The Demon Lover

Man, I just can't get enough of this sweet lunatic trash. The Devil Master was the starting point of prolific trash director/producer Donald G. Jackson (his later works including Hell Comes To Frogtown) and though I've not seen any of his later work if it works like this fun shot of dysfunctional weirdness I'll have to get on it pronto. Plotwise things are simple, members of a group into the occult annoy their leader, the awesomely named (and maned) Laval Blessing, so he sicks a big hairy demon with glowing red eyes on them. Its fairly standard silliness, but the kicks come thick and fast, in no small part due to the fact that any notions of technical ability have been methodically stripped away, leaving only cheap-jack enthusiasm. All the dodgy edits, chintzty sets and inept compositions can't stop things from smoothly bowling along, even where there clearly isn't enough relevant footage and the film has to delve into extended, hilarious filler. A spell of our villain working out at his local dojo will raise smiles, but the bar brawl that comes after is a laugh riot, and this is just a midsection booster. Elsewhere non-acting and characters named after various comic book artists, film-makers and others keep the momentum bubbling and the odd random splash of grue and bleak tone serve to keep you on your toes. Christmas Robbins hams things up an amusing storm as Laval Blessing, while Gunnar Hansen has a fun cameo as a helpful professor and the girls are reasonably pretty (one gets topless as well) so on the human side of things the film checks out OK, but generally the ineptitude is key. That and the monster, which really is pretty cool as monsters go, even if it doesn't appear to often. It really looks just how I'd imagine a beast conjured from the demon side and given life on a fractional budget to be and I cheered a little inside every time it appeared. Oh and weirdly, the ending is actually kinda unsettling in a schlocky sort of fashion, carrying a deranged mean punch that serves to make the whole affair just that little bit more memorable than it otherwise would have been. Altogether this is skippable for 90% of viewers and as far as occult based trash goes it isn't all that interesting, lacking in much in the way of fun esoterica or groovy ritual aesthetics, but if your tastes run towards this kind of no count lunacy its worth a one time watch at least.

I first rented this movie at college, and expected so much more than I got. Hansen is the only member of the cast who can act, and despite an OK storyline, the cheap, amateurish production quickly sinks the film.

Don't you hate it when you purposely lower your expectations in order to avoid disappointment, and come to find out, it's all been for nothing? As a desensitized lover of B-horror of the 70's, Master Of Evil actually sounded decent enough. Decent enough for the guy who enjoyed The Chooper, at least. Yes, Master Of Evil is cheesy, and yes it's low-budget, and yes, it would technically be in that "so bad it's good" category, but no, I did not enjoy Master Of Evil. I can overlook a lot, but non-stop boring is a lot to ask. These guys offer us nothing but conversations, arguments, some little satanist-mascot guy, and very little story to speak of. Concerning a group of Satanists who party often, in a castle owned by their leader, Laval Blessing, a smug, yet confident young fellow, with hair that's way too long, and way too curly for his own good. Blessing unsuccessfully tries to set up satanic orgies, but you got to, at least admire the guy's ambition. Eventually, Laval upsets everyone, making them split, with his deep satanic knowledge and whatnot. Later on, Blessing conjures up an incredibly fake-looking devil thing, which possesses a few unfortunates, and kills a few more. An epic, indeed. Oh yeah, our pal. Gunnar Hansen shows up, as if it matters. For something with a similar vibe, with (a little) more life, check out Werewolves On Wheels. Ultimately, Master Of Evil screams dead acting, incoherent dialog, characters with seemingly no purpose, a grainy, murky look to everything, a typically unfitting score, and of course, a ridiculously outlandish devil monster, with glowing red eyes (usually)... well, now that I put it like that, it sounds pretty damn good. Maybe I spoke too harshly earlier, Master Of Evil ain't bad, check it out! 5/10

Try as they might, no-budget filmmakers working on DV just can't seem to capture this level of sordid, inept fun! THE DEMON LOVER has it all: Bad acting, lousy writing, murky camera work, a ridiculous-looking rubber monster, a little skin (not much), a little blood (not much), characters named after comic-book professionals, and a surprisingly accurate look at what a lot of fringe-type folks were like in the late 1970s. Yep, tasteless and stupid as the movie is, and awful as the people in it act and look, you really could've met people like the cultists in THE DEMON LOVER at the time! They might not have been devil worshippers who ended up facing their lord and master in person, but they still existed (and they're still out there with their, uh, lifestyles). BTW, the final confrontation between the ex-cultists and their blowhard former master is priceless: Watch for the crossbow bolt! And don't miss the big karate demo in the middle; it's truly the stuff of '70s I'm-so-cool wanking. A cruddy drive-in flashback par excellence.

When I saw this film I could have guessed that it came out on Trauma video instead of New Horizons and directed by Alan Ornsby. This movie has more of an early 80'e feel to it with the synthasized music and bad acting and I was surprised to see it made otherwise . Anyway, a cult of people resembling the looks of early Metallica, King Diamond (without his makeup) and Frank Zappa along with a chunky nerdy looking annoying guy get themselves involved in a satanic cult lead by a man that calls up this rubber looking demon that goes around killing people when he conjures him up and leaves a trail of dead bodies behind as the police investigate the killings and try to find the leader of this cult. The scene of when all the members kill each other is laughable, I couldn't stop laughing, in fact the whole movie is funny with it's terrible acting and terrible cast, terrible plot and the actors speak their lines so bad it's like they are reading from a cue card and their voices are dubbed. Please avoid this one!