Night of the Demons

Year: 1988

Director: Kevin Tenney

Written by: Joe Augustyn

Threat: Demons

Weapon of Choice: Fire

Based upon: none

IMDb page: IMDb link

Night of the Demons

Other movies in this series:
Night of the Demons 2
Night of the Demons 3

Rish's Reviews
Night of the Demons had one of the most memorable taglines I remember from childhood Horror. It was "Angela is having a party. Jason and Freddy are too scared to come." Cute.
On Halloween night, a bunch of old-looking teens go to a party at Hull House, the local abandoned funeral parlor (every town has one), and unwittingly awaken a demon that really just seems to want to have a little fun, taking over bodies, writing and floating, laughing and killing, you know, the usual Halloween party stuff.
I Heart the Eighties. Just listen to that synthesizer score! Check out that silly dancing sequence that goes on a really long time! Look at our cast of characters: the token black guy, the slut, the fat guy, the virgin, the asshole, the girl who can't act, the Asian girl, etc. The film began with a crudely animated credit sequence . . . but hey, that costs money and takes creativity. There's a nice effect of the demon Angela floating down the hall. There was a neat moment when a guy's eyes are thumbed out. The virgin character was actually really pretty. Her smartass kid brother character was kind of funny too. The black guy is actually a pretty good actor. Weird.
I was pretty sure this came out in 1987, but the IMDB said it was '88. If I recall, some of the video boxes had evil blinking eyes on them. I remember there being a big deal made over the fact that an Unrated version was also released with extra footage that some cassettes were missing (Re-Animatoralso did that). Chain stores like Ballbuster Video wouldn't carry the Unrated version. That was the main reason tyranist and I never rented the film to review together. I first saw this with my buddy John right around the time we were coming up with the Skull categories we'd use in this website. It took this long to get around to seeing it again.
This is probably Linnea Quigley's most famous film, due to an odd thing she does with lipstick. The film is about as scary as a Hallmark commercial, but this is typical of an Eighties teen horror flick, and due to that, it is highly entertaining.
The dialogue and acting aren't great, but are WAY better than a lot of the stuff I've seen in the last few years. Come to think of it, the movie isn't all that awful, and deserves points for being from my favourite movie era. No one will ever acuse it of being a good movie (and I imagine I would have lambasted it in my three-sentence-long review if I had actually reviewed it in the Nineties), but it's pretty fun. And fun is good.
Line To Remember: "This is a house of the dead, and I'm getting out of here before it's too late!"
I'd Recommend It To: Nostalgia junkies. You could actually do worse. I know I have.
Posted: August 18, 2004

Total Skulls: 24

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie skull a cool scary cartoon
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS skullskull
Girl unnecessarily gets naked skull
Wanton sex skull
Death associated with sex skullskull
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat skull
Secluded location skull
Power is cut skullskull
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise skull
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer skull
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer skullskull
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start skull
Cat jumps out
Fake scare skullskull
Laughable scare skull
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision skull
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene skull
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain skull
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore skull
No one dies at all
Virgin survives skull
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?