Demons 2

Year:  1987
Director:  Lamberto Bava
Screenplay:  Dario Argento, Lamberto Bava and Franco Ferrini, from a story by Dardano Sacchetti
Starring:  David Edwin Knight, Nancy Brilli, Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, Asia Argento
Running Time:  91 minutes
Genre:  Horror, supernatural, zombies

In the original Demons film, the audience at a preview screening of a horror movie are attacked by toothy monsters.  This time round, the events are set largely within the confines of a luxury high-rise apartment complex in an unnamed German city over the course of a single night.  As the residents prepare for their various evening activities, a horror movie plays on TV, apparently set in the aftermath of the original film, about a group of dim-witted teenagers investigating a walled off section of the city for remnants of "demons" (kind of zombie-like creatures), and accidentally reanimate one.  The reanimated creature then literally emerges from the TV set of spolit rich birthday girl Sally (Cataldi-Tassoni), and attacks her.  Of course anyone who is injured by a demon in any way, sooner or later becomes one themselves.  Sally turns all of her party guests into blood-crazed zombies, and they soon turn their attention to killing or infecting the rest of the building's population.

The film was co-written and produced by horror legend Dario Argento and features his then ten year old daughter, Asia Argento (who has since gone on to become an acclaimed actress and director), in her film debut.  The movie starts off well, but falls apart once the demons are really on the rampage, when it basically becomes a typical zombie monster mash full of increasingly shoddy special effects.  The film within a film provides an interesting dimension but it's not really explored, and becomes one of  a number of sub-plots which are raised only to be completely forgotten.  The acting is pretty dire (although this is an Italian film, and it is fairly obvious at least in the version that I saw, that most of the dialogue was dubbed - badly - into English) throughout and the film lacks any real conclusion, it is also full of plot holes large enough for you to throw a flesh eating zombie demon through.  Also the zombies with their green faces, bad teeth, long fingernails and wildly bulging, glowing eyes (who can not only run but turn somersaults) are more funny than anything, and when a more conventional demonic creature bursts out of someone's chest, it looks more like the puppet monster sidekick from a kid's TV show. 

However the film does have it's plus points.  There are plenty of creepy moments, when the characters are picking their way through the deserted, ruined apartments, and the opening, with it's slow character development is strong.  The soundtrack, which features mainly British New Wave bands such as The Smiths and The Cult, is good (although sometimes the pounding music coupled with the frequent billowing smoke and backlighting makes the film look like a music video).  Also the sequence where the demon initially emerges from the television set, which seems to be a homage to the David Cronenberg film Videodrome (1983), is very effective with some good special effects.  Speaking of David Cronenberg, the film with it's high-rise setting is reminiscent of Cronenberg's Shivers (1976).   

Full of unintentional humour and buckets of gloopy gore there is some fun to be had with this film, but there is plenty of better stuff out there.  It's probably best viewed late at night, when you've got your friends around, and you're all drunk and fancy a bad, gruesome movie to laugh at.



        

Revealed:  What TV show hosts look like without their make-up in Demons 2

Land of the Dead

Year: 2005
Director: George A. Romero
Screenplay: George A. Romero
Starring: Simon Baker, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper, Asia Argento, Robert Joy, Eugene Clark
Running Time: 93 minutes
Genre: Horror, action, survival

Summary: The dead have risen up and are attacking and eating the living. Anyone who dies becomes one of them, and anyone left alive after being botten by one will also shortly become one of them. The only way to destroy them is by destroying the brain, usually by shooting or stabbing in the head. The Earth has been pretty much completely overrun by these zombies. However, a community of survivors exist in a fortified enclve in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The community is ruled by the vicious and corrupt Kaufman (Hopper) who lives, along with the rest of the wealthy and elite in a luxurious high-rise apartment complex, while the rest of the people live in abject poverty, kept docile by the many vices that Kaufman lays on for the purpose. Frequently a team led by Riley Denbo (Baker) make forays into the outside world in a heavily equipped armoured vehicle known as "Dead Reckoning" in order to get urgently needed food and medical supplies. However, Riley is determined that this will be his last run. However, shortly after they return from their most recent expedition, Riley and his sidekick Charlie (Joy) are arrested after they break up an event involving two zombies fighting over a woman, Slack (Argento). Meanwhile Riley's second in command, Cholo DeMora (Leguizamo), whose dreams have been shattered when Kaufman denied him a place in the Fiddler's Green complex, has stolen Dead Reckoning and is threatening to open fire on the comples. However, in the city outside, one of the zombies (Clark) is beginning to show signs of regaining some of his human intelligence and is starting to organise the others.

Opinions: This film is the fourth in writer-director George A. Romero's Dead series and was preceded by Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1986), and it has so far been followed by Diary of the Dead (2007) and Survival of the Dead (2010). It's fair to say that Romero's films have pretty much created the popular image of the movie zombie: a shambling mindless walking corpse forever chomping on the flesh of the living, which has now become one of the most popular horror movie tropes. The film, which was produced on a higher budget than any of the other Romero zombie films, is a fast-moving, action packed affair full of impressive special effects and well-designed action scenes. It is also full of gruesome set-pieces and the zombie make-up is suitably gross. However, as with the others in the series this movie is also quite satirical and full of quite savage social commentary, in particular the community's division between rich and poor, with the wealthy living in luxury more or less as if nothing has changed, while the poor live scrabbling for existence by any means necessary. In fact, the question could be who is worse: The zombies who are just acting on instincts and their own need for survival or the likes of Kaufman who casually exploit and destroy people for profit. The acting is good, with Dennis Hopper being particularly effective as the evil, but soft-spoken, Kaufman and Eugene Clark giving an affecting performance as the lead zombie. The movie's female lead is well played by Italian actress Asia Argento, whose father, legendary horror director Dario Argento, helped finance Romero's Dawn of the Dead. Despite the amount of gore and violence in the film, there is a strong vein of playfulness and humour running through it, and there are a number of in-jokes and references. Watch out for a cameo appearance by actor Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright, whose Shaun of the Dead (2004) was heavily influenced by the Romero series.



Eugene Clark (centre) and friends in Land of the Dead