Night of the Demons (1988)! Horror movie review

The eighties are quite rightly revered as a golden decade of horror. What stands out in so many of the horror films made during this period is a genuine love for the genre carried through in movies with budgets both large and small.

Right from the off with its introductory animated sequence you can see that “night of the demons” is a horror film that has been lovingly crafted. The storyline itself is nothing ground breaking involving as it does a group of partying teenagers beseiged by evil spirits in a spooky house with a history but its just done with such aplomb and character that you cant help but enjoy the hell ride!!! The story takes place on the night of the halloween as a group of young un’s travel to an old house in the middle of nowhere to attend a party being thrown by party girl suzanne and her friend Angela, who just so happens to have a strong interest in the occult. The group decide to hold a seance as part of a party game which needless to say unleashes a savage group of demons that are hungry for fresh meat, murder and mayhem!

Special effects and make-up duties were carried out by Steve Johnson and they are simply monstermendous! This is one area of the film that on recent viewing has not aged at all. The blood looks real! The demons are suitably rotten! and i would not expect anything less from a man with this guys pedigree seeing as he has provided special effects and makeup duties for a ton of terror tales including the howling, ghostbusters, the fog, nightmare on elm street and bad moon to name but a few. An interesting piece of trivia for fright fans is that Steve Johnson ended up marrying Linnea Quigley who plays the part of Suzanne in the film.

A couple of standout scenes from the film include Angela performing an erotic dance to the bauhaus song “stigmata martyr” as she slowly becomes possessed by a demon and the character suzanne proving her nipples are as practical as they are pert! by using them as storage for her make-up!!! You really need to see the latter to understand this properly!

Angela as the demon begins to take hold!

Suzanne about to get real freaky with her nipples!!!

Audio is superb for the film throughout and makes excellent use of traditional haunted attraction type sound effects that really add to the halloween atmosphere of the film.

Night of the demons does suffer a little from the variance of acting ability on display! Without naming names, whilst there are some standout performances this invariably draws even more attention to those not quite on the same par as their fellow thespians!!!

In conclusion, Night of the demons is not a master piece and it never sets out to be! But it most certainly is a frightfully fun filled rotten romp of a horror movie, that was clearly put together with love and an intention to detail. Final score: 7.5 skulls out ten!

Happy 91st Birthday Christopher Lee! Aka Dracula, Prince of Darkness!

Today actor Christopher Lee turns 91! 

For a younger generation of film goers Mr Lee is synonymous with the character of Saruman from the “Lord of the rings” and perhaps Count Dooku from the latest Star Wars trilogy, but for the rest of us Christopher Lee is Dracula! Lee’s Dracula was a tour de force of unrelenting evil! Showing none of the humanity exhibited by the vampires of most modern horror movies or the forlorn lost soul of Bela lugosi’s Count. Christopher Lee, standing all of 6ft 5 inches, brought an incredible presence to the character of Dracula, portraying a Prince of darkness that was stoic and regal yet utterly brutal and without conscience.

When we think of Hammer Horror Films, Christopher Lee’s Dracula automatically springs to mind, but Lee actually began his association with Hammer playing the role of Frankensteins Monster in “The curse of frankenstein” (1957) before going on to portray the  undead count in a total of 7 films for Hammer film studios:-

Dracula (1958)

Dracula, prince of Darkness (1966)

Dracula has risen from the grave (1968)

Taste the blood of Dracula (1970)

Scars of Dracula (1970)

Dracula A.D 1972 (1972)

The satanic rites of Dracula (1973)

Whilst i personally love all 7 films, Mr Lee himself became somewhat disillusioned with the direction Hammer took with the last 5 films and agreed to star in them only out of loyalty, but true professional that he is, the performances are never less than dripping with absolute malice and evil! Aside from Dracula and Frankenstein other notable roles filled by Lee for Hammer studios included Rasputin the mad monk, Sherlock Holmes and in one of my all time favorite horror films “The devil rides out” Lee played the role of Duc De Richleau, a famous character from novels written by Dennis Wheatley. It was not however only for Hammer horror films that Christopher Lee played the roll of Dracula. Lee reprised the role in “Count Dracula” (1970) from spanish film maker jesus Franco and also starred in the french language horror comedy “Dracula père et fils (Dracula and son)” 1976. In addition to these main roles Lee performs a cameo as Count Dracula alongside Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing in the comedy film “one more time” (1970).

For me Christopher Lee is the greatest Dracula actor of all time! That is not to take anything away from the magnificent Bela Lugosi, but Lee’s Dracula is the one that i grew up with and was at first terrified by and later mesmerised by as i grew older. So happy birthday Christopher Lee and fangs for the memories!