The Demon

The Demon is a South African Halloween clone about a motiveless serial killer who suffocates his victims with clear plastic bags. To be honest, it's a pretty shoddy effort in many ways but it's definitely not without merits either. In some respects one of this movie's chief problems is also inadvertently one of its strengths. The issue in question is how confusingly structured it all is. Characters are linked together only via the killer, and he is, to put it mildly, very vaguely defined himself. So the film has a very disjointed feel to it. While I can't see this as having been intentional, it does have a strange dream-like effect where we have this weird pale-faced amorphous figure appearing at various times with no fathomable reason. The Demon himself is a decent villain, as he has a good air of mystery about him, partly due to the fact that he is given absolutely no history or motivation. He is masked like Michael Myers in a white faceless mask although this mask does seem to appear and disappear between shots which must surely qualify as a pretty monumental goof. His killing method is bloodless but unusual enough for some credit. Although quite honestly even if there were buckets of the red stuff you would be doing well to even notice seeing as the lighting in this production is terrible. Too many scenes are played in almost total darkness, so you only have an impression of what's going on. Fortunately, we are able to make out the finale which is a lengthy scene involving the Demon chasing a topless girl around a house – it's clichéd but this sort of stuff never really gets old. The only name actor is Cameron Mitchell who plays a psychic colonel who is helping track down the killer. But he only ultimately has a bit part in the film and exits the picture in a very memorably sudden and unexpected way.

Despite it's shortcomings I did quite enjoy this one. It may have been poorly put together but it did have some tense scenes, and some interesting moments. It's worth a look if you enjoy trashy horror flicks.

DEMON, THE (1979)

1/2 (out of four)

A small town is terrorized by a monster who appears to be killing people so that he can suck their blood out. Poor Cameron Mitchell plays some sort of psychic but there isn't a single thing in this movie that makes sense. I've read a couple reviews on the film and even they don't make any sense out of this "horror" movie, which forgot the horror, the scares and the gore. Off topic but poor Mitchell would spend the rest of the decade appearing in this low budget films. Others of interest is FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND, MEMORIAL DAY MASSACRE and JACK-O.

In the opening minutes of this movie, a girl named Emily Parker (Ashleigh Sendin) is abducted by a hulking, heavy-breathing psycho. Her distraught parents (Peter J. Elliott, Moira Winslow) call in a character we presume to be some sort of private investigator. He is Colonel Bill Carson (Cameron Mitchell, the films' star attraction), a retired military officer with psychic abilities. Meanwhile, the villain continues to claim random victims. This perpetrator may be something less, or more, than just a "man".

Details as to the killers' true nature and reason for killing are never delineated in this script by producer / director Percival Rubens, presumably to keep things mysterious. He / it wears gloves tipped with razors on the fingers, yet tends to murder some people with the old "plastic bag over the head" routine. Overall, the film is watchable enough, but never has much in terms of scares and suspense, and it's so poorly filmed that it's hard sometimes to see what's going on, or understand what characters are saying. The picture, at least, does have some atmosphere, and there is nudity from leading lady Jennifer Holmes (as young schoolteacher Mary) and Zoli Marki as her cousin / housemate Jo. Unfortunately, too much time is wasted on uninteresting supporting characters. There's a lot of footage devoted to the budding relationship between Jo and nice rich guy Dean Turner (Craig Gardner); the film plods as a result. Gore hounds will be quite disappointed, although anyone looking for a routine "Halloween"-inspired knock-off may not be too mindful of "The Demon"s' lack of interesting features. Most unexpected was the final scene between Carson and Mrs. Parker.

Mitchell is once again professional enough to give "The Demon" some needed credibility, although in truth we don't really see a lot of the Carson character. He's NOT as major a player in the course of events as one would think. Holmes and Marki have some appeal, and while the cast is fairly nondescript, they're at least reasonably competent as actors.

"The Demon" is not a total waste of time, but it's still going to leave some viewers wanting more.

Filmed in South Africa.

Five out of 10.

Without getting into personalities, it's another film about a psychotic killer. These people are pretty much machines in these movies. The thing you need to do is pick vulnerable women, get to know them and their lives, and then thrown this guy in. He kills some, some he doesn't. There is also some superfluous nudity and titillation for the adolescents. But the film is just pretty dull. The copy I had was so full of dropouts and forced pauses that it just wears on. The real detractor is the darkness. Was the original print so dark. There are times when 20 seconds pass and we can't really see anything happening. There are things happening, but you get the point. This is so much like so many threat films that it offers little new to the viewer.

The Demon really doesn't have much going for it. The lighting is awful, dialogue is ridiculous in some spots, and some things in it just make no sense (you've got to love the random shots of waves crashing onto rocks).

At least at the beginning there's something slightly different going on. The killer kidnaps a family's daughter and so they enlist the help of a psychic gifted with ESP (Cameron Mitchell). Now, I'd like to think that Mitchell is a good actor but it's really hard to judge when he's given ridiculous things to do and say ("I get feelings sometimes. Vibes, as the kids might say.")

Sure, it's not very good at all, but the least they could have done was not abandon this part of the story. Cameron and the kidnapping plot end up almost being dropped completely, leading us to the story that takes over the rest of the film.

Ever hear the one about the guy in the white mask who stalks some girls?

Yeah, that happens here too. To be fair, this portion isn't as bad despite being a blatant ripoff. The girls are decent at acting and serve the dual purpose of being easy on the eyes. There's a few suspenseful scenes and the climax isn't all that bad despite being completely wacky.

That doesn't make up for everything else, though. In the end, The Demon mostly just provides moments of boredom and stupidity.