Demons 2

Demons 2 is a horror gore fest about demonic possession. Not content with the dreadful original Bava returns to direct yet another badly made, nonsensical piece of trash. This time around the action centres on a residential tower block where Sally is holding her 16th birthday party.

Sally is a total freak and goes in a big huff storming out of the party into her bedroom where she is possessed through her TV set and sets about chomping down her guests. When bitten they undergo the same transformation and before long there are piles of guts in amongst the jelly and ice cream. The demonic possession is rife throughout the building and apparently beyond; people grow fangs and claws and have a sudden unquenchable thirst for biting everyone they see. The plot ends there and we get another extended gore scene as the body count rises exponentially.

Demons 2 doesn't really fit with the end of Demons despite a laughably bad attempt to tie the two together via the TV programme which seems to cause the possessions. Bava took the genius idea of recasting some of the same actors but giving them entirely different characters which is a great way of confusing anyone unfortunate enough to have seen the original film.

The main improvement over the first film is the quality of the make-up and special effects which, although still chronically out dated, are a level above the original. The acting is once again completely without merit, the flimsy cardboard characters don't have much time to reveal a personality before they transform into slavering beasts. The large cast are steadily fed into the meat grinder for the full 95 minutes.

Bava is not a very talented director and didn't pay enough attention to his producer, Dario Argento's films. He completely fails to build any tension, as with the original film the editing is moronic and what little plot there is comes across as hastily pasted together and outright dumb. The film makes absolutely no sense at all and really just serves as a flimsy excuse for lots of crap murder scenes permeated by the odd completely out of place cut to a car driving around the city with some kids in it.

Demons 2 was released in 1986 which is abundantly clear from the clothing and music, however the sound track is an improvement on the first demons movie which isn't really saying much. Argento did co-write this with Bava so he has to take some of the blame for one of the most astoundingly nonsensical storylines I've ever seen.

A lot of horror films have low production values, poor actors and clichéd or moronic storylines and you can get away with these things as long as you do the horror well. The gore and/or scares have to come up to scratch and in Demons 2 they just don't. There is no tension in the movie and no jumpy moments, just a lot of patently fake luminous gunge and gore. If you are a fan of gory horror and you've seen all Argento's films and all of Romero's films and the Evil Dead films I'd still suggest looking elsewhere before you resort to this.

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