Surely one of the movies that Robert Rodriguez had at the back of his mind while making Planet Terror, Demons is without a doubt the greatest idiots-trapped-in-a-cinema-with-monsters movie ever made. Theres no real plot or characterization, but the director is Lamberto Bava, Marios son, who knows how to take a silly and threadbare story and turn it into a visual feast with a pounding soundtrack. The dubbing is of course atrocious (love that jive talkin pimp!), but that only adds to the fun in a movie that just wants to give the viewer a good time. Theres a lot of fun here, none of it rooted even remotely in anything approaching credibility. Though trapped inside a cinema, the heroes are still able to locate a motorcycle and a machete, leading to a sequence where they lop the heads off monsters while driving past. Come the finale, a helicopter just crashes through the roof, allowing them to escape. Convenient is not the word.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
