Demons (1985)

There's a moment in Demons where a man's neck just sort of... explodes. Not in any way that respects biology, physics, or basic narrative logic. It simply erupts, as if the filmmakers looked at each other and decided that restraint was for cowards. That moment tells you everything you need to know about this film, and whether it sounds appalling or wonderful to you is probably the best litmus test for whether you should bother watching it at all.

I'll be honest: I had an absolute riot with it, and I'm still not entirely sure it deserves the goodwill I'm giving it.

Directed by Lamberto Bava and produced by Dario Argento, Demons carries the DNA of Italian horror royalty, and you can feel it in the sheer confidence of its own lunacy. Lamberto's father Mario Bava essentially invented the giallo genre, and while this film isn't trying to be sophisticated like that, there's a genuine flair behind the camera that stops it from feeling like pure rubbish. It knows exactly what it is. It just doesn't particularly care whether you approve.

The premise is gloriously stupid in the best possible way. A group of strangers get lured into a cinema to watch a mysterious horror film, also called Demons, which is a bit of meta fun the film is very pleased with itself about. Predictably, they soon realise they're no longer just the audience. People start clawing their own faces off. Throats get torn out. The transformations are gooey and ridiculous and shot with the kind of gleeful excess that suggests someone on set had access to an industrial quantity of fake blood and absolutely no intention of using it sparingly.

The demon costumes look like someone glued raccoon fur to a mannequin's face and told it to scream forever. The gore is basically fake blood sprayed directly at the camera like confetti. Every practical effect is turned up past the point of reason, and somehow that commitment to absurdity keeps you watching when your better judgement is telling you to switch it off.

What genuinely caught me off guard was how funny it is, probably unintentionally. The acting is so wildly over the top that it crosses some invisible line and becomes genuinely charming. And then there's Toni the Pimp. I can't explain Toni the Pimp. I can only tell you that he has become a legitimate recurring reference amongst my friends and me, the kind of character you bring up at random intervals just to make someone laugh. He has no business being as entertaining as he is, and yet here we are.

If you want something that scratches a similar itch but does it with a bit more wit, Re-Animator came out the same year and pulls off the gore-comedy balance with considerably more skill. And if you want to see where Lamberto Bava went with all of this, I've also written about the directed-by-Lamberto-Bava follow-up, which, let's say, has its own charms and disasters. For something in the same chaotic Italian horror wheelhouse with even less regard for plot coherence, Nightmare City is worth a look too.

The finale, for the record, involves the cinema itself basically becoming a neon-soaked inferno while a synth-heavy rock anthem hammers away on the soundtrack. It is not scary. It is not coherent. It is absolutely not a film I would defend on artistic grounds. But watching it with a group of mates, pausing every few minutes to laugh or rewind something absurd, it becomes a kind of ritual. The sort of film that earns its place in the rotation not because it's good, strictly speaking, but because it's alive in a way that a lot of tidier, more competent films simply aren't.

Two and a half stars, which is both more and less than it deserves depending on the evening.

Rating: ★★½  | Year: 1985  | Watched: 2025-06-30

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from Lamberto Bava: Demons 2 (1986)
More from Italy: Nightmare City (1980) · Cemetery Man (1994) · One Way or Another (1975) · Chicken for Linda! (2023)
More from the 1980s: Nightmare City (1980) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Style Wars (1983) · Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers (1980)
More horror: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Viy (1967) · Nightmare City (1980) · Angst (1983)