Demons

Rating: 18
Year: 1986
Director: Lamberto Bava

Demons starts with a young woman being scared walking along in a deserted subway, when a strange figure wearing a mask appears in front of her. He giver her free cinema tickets, one for her and one for her friend. Later on at the cinema that no-one had noticed before, all manner of people go in and see their free film - an old couple on their wedding anniversary, a pimp and his two hos, a young couple, an old blind man, the heroine and friend, two young men and more.

A strange statue of a ninja on a motorbike holding a sword in one hand and a silver mask in the other is in the lobby. One of the "hos" puts on the mask, but cuts herself slightly and puts it back. The film starts, and it's a horror about a group of kids in a graveyard who find a book and a silver mask in Nostradamus' grave. One boy puts on the mask and the other reads the book to say whoever wears the mask turns evil, so the boy takes off the mask - but he has a small cut on his face!

Well, he turns evil and kills the others in the film - at this time the ho starts changing and turns into a demon and then the killing starts with an old zombie movie trick that whoever is killed by one turns into a zombie, or in this case a demon. The people barricade themselves upstairs in the cinema and decide that the film they were watching is what is making the demons, which I thought was very funny because the last thing a horror needs to blame violence on is films!! But it turns out that it's the movie theatre itself that's evil, so that's OK then!

The people try to escape but there are more and more demons as people die, and some local punks are chased into the cinema by the police so now the demons can escape and spread. With a closing scene reminiscent of that from Zombie Flesh Eaters, it seems that the demons are everywhere on the outside of the cinema and have taken over the city.

I thought the film was good with good special effects, but the soundtrack was slightly off. Although the actors were clearly speaking English, it looked as if it was dubbed. Well I'm glad I bought it, so I'm off to buy the sequel...