Dèmoni 2... l'incubo ritorna (1986)

... aka: Dämonen

... aka: Dance of the Demons 2

... aka: Demonen 2 huiveringwekkend leuk (Demons 2: Chilling Fun)

... aka: Demons 2

... aka: Demons 2: The Nightmare Is Back

... aka: Demons 2: The Nightmare Returns

... aka: Meng gui fan sheng (The Devil's Reincarnation)

Directed by:

Lamberto Bava

The original DEMONS (1985) was such a hit with Italian audiences that this sequel was immediately rushed into production, began filming a mere seven months later and was already in theaters nearly a year to the day of the first film's debut. Clearly not aspiring to do anything other than give fans a second helping of what they loved the first time out, director / co-writer Bava, producer / co-writer Dario Argento, additional writers Franco Ferrini and Dardano Sacchetti and special effects man Sergio Stivaletti repeat pretty much the exact same formula here. We're talking a very simple plot of trapped people fighting for their lives as a demonic contagion quickly spreads (with a nearly nonexistent explanation behind these events), a loud rock music soundtrack, a very high body count, identical looking ugly, green, veiny-faced demon designs, a lengthy film-within-the-film that somehow unleashes the evil and plenty of bloodshed, gruesome make-ups and elaborate special effects.

This at least makes one very good decision to alter the location. Instead of being set inside an old, dark, dingy, comparatively small flea pit movie theater, this one takes place inside an expansive, modern luxury high rise apartment building, giving it kind of a sleeker, more industrial feel that's accentuated with a consistent steely blue color palette. It also means we get a much larger playground for the demons to do their thing in. Not only are there various apartments with personalized art direction to reflect the occupants, but this building also has a gym, sauna, tanning salon, large parking garage, elevators, stairwells and more for all of the horror scenes to play out in. Sure this idea was likely cribbed from Cronenberg's Shivers (1975), which also features an outbreak inside a hi-tech apartment building, but the location change actually does make a big difference here.

As far as the characters are concerned, it's the usual assortment of thinly-defined fodder just as it was before. The closest thing to heroes we got in the first time out were hunky George and pretty music student Cheryl. Here we get another hunky student named George (David Edwin Knight) and his pretty wife, Hannah (Nancy Brilli). This does add a few slight details in that George is an extremely busy student who's also working a full-time job while his wife is 9 months pregnant and about to pop at any moment, but otherwise it's about the same routine. The more colorful and entertaining folks in the original film were those in smaller supporting parts, which is, again, mimicked here.

There's Mary (Virginia Bryant), a claustrophobic high priced call girl who's there visiting a john. There's the Haller family, including young daughter Ingrid (10-year-old Asia Argento in her feature film debut), who loves horror movies much to her father's (Antonio Cantafora) chagrin. Nearby is an even younger boy named Tommy (Marco Vivio), who's scared because he's been left all along by his mother (who's out on a date), and there's a spinster (Anita Bartolucci) and her beloved pet pooch in another unit. A number of actors return from the first film, though they're all playing different roles here. Fan favorite Bobby Rhodes (Tony the pimp from the original) is cast as drill instructor-like personal trainer Hank, while Lino Salemme (Ripper the punk from the original) is front desk security guard Frank and Eliana Miglio, featured in the film-within-a-film segment in the first, also turns up in the film-within-a-film segment here.

Early on, quite a bit of focus is placed on an incredibly shrill and irritating teen girl named Sally (Coralina Cataldi Tassoni), who is made even more annoying via the extremely whiny voice given to her in the English version. Sally is hosting her own birthday party but refuses to leave her bedroom for, hmm, reasons. When a friend complements her, she loudly shrieks "Not true! My hair stinks! This dress stinks!" She then has a meltdown over her "disgusting" shoulder pads and sleeves. Why? Well, because they "go back and forth" (?) And then when she finds out a boy she doesn't like has accidentally been invited, she has another screaming meltdown ("GET OUT!!!") and runs back into her bedroom to pout. I'm not sure if they were intentionally trying to make her unbearable so that audiences would be cheering on her demise or it just turned out that way, but spending ten minutes listening to this chick scream and complain is eleven minutes too long.

Like in the first film where the initial demon is able to enter into our world through a theater screen showing a film about demons, the one here manages to pop right out of a television set showing a movie about demons. And it immediately does us all a huge favor by choosing Sally as its first victim. Her ear-piercing whines are soon replaced by the much more pleasant sounds of deep-voiced moaning, groaning and yowling as she starts shredding her party guests with her freshly-sharpened claws and fangs, transforming the entire event into a bloodbath and creating a mini-army of demons in the process. Afterward, Sally expels some acidic ooze that eats right through the floors and enters into other apartments downstairs, contaminating even more folks. The same goo melts through the wiring, cuts out the power and phones and makes it impossible to leave the building.

George and Mary both become trapped inside the elevator, the spinster is attacked by her own dog after it laps up some contaminated blood, Hannah has to face off against a demon kid and the awful Gremlins-style rubber puppet that pops out of its chest (with the silly scene made that much worse by constant strobe lighting, grating rock guitar cues and piercing shrieks and giggles from the creature) and a group of resourceful survivors (led by Rhodes) eventually congregate in the parking garage, try to find weapons, make some Molotov cocktails, barricade the doors with cars and try to stay alive. There are some goofy murder scenes, like a woman roasted alive in a tanning bed, a guy getting smooshed in gym equipment and a demon claw squashing a guy's crotch.

It's not just the plot being rehashed here, but also some of the more memorable shots from the first film (like a group of backlit, glowing-eyed demons running down a long dark corridor in slow motion) are repeated. This also seems to repeat the mistake of constantly cutting away to irrelevant activity outside of the apartment building to show Sally's parents, Tommy's mother and a quartet of obnoxious punks (AGAIN!) driving around seemingly for the sole purpose of being able to cram more rock songs onto the soundtrack. However, I'm willing to let that slide here because the director at least uses our familiarity with the events of the original to subvert expectations and uses these characters to set up an unexpected event right outside the building.

While this suffers from the same exact issues that plagued Demons 1 (bad acting, dumb dialogue, terrible dubbing, nearly nonexistent plot...) it's just as visually stylish, handsomely shot / lit, fast-paced, brainlessly entertaining and filled with fun make-up fx. One could mark it down for recycling too much material from the first, but the change of location mostly makes up for that. 

The Simon Boswell score is perhaps not as memorable as the previous one from Goblin, but it's still pretty good, while the soundtrack (featuring The Smiths, Love and Rockets, The Art of Noise, The Cult, Gene Loves Jezebel, Dead Can Dance, Peter Murphy and more) swerves away from 80s glam metal to include a more diverse sound that includes new wave, alternative, post-punk, Gothic rock and synth-pop. As for which of the Demons films is actually better, I can now officially call it a draw.

Like its predecessor, this was a big VHS hit in much of the world, which led to the development of a third film soon after. However, that ended up going through a number of abandoned story ideas before the sequel idea was scrapped altogether. Bava and Sacchetti both left the project to do other films, but it eventually took shape as Michele Soavi's La chiesa / The Church (1989), which both Argento (a producer and writer) and Ferrini (writer) were involved with.

Similar to the very loose Zombi series, there were a few other films released under the Demons banner in different countries, though none of these are really official sequels. The aforementioned The Church was called Demons 3 in Japan. La casa dell'orco / "The Ogre's House" (1988), which was made by Bava for the Italian TV series Brivido giallo, was released in certain markets (including the U.S.) as Demons III: The Ogre. Umberto Lenzi's Black Demons (1991), an Italian production filmed in Brazil, was released in many European countries as Demons 3. 

Soavi's La setta / The Sect (1991; U.S. title - The Devil's Daughter) was called Demons 4 in Japan. Bava's La máscara del demonio / The Mask of Satan (1989), a made-for-TV loose "remake" of Bava Sr.'s BLACK SUNDAY (1960), was released in Japan and the U.S. as Demons 5: The Devil's Veil. Luigi Cozzi's Il gatto nero / The Black Cat (1989), his unsanctioned conclusion to Argento's "Three Mothers" trilogy (which Argento would officially finish himself a few decades later), was called Demon 6, or Demons 6: De Profundis, in France, Japan and the U.S. Finally, Japanese distributors (who are the ones mostly responsible for turning these unrelated films into bogus sequels) got their hands on Soavi's Dellamorte dellamore / Cemetery Man (1994) and rechristened it Demons '95 for the home video release.

For its limited 1987 theatrical run here in America, Artists Entertainment Group had around 4 minutes of gore removed so it could secure an R rating. The same cut turned up on home video courtesy of Imperial Entertainment, which claims to run 88 minutes. To my knowledge, all later DVD and Blu-ray releases, from Anchor Bay, Synapse, etc., are the uncut version running just shy of 92 minutes.

★★1/2

House of the Long Shadows (1983)

... aka: A Mansão da Meia-Noite (The Midnight Mansion)

... aka: Hosszú árnyak (Long Shadows)

... aka: House of Long Shadows, The

... aka: Kauhujen talo (House of Horrors)

... aka: La casa de las sombras del pasado (The House of Shadows of the Past)

... aka: Le manoir de la peur (The Manor of Fear)

Directed by:

Pete Walker

Most horror movies that become infamous earned their reputation via shocking content; graphic, tasteless and / or socially "objectionable" material. The key is to drum up controversy, go places others are unwilling to go and get people talking. And then you have those films that become notorious for entirely different reasons. Some are simply so terrible it's difficult to fathom how people could have ever made them with serious intentions. And then you have this anomaly, which quickly gained infamy as one of the biggest missed opportunities of all time. When you're bringing together four of the greatest horror stars of all time for the first time ever, it's going to be impossible to avoid setting the bar extremely high for yourself, especially when those actors are absolute genre royalty like Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and John Carradine. A lot of people fondly remember all four of these actors and also fondly remember the high quality of their better projects so the last thing you want to do is disappoint their longtime fans with something subpar or mediocre. Sadly, that's pretty much exactly what happened here, and critics of the day were merciless in ripping this thing apart. Horror fans didn't seem to care much for it either.

Now that plenty of time has passed and expectations have been somewhat tempered (most younger fans probably aren't even going to have expectations to begin with), we can now look at this once again minus some of the bias. Is it a masterpiece worthy of the talent on hand? Nope, it misses the mark there. Is it as bad as many critics said at the time? Absolutely not. Seeing all of these great veteran actors performing alongside each other and interacting in the same shots is so special that not even a mediocre script can diminish the enjoyment. Even better, the director makes sure that all four are allowed their moments to shine here.

American writer Kenneth Magee (Desi Arnaz Jr.), who's trying to rebound from disappointing sales of his latest novel "The Lie," arrives in London for a small publicity tour orchestrated by literary agent / publisher Sam Allyson (Richard Todd). Unlike all of those "over the top" classic novelists, the young, arrogant and brash Kenneth has a more contemporary attitude about his craft. Making money is "all that matters" to him, though he also enjoys some of the perks of being an author, namely access to a lot of women. As far as relationships themselves go, he doesn't believe in them. Sex is fine. Love doesn't even hit his radar. He still has a lot of growing up to do. 

Sam thinks he's too sure of himself and is going to ruin his career by refusing to develop his talent further and take creative chances. After all, slumping recent sales are suggesting people are tiring of him writing about the same subject matter all the time. Over a discussion at lunch about classic literature, Kenneth smirks about the status of acclaimed authors like Tolstoy and Dickens. When Wuthering Heights comes up, he proclaims "Anyone can write one of those things!" That sparks a 20,000 wager that he can write something similar and just as good in just 24 hours (!) All he needs is an atmospheric setting, complete isolation and some quiet.

Coincidentally (or maybe not!), Sam has a friend named Sir Richard Thornton, who owns a remote rural property called Bllyddpaetwr in Wales that's currently in the process of being sold. The old manor house supposedly hasn't been occupied in 40 years and has no electricity, but it's the perfect setting for Magee to pen his next novel by candlelight. The bet is on.

After a brief detour at a train station, where the foreboding station master (Norman Rossington) warns that the home he's looking for is "cursed," the writer finally arrives at his destination on an appropriately stormy night. After fumbling through the dark, he finally locates a bedroom, lights some candles, sets up his typewriter and begins writing "Midnight Mansion." However, he's soon interrupted. Surveying his surroundings, he becomes suspicious that the home hasn't been unoccupied for 40 years like he's been told. There's fresh water in his room, the bedding has been washed and it's relatively clean... almost as if he, or someone else, was expected there. He then ventures out into the hallway, hears a noise and sees someone ducking into a room. Problem is, no one's supposed to be there and Kenneth was told that he has the only key.

Kenneth is soon greeted (if that's the word for it!) by the elderly, grumpy Elijah Quinby (Carradine) and his sinister, hyper-religious daughter, Victoria (Sheila Keith), who claim to be the caretakers there. That's followed by the appearance of an old cloaked woman Kenneth had brief spotted at the train station earlier, who turns out to actually be masked young blonde Katherine De Corsi (Julie Peasgood), who Kenneth had briefly flirted with while in London. Speaking privately, she warns him that both of them will be killed if "they" - members of O.P.I.T. (The Organization for the Promotion of International Terrorism) - spot them talking. She, like most of the other people in this film, isn't who she claims to be.

"Katherine" eventually outs herself as actually being Mary Norton, Allyson's personal secretary, and says he sent her there as a joke to distract him. Maybe she's telling the truth. Maybe she isn't. Other unexpected guests soon arrive and each seem to have their own key... and their own secret. Sebastian Rand (Cushing) claims to have been out driving in the horrible weather and has stopped there hoping for a place to spend the night. Soon after, Lionel Grisbane (Price) shows up there announcing himself as the eldest son of Lord Grisbane, adding that he's been living in America since World War II and has decided to pay one last visit to his ancestral home. Mr. Corrigan (Lee) pops in insisting he's about to purchase the property, but saw lights on and decided to investigate. Finally, a young, bickering newlywed couple; Diana (Louise English) and Andrew (Richard Hunter), swing by after having missed their train.

Kenneth eventually just throws up his hands in disbelief ("It's like I've gate crashed the social event of the year!") and stops even caring who's there or why they're even there. He's still got a book to write and 20 thousand dollars on the line, after all. Nonetheless, he gets dragged back out of his bedroom repeatedly when more horrific things start going on. I'd say it'd be hard to concentrate on your craft with people screaming and dying all around you.

I can't reveal much more about who's really who and what's really what here without spoiling the entire film but let's just say there's a supposed family secret that's been locked away in the attic there for forty years. Said secret is a sadistic, psychotic man who supposedly murdered his pregnant girlfriend as a teenager and then had to be condemned to the attic ever since. He'd been fed for the past four decades by one of the guests but otherwise was unable to leave the small room for all that time and is now even madder than ever. Also, he's recently escaped. Remnants remaining in his cobweb-strewn room include destroyed toys, broken plates, dead rats, bones, claw marks on the walls and a dead, decaying corpse, and he's able to use secret passageways and underground catacombs to get around. Later murders involve everything from hanging and piano wire strangulation to sulfuric acid and poisoned wine.

While watching the four male horror legends (and Keith) do their thing is a real treat, there's no escaping the fact that this is otherwise a highly flawed film. The casting of Arnaz Jr. as the male lead proves to be an issue. Sure, he's got a famous family name to fall back on and perhaps they were banking on that, but he's not really charismatic enough to play this part, much of his dialogue delivery is awkward and stilted and he sticks out like a sore thumb trying to perform alongside such high caliber talent. Still, the fact he's surrounded by people who command interest just standing in the background helps us to somewhat gloss over his inadequacies.

The biggest issue here is really the writing. Michael Armstrong's (MARK OF THE DEVIL; SCREAMTIME) script boasts some sharp, witty dialogue and contains other fun material, but the plot is so dead-set on delivering twist after twist after twist it becomes ridiculously convoluted by the end; undermining a lot of the good that went on before. By the time the final plot revelations are revealed, this thing is so ridiculous it's downright insulting to anyone's intelligence. The film is at its best from the mid-point up to the climax, when the director finally has space to generate creepiness, suspense and a little excitement since he's no longer having to set aside time to have the actors reveal their second and third "true" identities.

Production values, photography, art direction, etc. are all solid, and an admirable job has been done to carefully shoot and light everything to capture a perfect throwback old dark house feel. We get a near-constant shroud of darkness yet are also able to see everything we need to see at the same time, so this is visually presented well.

This was "suggested by" the once-popular 1913 novel Seven Keys to Baldpate by Ohio-born Earl Derr Biggers, who's best known for his Charlie Chan detective novels. Keys had previously been adapted many times. It was the basis for a hit stage production and spawned half a dozen film versions in the silent era and 1930s. Just like with the Chan novels, this property was everywhere for a time but has rarely been resurrected since the 1940s.

Director Walker curiously didn't develop much of an international name for himself until the DVD era despite the fact many of his films had already been well-distributed on VHS in the prior decades. He spent most of the 60s making TV commercials and black-and-white “glamour” (stag) shorts showcasing the charms of nude models. By the end of the decade he'd graduated to profitable feature length soft sex films and then finally ventured into the horror genre, directing the handful of films he's best remembered for today. His work includes Die Screaming Marianne (1971), The Flesh and Blood Show (1972), FRIGHTMARE (1974), House of Whipcord (1974), THE CONFESSIONAL (1976), Schizo (1976) and The Comeback (1978). Long Shadows (his only PG-rated genre effort) was his final film before retiring from filmmaking for good.

Produced by Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan of Cannon Films, the film reputedly had a healthy 7.5 million budget but was a box office bomb and then quickly spat out on home video with little fanfare in 1984 by MGM / UA after its unsuccessful theatrical run. It wouldn't be until 2015 that it received a restored DVD and Blu-ray release courtesy of Kino Lorber, whose release also comes with a commentary track from the director.

★★1/2