Demon Wind (1990)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Corey (Eric Larson) wants to know what happened to his grandparents so he takes a group of friends out to the grounds where they died. Even though a local warns the kids not to travel there, they do it anyways and sure enough they unlock the secrets, which includes demons.
Charles Philip Moore's DEMON WIND is a rather interesting horror movie that has a lot of good things about it but also some bad things that really keeps it from being better. Going back to the 1970s there have been countless movies about people going onto sacred ground and having to battle a variety of evils. The evils here are some demons with a connection to Satan and whenever the movie is focused on them it's quite entertaining.
The biggest issue with this film is the fact that it runs way too long. At 97-minutes the film really do seem to last at least fifteen-minutes too long and it also didn't help that there were a lot of slow moments. The pacing is another issue as it just moves way too slow and this isn't helped by the extended running time. In all honesty this here was the biggest issue I had with the film and sadly it brings down the good moments.
Where the film does succeed is with its make-up and costume design. I've seen a lot of low budget movies in my life but there really aren't too many out there that contain as good of costumes as this film does. I was really impressed with the look of the demons and we're also given some pretty good bits of blood and gore as the demons rip into people. The make-up team certainly deserves a lot of credit for their work here and it's what keeps the film entertaining.
The performances are also decent for this type of production and best of all is that the cast at least make for some good characters to keep you interested in them. DEMON WIND isn't a complete success due to the issues I mentioned but if you're a fan of the genre then it's worth watching.
