DEMONS 1 & 2
FILMS EXTRAS 1985-86 OUT NOW BD EXTRAS Alternate cuts (Demons), Commentaries, Featurettes, Video essay
Directed by Lamberto Bava (son of Italian genre legend Mario) and produced by horror icon Dario Argento (Deep Red, Suspiria), Demons (1985, ) unspools as a messily meta treat, as an audience watching a movie about a demon apocalypse becomes trapped in the cinema and starts turning into ravenous demons. Demons 2 (1986, ) sees Bava and Argento bring less energy to more of the same; this time, the infection beams from a demon flick on TV into a luxury high-rise that’ll give you the Shivers.
Neither film makes a lick of sense. But that’s OK, because any oddness – actors speaking English in Italian movies shot in Berlin, say, or a helicopter crashing through the roof of the cinema for no other reason than it makes for a cool set-piece – only adds to the warping of reality. Besides, it’s the gloopy practical effects that are the real selling point. The first film in particular stands as one of the high points of ’80s gore, with the onslaught
of bubbling faces, talon-torn torsos and demons erupting out of people’s backs helping it to out-gross A Nightmare On Elm Street in Italy. In every sense.
This gorgeous Arrow boxset boasts 4K restorations of the US and Italian cuts of the first movie, new and archival commentaries, a smart video essay, a short and rather-too selective look at the history of Italian horror movies, along with a 60-page booklet.
Jamie Graham