Night of the Demons (1988)
This has brilliant animated opening credits accompanied by a nice synth score but it is all downhill from there. It takes ages to get going and most of the characters are jerks and the acting is dreadful.
A group of teenagers decide to have a fancy dress Halloween party in Hull House which is an abandoned funeral parlour in the middle of nowhere. Oh and Hull House was once the site of a grisly massacre. After playing bad punk rock and acting lame they decide to enliven the party by holding a séance. Cue some bad SFX and the demons come out to play.
There is a good scene where the idiots are reflected in various shards of a broken mirror. Then a demon possesses Suzanne who spreads the possession around. If the vile sexist rude crude idiots hadn’t disturbed the demons quietly mouldering in the basement then their lives would not have been imperilled.
Soon only Judy and Roger are left as their fellow partygoers Angela, Suzanne, Stooge, Sal, Jay, Max, Frannie and Helen chase them around and around the place as the demons get used to their new skins. This was lame and has an idiot ending. There is so much padding in this: the entire grumpy old man sideplot, Judy spending ages locked in a bathroom and anytime the vile Stooge is onscreen.
Best Lines:
“Run Judy run, see Judy run!”
“This house is not haunted, it’s possessed!”
“This is a house of the dead!”
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Night of the Demons (2009)
Another remake, the original Suzanne makes a cameo wearing the exact same outfit and hairdo she had in the original. Seeing as she looks like she’s 70, it’s unpleasant. A group of slutty chicks spend ages discussing waxing. Angela (Shannon Elizabeth) holds a party in a house in New Orleans. Colin (played by Edward Furlong who looks wasted) crashes the party.
Everyone at the party does drugs and screws. Tiffany Shepis makes a cameo. Angela has no class and is not as creepy as the original Angela. Maddie (Monica Keena) hangs around as do various women with huge implants. They all look to be in their mid 30’s. Cops bust the party. Angela is dumb. A few idiots hang out and find a demon sacrifice in the basement and think it’s cool.
The demons come out to play and it leads to gore, sleaze and a general lack of hygiene. The demons look like they have meth face. Nobody seems to care that their friends are demon possessed. Plus demons fear rust, what do you know.
There is whining, exposition, Furlong looks unwell and unscary possessed hellbeasts chase people. This was beyond awful.
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Death Tunnel (2005)
An outbreak of the white plague in 1928 caused a sanatorium to be built. Now various medical school students (who are so generic, you cannot tell them apart) hang out at the sanatorium for an Initiation party.
What are they being initiated to? Why are they in their underwear? We don’t know, the editing is weird and you are not entirely sure what is going on. However this film has an intriguing nightmarish quality to it.
Sure a mean girl takes her top off for no clear reason, sure the characters are all stupid and there are visions and ghosts and hallucinations. Nobody has a personality, they’re just screamers. The music is loud, a pendant plays a plot point and the ending is weird. Still it does grab the interest, it could be worse you could watch ‘The Swarm’ instead.
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Friday the 13th (2009)
Another terrible remake, this film is worse than ‘Doom’, ‘Deadly Mansion’ and both versions of ‘Night of the Demons’. I mean ‘Freddy vs Jason’ and ‘Jason X’ were both better than this.
At Camp Crystal Lake Jason’s mommy Pamela (Nana Visitor of ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’ and ‘Wildfire’) gets rid of some campers. Now a pack of idiot backpackers show up to be annoying. Morality means noting to these idiots as they run round in the dingy darkness being attacked by Jason off screen. Why idiots in these films always go to investigate the strange noise?
A second pack of idiots arrive near Crystal Lake as does the bad hairdo sporting Clay (Jared Padalecki of ‘Supernatural’). He’s looking for his missing sister while the second pack of idiots are vile jerks. Clay is socially unpopular with the vile jerks who are full of distasteful and aggressive bravado and do not seem intelligent enough to stand upright.
The girls are all interchangeable with long hair that layers easily. The guys are sexist morons especially Trent and Nolan (Ryan Hanson of ‘Veronica Mars’). Then Jason shows up and starts hacking away again and nobody cares or notices. This is boring, stupid, soulless remake with bad bad acting. There is one funny moment, just one. For slasher fun watch ‘Cherry Falls’ instead.
Best Line:
“Say hi to Mommy! In HELL!”