Night of the Demons
Year: 1988
Director: Kevin Tenney
Written by: Joe Augustyn
Threat: Demons
Weapon of Choice: Fire
Based upon: none
IMDb page: 
Night of the DemonsYear: 1988 Director: Kevin Tenney Written by: Joe Augustyn Threat: Demons Weapon of Choice: Fire Based upon: none IMDb page: |
|
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 |  |
a cool scary cartoon |
| Future celebrity appears | ||
| Former celebrity appears | ||
| Bad title | ||
| Bad premise | ||
| Bad acting | ||
| Bad dialogue | ||
| Bad execution | ||
| MTV Editing | ||
| OTS | |
|
| Girl unnecessarily gets naked | |
|
| Wanton sex | |
|
| Death associated with sex | |
|
| Unfulfilled promise of nudity | ||
| Characters forget about threat | |
|
| Secluded location | |
|
| Power is cut | |
|
| Phone lines are cut | ||
| Someone investigates a strange noise | |
|
| Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door | ||
| Camera is the killer | |
|
| Victims cower in front of a window/door | ||
| Victim locks self in with killer | |
|
| Victim running from killer inexplicably falls | ||
| Toilet stall scene | ||
| Shower/bath scene | ||
| Car stalls or won't start | |
|
| Cat jumps out | ||
| Fake scare | |
|
| Laughable scare | |
|
| Stupid discovery of corpse | ||
| Dream sequence | ||
| Hallucination/Vision | |
|
| No one believes only witness | ||
| Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth | ||
| Warning goes unheeded | ||
| Music detracts from scene | |
|
| 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 | |
|
| Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc. | ||
| Poor death effect | ||
| Excessive gore | |
|
| No one dies at all | ||
| Virgin survives | |
|
| 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? |