Daymare

Some excellent news before we get to reviewing some excellent movies:

First, From Beyond is being released in the US on DVD in September in an unrated director's cut for the first time! This means we can all ditch our low-quality bootlegs of the fullscreen German release for a nice widescreen, digitally re-mastered edition of the Stuart Gordon classic. Perhaps I'll review it in the near future, but I'll say now that if I had to choose between Re-Animator and From Beyond (and I may take some guff for this) I would choose From Beyond hands down. It's just a much gooier, and more serious (for Gordon) attempt to adapt Lovecraft.

Next, The Host, a South Korean monster flick that got pretty good reviews (and which I did not get to see on its US release because it was only showing in 75 theaters, and none of them were in Michigan) is coming out on DVD later in July. It looks like there is a big fat special edition that will be available, so I may be picking that up. It's a monster flick (plus!) and it features special effects by New Zealand's Weta Workshop (King Kong, The Lord of the Rings [plus, plus!!!])!

Lastly, and I just found this out mere seconds ago, there is going to be a movie adaptation of Stephen King's The Mist in October or November. Now let me say first that I'm not normally a big King fan. I did like the Gunslinger series (though I haven't read any books past Wizard and Glass) , and one or two of his other short stories, most of which I've read sort of by accident. I stumbled across this one the same way I stumbled across the others: while reading a used copy of some old horror anthology (can't remember the name) and was immediately in love. Not to be confused with John Carpenter's The Fog, The Mist is about a mysterious mist that covers a New England town and brings hordes of bizarre blood-thirsty monsters with it. Not just one kind of monster, an entire fucked up ecosystem of monsters. The premise with the alien-like creatures reminds me a bit of the original Half Life game, and I wonder if there wasn't some borrowing done there. But anyway, The Mist is hands down my favorite of King's short stories (next to Jerusalem's Lot), so the fact that it's being made into a film (can anyone say 'lots of CGI tentacles'?) is pretty awesome.

Now, on to the reviews!

Oh yeah, and see you all at Transformers next week.

Title: Demons

Director: Lamberto Bava

Year: 1985

Directed by Lamberto Bava (son of Italian director Mario Bava), and co-written by Dario Argento, 1985's Demons rates as one of the best horror films of the 1980's, at least in my own humble opinion. This is no slow, suspenseful shocker. Instead, it's a kick-ass, fast-paced, action-y, slimy, killfest set to a pounding soundtrack of heavy metal.

Filmed almost entirely in the Metropol, a gothic cathedral of some kind turned into a movie theater, the basic premise involves a group of people who are attending a special screening of an unnamed horror flick only to find that the movie itself transforms some of those watching into blood-thirsty demons. Chaos erupts, especially when the people find themselves mysteriously trapped in the building.

Of course, this being a film involving demonic transformation, anyone bitten or scratched or attacked by a demon turns into one themselves, so the horde just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Said demon transformation sequences are pretty excellent: gooey and pustulent just as we tend to like 'em. Worth remembering is the tooth sequence near the beginning of the film. I haven't seen anything like it before or since.

Besides being a terrific gorefest, and a swell actioner, Demons does a few other unique things to help it rise above the level of a lot of other horror stuff that surrounded it in the 80's. For one thing, the main character, George, our hero-at-large, doesn't just cry and scream and run for the duration of the movie. After the obligatory killing-off of his infected best friend, he arms himself with a big ole' samurai sword and Kawasaki motorcycle (part of a crazy display in the lobby of the movie theater), and goes to town, hacking and slashing up the mob of vicious demons.

The second major unique plot device comprises the ending of the film, and I'm not going to spoil it. Watch and see. I'll just say the scope of Demons goes far beyond the claustrophobic theater setting. And Mr. Argento and Mr. Bava are not above coming from left field with unexpected demon infections and unexpected deaths.

Lastly, the movie-within-a-movie gimmick is well-done, and kind of a cool idea. The way it eventually plays out leads to a pretty iconic horror sequence, one that I think should be better-remembered.

The special effects are great, especially the aforementioned demon-transformation scenes, but the demon make-up itself is also pretty effective, and the gore is extremely well done. It's not overly gross-out, but there is enough of it to be pretty satisfying to a jaded aficionado like myself, especially in the last half hour or so.

The movie is helped out by its kick-ass fast pacing and the mid-80's power metal soundtrack featuring bands like Accept and Saxon, which blasts in everytime the demons start attacking and mutilating people. This is absolutely essential viewing for any fan of 1980's horror. Everything about it is standout. The production is great, the effects are great, the characters are not obtrusively idiotic, the soundtrack is excellent, the direction and plot are kickass, and the gore is over the top and fun. Seriously not to be missed.

Title: Nightmare City

Director: Umberto Lenzi

Year: 1980

This should be filed under 'cult classic'. While masquerading as a zombie film, this fun, adrenaline-fueld romp features not zombies, but radiation-poisoned vampiric mutants that run, use weapons, stab people, and drink their blood. And the only way to stop them...is a bullet to the brain.

This is the much gorier, nastier, less hip older brother of Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later. Amidst the slew of Italian zombie/cannibal flicks that were coming out in 1980, Nightmare City stands out for taking a new perspective on the well-explored apocalyptic plague and its effects on human kind. Instead of slow, waddling, mindless walking dead, you are confronted with hyperactive vampire things, the creations of severe radiation poisoning, with the ability to regenerate their flesh, the intelligence to plan ambushes and use weapons, and, of course, a driving thirst for human blood.

Perhaps the film's only failing is its essentially throwaway characters. But they don't really matter at the end of the day, what with all the stabbings, eye gougings, blood drinking, nudity, pulpy bullet wounds and mutants with deep-fried-looking noggins. I would go so far as to say that this was probably another prime influence behind Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror. Zombies that aren't really zombies using guns and eating people? Hmmm. Their victims, though seemingly dead, are reanimated by the mutant cells of their attackers and become bloodthirsty mutants themselves? Hmmm. A good portion of the action takes place inside a hospital? Well now, we may be stretching coincidence just a bit.

The makeup is cool, a different take on things, as I've said before, and the violence is pretty neat. It's all good fun, but there are some really awesome jaw-dropping gore sequences. When the main characters get their wind and realize that you have to give the creatures a copper-jacketed lobotomy to kill them, the movie quickly becomes an exploding-head fest. And some of those scenes are awesome. Especially when done in gratuitous slow motion.

So, to sum it all up: low on character, BUT: heavy on gore, heavy on action, heavy on ugly-looking makeup, heavy on violence, heavy on knives and clubs and guns, heavy on unique premise, and heavy on the vampire mutant 100 meter dash.

All in all? Fuck yeah. Especially if you liked Planet Terror and want to see where some of the inspiration probably came from.