Digging deep
The story of the Sutton Hoo excavations makes for a fascinating historical drama complete with convincing Suffolk accents – even if it does strip the narrative of its more fortean aspects
FT’s resident man of the cloth REVEREND PETER LAWS dons his dog collar and faces the flicks that Church forgot! (www.peterlaws.co.uk)
Demons/Demons 2
Dir Lamberto Bava, Italy 1985/1986
Arrow Video, £59.99 (Blu-ray limited edition)
976-EVIL
Dir Robert Englund, US 1988
Eureka Classics, £17.99 (Blu-ray)
Demons blew my tiny mind when I first saw it (aged, ahem,12). Sure, I’d seen horror films before, but this thing was a rollercoaster. Decades later, the struts may creak a little but, wow, it is still a relentless, energetic and most of all aggressive thrill ride.
The concept is simple: gleefully homicidal demons trap an audience in a cinema, and every slimy bite or wet scratch flips the odds in the fiends’ favour. This has everything: gore – the bloodsoaked scalping is particularly repellent; kickass monster design – I’d be genuinely terrified to meet that Rosemary demon in a toilet; nightmarish surrealism – a gloopy mutant climbs out of a woman’s spine like it ain’t no thing. It’s got unforgettable imagery, like the poster shot of demons running down a corridor, eyes glowing. There’s a fabulous music score, plus a bunch of hit Eighties songs thrown in for good measure (though when the criminal drug gang turn their car stereo way up, I did not expect the signifier of hardcore delinquency to be... ‘Go West’).
It even has a ‘postmodern subtext’ if you want to write a thesis on it. All that metanarrative, film-within-a-film stuff: you see, the audience watches the demons on screen before life imitates art and the viewers become the demons themselves. It’s like Gogglebox. It’s also got a superbly quotable hero character in Tony ‘the Pimp’. He’s such a strong leader, that
Life imitates art and the viwers become demons themselves
when he shouted “Smash everything”, I almost stamped on my phone in obedience. Tony (played by Bobby Rhodes) proved such a great addition that he somehow turns up again in the sequel.
This time, the demons invade an Eighties-tastic high-rise where creatures fight humans suspended in lift shafts and a cuddly dog turns into a hellhound after lapping up acidic demon bile. So, yes, it has its moments, but it also overcooks the camp and undercooks the nastiness. The ending also lacks the sheer “Say whaaat?” power of the original. Still, brought together in this beautiful 4K Package from Arrow, the two films make for a seriously entertaining double bill. Yet, it’s the original that makes me want to get straight back into the queue and ride again.
Let’s sneak another little demon in, with the Blu ray release of 976-EVIL. This bullyrevenge tale centres on ‘trendy at the time’ phone-in lines. These were the days when Eighties teens were racking up their parents bills calling sex or astrology lines; but Hoax, an awkard and rejected school nerd, calls a HorrorScope line instead. In return, he gets access to the infernal, vengeful power of Hell. It was a premium number after all. This was Robert Englund’s directorial debut, the actor best known for turning childkiller Freddy Krueger into a global, mainstream icon (think about that). He directs with an off-beat eye and peppers the film with cinema references. Yet he sadly succumbs to the tiresome Freddy-style oneliners too: After some moggies eat a woman, for example: “Cat got your tongue?” After he kills two card playing punks: “Would it be possible to enter the game... with a pair of hearts.” Guess what he hands over? Badum tish! Despite the groaning puns, there’s enough eccentricity to make the film stand out, even if the central demon seems modelled on pop star Michael Jackson.