Night of the Demons

I am normally dead against remakes and prefer filmmakers to come up with an original concept to develop and make into a feature film rather than using someone else's idea that has already been done several years (or decades) beforehand. There are exceptions to this rule such as when the original film wasn't any good or was just mediocre and can be improved upon. This applies to the 1988 film Night of the Demons which was a fairly average 1980s shocker which had your standard group of teenagers going where they shouldn't and doing what they shouldn't with predictable results.

Director Adam Geirasch doesn't quite say why he made the film but said that he directed it so it was the sort of movie that he would have loved to watch when he was 17 years old with plenty of gore, nudity and a punk rock soundtrack. The film begins with a scratched sepia segment showing events at the Broussard mansion in 1925 when there was a séance at which something terrible happened causing the mansion's owner, Evangeline Broussard, to put a rope around her neck and jump off a balcony, accidentally beheading herself.

85 years on and local rich bitch Angela has rented out the mansion for a Halloween party and Maddie Curtis, along with her friends Lily and Suzanne (who are both dressed as cats), are going along for a fun evening of drinking and debauchery. Once there, Maddie and Lily noticed that their ex-boyfriends, Colin and Dex, are also at the party with Colin there to sell as many drugs as possible because he owes money to his supplier.

Just as the party is getting started, the police bust the place because Angela didn't have a licence to stage a party at which admission would be charged and is basically told to tidy the place up and get out otherwise she will be fined heavily. Most of the guests leave the premises completely but Angela, Maddie, Lily, Jason, Dex, Colin and Suzanne stay there. Once they decide to leave, they find that they can't because the front gates have inexplicably locked shut and there is no other way out. Anyway, Colin has left some of his drugs in the house after shoving them through a heating duct when the police arrived and has to go down to the basement to find them.


Everyone tags along and Colin notices a hidden door in the basement which leads to a mysterious room in which there are seven corpses arranged in a rather intricate manner with one in the centre and the other six in a circle with their heads pointing towards the middle. When Angela notices that one of them has a gold tooth, she decides not to let the opportunity for some easy money go to waste and decides to grab the item but the corpse seemingly bites her, causing her to feel extremely unwell and her behaviour becoming increasingly erratic.

This is the beginning of a Demon revival with Angela's 'infection' able to be spread through any bodily fluids from blood to saliva and semen. It isn't long until most of the party are demonically possessed with only Maddie, Colin and Jason still human and trying to survive until morning when they reckon that the Demons will lose all of their powers.


As remakes go, this is different enough from the original to stand alone as a film in its own right without being anything so blatant as a shot for shot remake like Gus van Sant's abysmal and utterly pointless version of Psycho (1998). Adam Geirasch (along with writing partner Jace Anderson) has made something which will not satisfy diehard fans of the original but is likely to appeal to those who haven't seen it or, like me, have seen the 1988 version but weren't overly impressed.

I found it interesting and enjoyable enough with pretty good performances by all of the cast members with an almost unrecognisable Edward Furlong playing Colin and Shannon Elizabeth, whose career hasn't really taken off as I expected it would do following her star turn in American Pie, as a perfectly good Angela. Aside from these two actors, the only other two that I recognised were as Monica Keena (from Freddy vs Jason), who plays Maddie and Diora Baird (from The Wedding Crashers, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: the Beginning and Star Trek), who plays Lily.

The Disc

Extra Features
The commentary, with Adam Geirasch, Jace Anderson Monica Keena, Bobbi Sue Luther and John F. Beach, manages to be both a yak track with the actors having a good time laughing at their (and the other actors' performances) and a more revelatory discussion about how the film was made with Geirasch and Anderson going into the writing process and technical aspects. Normally you get one or the other but this manages to be both and does it quite well.

Behind the Bloodshed is a 10 minute making of, presented in 720p HD, and is really your typical EPK making off with principle members of the cast and crew being interviewed on set not really wanting to give away too much about the film but talk about the original, how the remake came about and what shooting was like. It is the sort of featurette that you have seen 100 times before on 100 different discs and is moderately revealing without going into as much detail as you would like.

Rounding off the features is the theatrical trailer.


The Picture
For a film that I can't imagine was made with the biggest of budgets, Night of the Demons looks extremely good with deep contrast levels which helps with the clarity of the many scenes shot in the dark or with very little light, bright and vibrant colours and excellent Demon effects, both practical and CGI. The 1080p picture ensures that the film looks as good as it possibly can and, although they don't say on the commentary, it looks as if it was shot digitally (and, according to the IMDb, it was) ensuring excellent skin tones for the copious flesh on show.

The Sound
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track delivers an extremely punchy soundtrack with clear dialogue and extremely loud rock music from the likes of The Misfits, 45 Grave and TSOL which seems to fit with the teenage characters and the party atmosphere at the beginning. It isn't the most refined soundtrack ever made and the score is largely forgettable but when there is action, the sound design accompanies it very well making sure that every 'thud' and 'bang' has the maximum effect.


Final Thoughts
Night of the Demons is not a horror classic and neither is the remake but they are both perfectly watchable genre films that do exactly what you'd expect. As a glossy updating of the story, Adam Geirasch's version is perfectly acceptable with decent CGI, fine performances and accomplished direction. The disc has a pretty good selection of extra features and, as the film itself is eminently re-watchable, this is at least worth a rental.