Demon Lover Diary

This is one of the best documentaries I have ever seen. People compare it to "American Movie," which I loved, but this film really gets some in-depth interactions behind the scenes of an indie film. All the backbiting, infighting, feelings of frustration after years of hope and planning. If you like this, I also recommend "Driver 23/The Atlas Moth" by Rolf Belgum, as well as the Half Japanese documentary "The Band that Would be King" and the Wesley Willis documentary "The Daddy of Rock and Roll." Just make sure you don't have any sharp implements around while watching the first and last ones, especially if you are an independent musician or filmmaker, it may hit pretty close to home.

This excellent documentary follows a hapless young film-maker (Jeff Kreines) deep into suburban Michigan circa 1975 to film a wretchedly bad B-movie at the behest of a pair of clueless and somewhat deranged producers (Donald Jackson and Jerry Youngkins). The filming of the B-movie ("The Demon Lover") never really gets off the ground due to the inept actors and technical crew, which consist mostly of the producers' buddies and their ditzy girlfriends. The "actors" and "technicians" spend most of their time lolling about the set guzzling beer and making out while the producers quarrel with the Kreines over all kinds of nonsense. Tensions between the producers and Kreines mount, culminating in the hasty flight of the camera crew after... get this... a shoot-out with rock star Ted Nugent. This is a documentary, folks... I'm not making this up.

Jackson, the crazed producer and writer of "The Demon Lover," went on to make a number of B-movies with titles such as "Toad Warrior," "Guns of El Chupacabra" and "I Like to Hurt People." Ironically, the maker of this documentary (Joel DeMott) and Kreines made only one other movie that is listed in the IMDB. This is a sad testament to the triumph of monomaniacal persistence in the face of reason and decency.

I saw this amazing movie in my film class, and it showed such a bleak picture of filmmaking that I had to think more than twice about the career path I am heading down. It's the true story of 2 young filmmakers (Jeff and Joel) who travel to Michigan from their Cambridge home each making a very different movie. Jeff's acquaintance Don Jackson has asked him to be the cinematographer on a low-budget horror movie he's producing and directing. Joel has just come along for the ride and thinks it's the perfect opportunity to make a documentary (something they both studied at MIT). Unfortunately for Jeff and Joel, (but fortunately for us) Don has no idea what he is doing. From the little bits of it that we see, the movie Demon Lover, The (1976) ) is absolutely terrible. And to make matters worse, Don is extremely annoyed by Joel's presence on the set. Throw in some behind-the-scenes romance between one of the film's young stars and Joel's sound recorder, and you have quite a film. Unfortunately, as far as I know Demon Lover Diary is not available on video, and can only be obtained from Jeff and Joel. While the basic premise may sound similar to the more recent and slightly more well-known American Movie (1999) it is really quite different and much better. Believe it or not, Demon Lover, The (1976) was eventually released and IMDb says it is available on video. I would really love to get my hands on it. Don Jackson is still making movies. His credits include such classics as Lingerie Kickboxer (1998) and Return of the Roller Blade Seven (1993)

In a perfect world, this movie would have launched the reality entertainment craze...but was too far ahead of its time to do so. I saw it at the Walker Art Center around 1980 with the filmmakers present. The film is both hilarious and terrifying. Excellent. Somebody beg the filmmakers to do a video release.

Having first seen this movie at the old Thalia theater in New York when I was in high school, I still think about this film. Scary, funny, insightful. Anyone who wants to make a low-budget film should be forced to watch it. Someone please, please put this on video.