The Demon Lover

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.

A long-haired heavy metal dude Laval Blessing is a black magician.He lures some young virgins into his coven to perform some magical mumbo-jumbo.After his unwilling virgin and her boyfriend leave the coven Laval becomes angry.He unleashes bloodthirsty demon with gruesome revenge on its mind..."The Demon Lover" is gloriously cheap and insane horror flick with amateurish acting and cheesy rubber demon.Gunnar Hansen is fantastic in his small cameo role of Proffesor Peckinpah.The writing is bad,the direction is even worse,but I had a blast watching this entertaining turkey.There is a bit of graphic nudity and some splashy gore too!8 rubber demons out of 10.You all have to see "The Demon Lover Diary"-the infamous documentary about the making of this film.

Satanist Laval Blessing (Christmas Robbins, looking like James Hetfield circa 1990, after he's eaten a whole load of pies) holds a party for his coven, but when he insists on them all getting naked to participate in an orgiastic ritual, they decide to leave. Miffed, Laval (and the one woman willing to strip for the occasion) summons a demon to take revenge on his disloyal followers.

This low-budget independent horror features atrocious acting, a terrible script, dreadful photography, and a hilariously bad demon (big horns, big fangs, and big red eyes), but it is thanks to its ineptness in all departments that it proves to be quite watchable. Films this bad are what fans of z-grade horror live for, and this one doesn't disappoint, delivering such delights as a totally pointless karate training session in which Laval gets kicked in the goolies, a poorly choreographed bar brawl, three girls having a play-fight with canned cream, and Frank Zappa being shot in the crotch with a crossbow.

Director Donald G. Jackson (Hell Comes To Frogtown) blissfully ignores the fact that no-one in his film can act (even Gunnar Hansen, in a brief cameo, ain't great), giving us numerous bloody but unconvincing death scenes guaranteed to have viewers in stitches. Not a great film by any stretch of the imagination, but for those with a particular mind-set, it'll prove a fun way to waste seventy or so minutes.

4.5/10, rounded up to 5 for IMDb.

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.

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.