Starring: Amelia Kinkade, Cathy Podewell, Linnea Quigley, Billy Gallo, Alvin Alexis, Hal Halvins, Lance Fenton, Jill Tershita, Philip Tanzini.
Director: Kevin S. Tenney.
This is, without a doubt, my favorite Halloween movie. It's something of a cult classic, usually beloved by a great many horror fans and is basically a quintessential horror flick in general. It has the simplest, most basic plot ever: dumb teenagers hold a halloween party at an old funeral parlor and wake up horrible demons who proceed to kill everybody. There's not an ounce of subtlety to any of it, and that is totally okay, because it wants to be a fun supernatural horror romp.
Plus, there is a sense of wit and humor to the whole thing, perfectly embodied by Stooge, an overweight punk rocker with a mohawk and a pig-nose mask. Stooge is, quite simply, hilarious and one of my favorite horror movie characters ever.
The amount that I love this movie cannot be overstated. Sweet-natured Judy is going on a date with generic douchey Jay(whose name Judy whines dozens of times) and is lusted after by Italian stereotype Sal. They decide to skip the dance and go to a party at local legend Hull House, thrown by goth queen Angela and slutty vixen Suzanne, two characters who really don't look like they would really be friends but apparently are. Suzanne is played by scream queen Linnea Quigley, a legend in her own right.
There's no way I can keep up with the quips and one-liners...Judy's brother has a couple good lines at Jay's expense. Stooge has a LOT, but most of them are yelling BITCH at people. His comments about having "good karma" and how he always carries a spare but never promised a tire iron...that's all kind of brilliant.
While they're aren't super developed, and really don't need to be, we do get a pretty good idea of who these kids are and are able to indentify with them well enough. Judy is nice, Jay is a jerk, Sal is rude, Stooge is even ruder...so on and so forth. They're also interesting, at least to the point where we care what happens to them...I'd actually be somewhat interested in spending more time with them. It may not be brought up at all, but there is a sense of social hierarchy. The idea that they have a life outside of this one night is pretty present.
I've always loved the broken mirror shot...
But the seance has been performed and the demons are now loose and most of our cast is doomed. Writer/Director Kevin S. Tenney plays with the stereotypes of horror movies in a really self-aware, jovial way. Other than a few fairly dark comments, the whole thing is made with a real desire to be fun, to the point of being a near spoof.
EAT A BOWL OF FUCK!
But back to what I was saying: there's a lot of invoking stereotypes while gleefully subverting them. Roger, for example: Roger is the token black character. In any other film, this would make him an extreme stereotype and utterly doomed to die, probably first. In Night Of The Demons, however, Roger is actually probably the smartest guy in the room. Roger immediately smells danger and wants to GTFO. While the house does not allow this to happen, Roger spend the rest of the film doing the most reasonable thing in the world: runs like hell. From everything. It's successful, too. Roger actually makes it out alive!
Judy, as this films' final girl, is very square. Other than one moment of rejecting Jay, she's almost entirely without edge. She's almost a cardboard cut out. It's another brilliant deliberate invoking of tropes. Tenney understands the almost boring nature of the "good girl" and decides to play it to the absolute hilt. Judy is "nice" and "innocent"(not a virgin, though, as the film is quick to point out) and dull. So, of course, she's the heroine. While her demon fighting skills are mostly similar to Rogers (run like hell), she proves herself a mostly capable survivor. But she's so specifically mundane.
When Possessed!Angela does her weird dance number to Bauhaus...it's just a really gorgeous scene. Amelia Kinkade does an excellent job with the movements, and Sal plays the bemused observer role really well. Sal is another subversion as well: he's presented very much as something of a dirtbag and bully, but when push comes to shove he's actually somewhat selfless and brave. He ends up being the opposite of Jay, who looks more like a dashing hero but is ultimately not a nice guy at all. He's also kind of stupid: he seems pretty okay with Suzanne's incredibly strange behavior as soon as she starts touching his penis.
I'm not sure there's a weirder horror scene than Suzanne's fun game of "hide the lipstick." Her hiding spot is, of course, her left boob. It needs to seen to be believed.
Once this movie fires it's starting pistol, it just goes off at break-neck speed. I didn't mean that to be a pun, but considering what happens to Franny it kind of ends up that way. That pace becomes very interesting, considering that almost the entire cast is wiped out awfully fast, basically leaving three non-possessed victims to be inevitably separated and run around screaming. Again, Tenney wants to play with standard elements: good kids hang around, bad kids get killed and possessed. It somehow manages to be somewhat surprising though, probably because Sal and Roger are so against the horror movie grain.
Hull House is so unbelievably huge. It's an excellent set-piece and looks great. Dirty, dark, derelict with maze-like hallways, boards on the windows to make all light filtering in to be in slivers...it's really good, simple set design.
The makeup effects on the possessed people are really very good. It looks restrictive to the actors-I think some of the best looking uses is actually the actors struggling with moving their facial muscles-but it looks pretty demonic and scary. I'm not sure they can even see, though, so kudos to those actors.
Roger is only half interested in being of any assistance to Judy. Half the time he just runs away and leaves her behind. It's fascinating strategy. So is "You won't get me" and throwing himself out a window. He also doesn't care that there is barbed wire. He hears the demons roar and just starts climbing, even as it cuts his hands. Roger is a survivor, through and through, and totally earns his happy ending (so to speak). He attempts to leave Judy...he falls off the wall and then covers his ears so he doesn't have to hear her screams. It's a pragmatic and difficult decision...and one he ultimately decides against anyway, since he comes back and saves Judy anyway.
Final Thoughts: Like I said at the start, it's my favorite Halloween horror film ever and is one of my all-time favorite movies. It's simple, silly, but undeniably fun and loves to play with genre conventions and stereotypes. Director Kevin S. Tenney is certainly not interested in re-inventing the wheel, opting to have some wacky fun instead. Good effects work, decent and occasionally deliberately wooden, and a sense of fun throughout. If you don't agree, EAT A BOWL OF FUCK.
Final Rating: Three and a Half Stars.
Final Rating: Three and a Half Stars.
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