb of Nostradamus as they were looking for lizards. Let me repeat that again. The movie they’re watching….follows four dipshits… who stumbled upon the tomb of Nostradamus… as they were looking for lizards. Who can’t bust an intestine at the hilarity of this movie?! One of the asshats who admitted to his girlfriend he was looking for lizards knows a shitload about Nostradamus and can and can’t read Latin. He’s so intelligent that she calls him a “Computer brain” and thinks Nostradamus sounds like a rap group. So he’s not smart, she’s just dumb as shit. In sifting through the tomb of Nostradamus they find a mask like the hooker wore and the dumb dick in the movie wears it also hoping to get a chuckle out of the ladies. And Steven pointed out the fucking fantastic dialogue.
“Don’t put that on!”
“Why not?”
“Whoever wears it becomes a demon.”
“How do you know?”
“It says here whoever wears it becomes a demon.”
Whose balls aren’t rolling on the floor from laughing them off?! This is the greatest exchange of idiocy in movie history. So the guy removes the mask and cuts himself, just like the Rick James hooker who noticed her face is bleeding. She goes into the bathroom and the cut swells into a fucking balloon and blows banana pudding everywhere. It’s absolutely disgusting and if you’re not on board with this gem yet, then I don’t know what to say! Hooker #2 goes to check on Hooker #1 and Tony gives her a pimp slap on her buttcheeks as she walks away. She enters the bathroom to find her ho friend turned into a fucking demon! How did this happen? What evil does the mask possess? Is it a virus? Who gives a fuck! Hooker#2 gets slashed across the neck by demon fingers and IT’S ON! A rock guitar kicks in and Hooker #2 gets lost in miles of curtains until she winds up behind the movie screen somehow. She blows through it and falls to the floor. In this chaos, Tony the Pimp goes from 100 to zero as he screams “HOLY SHIT, SHE’S A FRIEND OF MINE! …what happened baby?” Hooker#2 goes through a fucking terrific FX transformation as her teeth fall out, her nails blow out by demonic nails, her tongue flies around the theater and Tony the Pimp ain’t having none of this shit and runs! The hooker attacks the angry old fart, ripping his old fart throat out and shit officially his the fan! Everyone follows Tony the Pimps advice to “run for your lives!” And chaos erupts!
Now in every other horror movie, scary music would crescendo, violins would shriek, but Italians grab their balls and say “fucka’ that.” They cue the heavy metal! This goes against everything horror since Saxon isn’t very scary, but “fucka’ that” this is badass 80s wop greasy heavy metal energy! This is what took me decades to finally realize with Italian horror. It’s fun! It’s energetic! It’s absurd! And grab your balls and have a blast!
So, Tony the Pimp gives a speech how the mask turned his bitch into “an instrument of evil.” And the college friend who should stay in college geniusly claims “It’s the movie that did this!” Someone wisely questions her “what about the movie?” And with her computer brain she replies “It’s just a feeling. The movie’s to blame!” As I’m hunched over in laughter, Tony the Pimp asks the smoking hot usher girl with Robert Plant hair where the projection booth is to stop the movie (because this is a good plan). And in the most rubbery dubbing she says “Upstairs, next to the gwallery.” This is where I officially piss in my pants from laughing. And what follows is where I fart. Tony and gang start to march on upstairs to stop the movie and he runs into the lovebird dude. With a tearful cry, he pleads to a pimp “Hannah! I lost my girl!” And big swinging dick Tony pushes him aside and screams “Get outta the way!” I’m fucking dying just typing this! A youthful romantic boy asks a pimp for help in finding his lost love, and gets pushed on his ass! Tony has no time for this shit! He didn’t care when his bitch died and transformed into a demon and he sure as shit doesn’t care to mend a broken-hearted nerd. It cracks me up every time!
Now up in the projection booth they find the door locked! They murmur on about the best plan to infiltrate this locked door. One suggests going through the small window where the projector lies so she can crawl through it and get to the suspected source of all this evil. Tony says “There ain’t no time!” and just kicks the fucking door in! If that’s not already funny, not two seconds later we hear Tony say “Shit! Another door!” Who can dislike this fucking movie?! It’s constantly throwing curveballs of entertainment! So they officially get into the projection booth only to find it playing automatically and nobody is managing the booth. Then who (or what) is showing this movie that’s possibly turning ordinary hookers into demons? Is the film itself possessed? We don’t think about it too long as Tony the Pimp screams “SMASH EVERYTHING! SMASH EVERYTHING!” Another computer brain! Now if this isn’t already hilariously absurd. Then how about this?
In the midst of chaos, the audience is trying to open the theater entrance doors to get the fuck out! They scratch the doors off their hinges only to reveal a brick wall! Who put it there? How is this happening?! Is the film responsible? Is the theater haunted? Studmuffin George cries, “There has to be an explanation!” But there doesn’t! You know why? Because in the middle of this horror of being trapped inside with demons, the movie cuts away to four more dipshits cruising around in a stolen piece of shit car, snoring coke out of a Coke can, and dancing in their seats to Go West. Then it cuts back to the theater.
This beats Kubrick’s jump cut from a flying bone to a spaceship in 2001 as the best “holy shit, what just happened?” edits in movie history. I shit myself a bit every time I see this! It’s hilarious randomness! Imagine watching the D-day invasion from Saving Private Ryan and in the middle of this battle it cuts to Dancing With the Stars for 60 seconds. Then back to the Normandy beaches. That’s pretty much the equivalent of what just happened in Demons.
We’re only about 35 minutes into this movie too! How on this earth can one not be entertained yet?! I also should mention these four dipshits in the car, who are extraordinarily greasy, are named Ripper, Hot Dog, Baby Pig, and I can’t remember the girl’s name, but who gives a shit. They’re the most hilarious group of “toughs” I can remember. In one scene, they’re all fighting over who gets the next snort out of the can and their cocaine goes flying all over. Ripper brings the car from 55mph to 0mph in 0.4 seconds asking what just happened to his drugs. The girl cries “It wasn’t my fault Ripper.” And you think maybe he feels for her, since there’s a brief pause. But he replies “Fuck you.”
Leonard Maltin can seriously eat my ass. This is one of the greatest films of all-time. Oh god, since I’m on the topic of these bad dudes, as Ripper is screaming for them to pick up the cocaine “every gram of it!” Baby Pig tells Ripper to “relax, you’ve had your share” which leads Ripper into a drug-induced rage as he grabs Baby Pig by the collar and screams “I said all of it! Unless you want me to break your head…” To which Baby Pig gives the goddamn gem of a comeback with dubbing that’s barely hanging on as he says with sassiness, “Oh that’s Rambo-talking baby. Go ahead be violent.” It kills me with laughter and I will never not laugh at this. I’ve laughed my balls off at this movie so much that I’m like officially transgendered.
Dudes, I’m sorry. I can’t stop talking about how much I love this movie. I barely scratched the surface but I’ll try and wrap up. Thank you so much for reviewing this and Steven I hope you can kinda see some of the random shit that’s so entertaining about Demons. I didn’t really get it for years even though as a horror fan I liked it. So I can imagine what a non-horror fan would think of this ridiculous shit! But once I kind of let go and embraced the randomness of Italian horror movies, I fell in love. I heard the best summary of Demons in this review that said, “When it’s good, it’s great. And when it’s bad, it’s fucking great!” I should’ve just posted that instead of this novel I wrote! I’m glad you Podcasted about this one because I adore the shit out of this movie, and you haven’t done any Italian horror yet! So I was really curious about the feedback you’d both have. This is one of the more digestible mainstream Italian horror movies too! This movie really opened up the doors for Italian horror to where I can appreciate it like never before and I’ve just been obsessed with this movie as it just gets better and better every time I see it. Oh god, please review Demons 2! I can write another novel adoring it. I just got the poster the other day like a nerd. It’s an entertainment gem with “sleeves that go back and forth.” Oh how I love it!
Oh fuck, before I forget. Demons was conceived around the same time of the “satanic panic” where a lot of people thought horror movies and heavy metal were causing the youth to go bananas. Lamberto thought that was horseshit and so absurd that he decided to make a movie where horror, movies, and heavy metal, all made people go bananas. He didn’t forget the absurdity either!
Alright, I’m out. “Fucka this!”
Good Shit