MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "Night of the Demons" (1988)

...and like that, you've seen what is literally the scariest thing about this film. The poster. That's it.

...

No, this is not the set up to a joke, I'm serious.

"Angela is having a party. Jason and Freddy are too scared to come...But you'll have a hell of a time"

 Har har har. My pimply, flabby white ass.

If my typed sarcasm was not enough of an indication, I am not a fan of this movie. I'm aware that it's a cult hit, and I'm frankly at a loss as to why. It's not particularly original despite its promises that are just lawyer friendly enough to avoid copyright infringement, it doesn't bring anything new to the genre (using just about every single haunted house and demonic possession trope), and it absolutely wreaks of the 1980s trying so, so desperately to die.

...probably so they can get out of this movie.


The set up is so stock, at least by 1988, that it's barely worth going over, but here it is: High school outcast Angela Fairchild decides to have a Halloween party at the haunted Hull House - a former funeral parlor where the former Mr. Hull had a deep love for the dead (yep, that kind) and the entire site apparently was bad news even back in the Pre-Colonial Days, where a local Native American tribe refused to even settle the land beyond the running river, deeming it cursed.

...no, I'm not bringing back my Until Dawn horror movie cliche drinking game.

...I have that saved for later this month.

But, because teenagers are stupid and it's the Eighties, demons get loose and start the possessing and the killing. There would be something to this except this was 1988 and all of this had been done before. If this had been a film done early in the Eighties, I could see it perhaps having some resonance, but the fact is that Night of the Demons brings nothing new to the horror genre. In fact, it could be seen as the progenitor of several tropes of modern horror movies that I (and some others) vehemently despise, namely the liberal use of asshole victims. And that's really a major problem with the film.

To its credit, as stock as the set up is, you at least do have some potential with it. A haunted house, taken over by a malignant entity and picking off a bunch of teenagers. One could easily take the route of Aliens or Predator and take some time to establish character...and they don't. At least, not any good character. The main character, Angela, partakes in shoplifting with a friend in their beginning scene. Everyone else comes off as a completely irredeemable asshole that you're just expecting to die at any given moment.

The only two people who ultimately survive are the predictable final girl and the one black guy who fits every black guy stereotype in horror films (he's a preacher's son, etc.) before Busta Rhymes ruined it for everyone forever.

...oh, yes. That movie's time is coming, don't worry.

However, this dumpster fire is just awful. While the effects are occasionally good (for the era at least), it's so horrendously dated and - and as I said before - suffers from the worst parts of the Eighties trying desperately to die just so they can get away from this movie as quickly as possible. It's not good, it's not well thought out, and I have no idea why this became a cult classic.

...or got two sequels.

...or a remake.

Night of the Demons was produced and distributed by Republic Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn Mayer, respectively, and is available where movies are sold.

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