Lamberto Bava’s Demons is one cool cucumber. It’s often hard to tell whether the film is satirizing the cold excess of 1980s horror cinema or indulging it (probably both), and that ambiguity informs even the slacker sequences with latent tension. The premise is simple even for an ultraviolent ghoulie feature: Folks are invited to a mysterious theater for a screening of a horror film and proceed to turn into demons that tear apart the remaining survivors, who soon turn, of course, into more demons.
The Evil Dead is certainly an inspiration, which reflects a cyclical payback of sorts, as Sam Raimi was indebted to Suspiria, and Dario Argento, an executive producer and co-writer of this film, borrowed back on his initial loan, upping the ante even further on the fabulous gore and bladdery effects. This self-referential sense of the narrative eating its own tale is intentional and essential to Demons’s claustrophobic and even narcissistic sense of terror, which Bava exacerbates with a gift for color coordination that would’ve made his legendary father, Mario Bava, proud.
Demons is a monument to the horror genre’s potential for Grand Guignol beauty, though that beauty is often purposefully disrupted by the gore of the prolonged killing scenes. Bava shares his father’s talent for conveying danger spatially, almost subliminally: The vast half-emptiness of the theater setting evokes the chills one may get while watching a movie alone in an auditorium late in the night. The screening room is cast in hues of blood red that connote carnage long before anything actually happens. The reds of the seats and aisles are complemented by the ray of blue light that shoots out of the projector in the background, playing the possession film that’s to seize ahold of its viewers.
Contrasting these reds and blues are yellows that suggest fluorescent urine, which is appropriate as the yellow shade is most prominently seen in a bathroom as a woman flees to a stall to suffer a transformation into the film’s first demon. Later on, yellow even emanates from the aisles themselves, from no discernably logical light source, though the effect serves to lend the reds an almost three-dimensional feel that intensifies the sense of looming invasion as the survivors of the initial demon assault huddle together to discuss defense tactics.
These painterly colors, which are indebted to Argento (a significant presence on the set) and the elder Bava, are intensified by the contrast of a metallic sheen that’s probably reflective of the younger Bava’s influence, though it also belongs to the tradition of the defiantly trashy portions of American horror cinema, particularly slasher movies. The demon mask that sets the story in motion is steel-gray, and a sword, a knight statue, and a switchblade, not to mention an ominous character made up to resemble the Terminator, are also cast in metallic hues that fuse with the aggressive soundtrack (including songs by Billy Idol, AC/DC, and Mötley Crüe) to create an atmosphere of contemptuous, impersonally objectified decay.
Bava, particularly through the meta use of the horror film within the film, conjures a doomsday born of consumerist passivity. Viewers watch the surprisingly violent movie within Demons, which isn’t played for self-parody, and are brought down to its level of self-annihilating engagement. This inciting incident could be a joke on what parental watchdogs say can become of kids who are obsessed with horror movies and heavy metal music.
This pointed refusal to coax any kind of faux-sentimental attachment to the characters emboldens Demons with a level of blunt honesty that lingers in the memory. The film’s subtext could be summed up as “this is what you came for.” Bava and Argento get away with this haughtiness for the awesomeness of their images, as this is a film that earns its feelings of superiority over many other movies that traffic in comparatively banal butchery.
Demons is a coffee-table book of a horror movie, reveling in a purity of transcendent revulsion that marks it as something that’s really only suitable for the truest and most devoted of aficionados. It’s an art object disguised as a blood offering.
Image/Sound
Per the disc’s liner notes, this 4K presentation of Demons was scanned and restored at L’Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna, Italy, utilizing the original 35mm camera negative. All three versions of the film—Italian, English-dubbed, and international English-dubbed—are included, with notes on their respective restorations and re-recordings. The 4K image looks great, with vibrant primary colors and intricate detail (check out the contours on that demonic mask that sets the story in motion). Depth of painterly color has been magnified from prior home-video editions, without sanitizing the film’s gnarly, seamy aesthetic. Demons is still a little raw and grainy, even shrill, and it’s all the better for it. That’s Demons for you, after all.
The 5.1 and 2.0 sound mixes are similarly clean and robust, and they’ll be well served by the rattle-and-hum treatment that even a middling home entertainment setup is capable of delivering. This kick-ass 1980s-era metal soundtrack should be heard loud.
Extras
A new audio commentary by Kat Ellinger and Heather Drain, co-hosts of the Hell’s Belles podcast, is a sharp and snappy free-range discussion of Demons and its many influences, from Dario Argento to the heavy metal scene, to the contemporary genre films that Lamberto Bava allowed to enter the stew. For dirt behind the scenes, there’s an archive commentary with Bava, SPFX artist Sergio Stivaletti, composer Claudio Simonetti, and actress Geretta Geretta that covers at length the practical details on the making of the film.
There’s only one other new extra, but it’s a good one: “Produced by Dario Argento,” a visual essay by author and critic Michael Mackenzie that covers Argento’s career as a producer, most notably on Demons and George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. When Argento struck out on his own production label in the 1980s, out from under the influence of his producer father, Salvatore Argento, he had the mixed blessing of being able to do exactly as one pleases without having to satisfy the tastes of another. Indulgence reigned in Argento’s subsequent films, both narratively and behind the scenes. Mackenzie, though, doesn’t mention an especially provocative detail that arises elsewhere in the package, from an archive interview with collaborator Luigi Cozzi: that Demons was conceived quickly as an effort to generate more money for the completion of Argento’s over-budget Phenomena.
Rounding out the package are various promotional materials and many more archive interviews with the principles, including Bava, Argento, Cozzi, and Simonetti. These supplements are fun enough, but they essentially repeat the same few stories. “Produced by Dario Argento” and the commentary with Ellinger and Drain are ideal for one-stop shopping.
Overall
Synapse Films’s 4K UHD release fully honors the seamy poetry of Lamberto Bava’s Demons, with a smorgasbord of supplements new and old to boot.
Since 2001, we've brought you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of film, music, television, video games, theater, and more. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit hard in recent years, but we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or fees.
If you like what we do, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a donation.
