Let me set the stage for you: It's late - I'm tired, I'm wasted - I just want to go to sleep; I'm literally looking for something that I could start watching in bed and fall asleep without feeling bad. (It was a *long* Monday.) I randomly picked The Demon on youtube - it looked bland enough to fit the bill.
But my meager expectations were handily surpassed. I'm not willing to call The Demon "a good movie," but it managed to hold my attention. Although I reckoned as much when I saw Cameron Mitchell's name in the credits - I don't know why, but I love that guy. I mean, "I watched it without falling asleep" sounds like pretty feint praise, but considering how I was feeling that night? It's honest-to-goodness regular praise.
The Demon is a kind of disjointed early 80's slasher - it starts with a kidnapping, where our titular Demon (a tall guy? Maybe with claws and maybe no face?) breaks into a house and tries to kill mom with the old and always brutal plastic bag over the head. He then kidnaps daughter - maybe 8-10 years old? It's not important... dad gets home and saves mom, but Demon and daughter are out the door. Flash forward a couple of months, and there are no leads in the case. The couple welcomes Col. Bill Carson (Mitchell) into their house - he's apparently a psychic or something and starts to wander around the house, eventually getting into daughter's room and voraciously sniffing her pillow. That's how ESP works, right? Anyways, he says the Demon is near, and he's both "less than and more than a man." Nice line!
So that's movie one. Movie two is about two young women who the Demon is also stalking. You get a little peek into their lives - they both teach at a preschool (maybe - as a childless man, I can tell you I am a terrible judge of how old kids are. Here, they're somewhere between 3 and 10) and they are looking for a little... well, I'm not sure. The Demon needs victims, so I guess these two will have to do. They are both in relationships - Mary has been dating this one unimportant guy for a while, while cousin Jo has fallen for a fabulously rich trust-fund guy. But their lives seem to be going well - Mary is a couple of years older and feels responsible for Jo, who just moved into town (I had assumed England because it's got that quirky vibe - but it turns out to be South Africa). And then the Demon comes a-knocking. Literally. Rather than just break-in/murder/kidnap like he did with the folks in the first part of the film, he taunts Mary and Jo more - knocking at the door and vanishing, calling and just breathing into the phone, prowling around the house. Creepy? Sure, but it doesn't make a ton of sense.
And if you're looking for a tight narrative, or even an explanation, you best look elsewhere. You keep expecting these two stories to cross paths somehow, but they never do. Plus, you never get any attempt to explain what the Demon is. Like, at all. I'm fine with some mystery, but I'd at least like a hint as to whether this guy is of the natural or supernatural variety. I mean, he's super strong - he tosses a couple of dudes around like ragdolls. It's actually pretty funny. But why the mask and (maybe) clawed gloves if he's truly a demon/monster?
The looseness of the script can be frustrating at times, but it does provide for some pretty out there moments that I won't spoil. Also, you do get a little visit to my new favorite club:
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| The Demon is apparently in the "Disco Sucks" crowd |
There is some legitimate tension once the Demon finally gets around to a-killin. The whole 'plastic bag over the face' thing always seems extra brutal to me, and that's his main method of killing. It just seems a little more mean-spirited that your typical slasher fare. The Demon does use some creepy tactics - staring at his victims from afar while his face is obscured. (Like It Follows, but with staring. It Stares?) It's not an overly bloody film, but I feel like when The Demon was made the slasher genre hadn't quite made it to the "bloody fun" stage yet. You still get the idea that the killing is *supposed* to be disturbing here.
The Demon is a little too messy of a film to truly recommend. The stories are disjointed and it's not particularly well paced. There are long periods where nothing really happens - although the fact that it's essentially two shorter movies joined together kind of helps things move along. And it's the kind of film where I was thinking to myself halfway through "this could be all right if it has a solid payoff." And it both does and doesn't. Narratively, it doesn't even try, but it's hard to deny that the final scenes in Mary and Jo's house are easily the highlight of the film action/tension-wise.
So now that it's all said and done, I'm really glad I watched The Demon. It's kind of an interesting take on the early 80's slasher and it's got Cameron Mitchell in it. (At the very least, it will be worth a rewatch when I start my Cameron Mitchell movie a day blog.) But there's no doubt it's got issues that are rather glaring. I think this could be a good movie for the right type of horror movie fan (me included), but ultimately:
I would slightly begrudgingly not recommend this film.
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