Night of the Demons (2009)

Night of the Demons (2009) Directed by Adam Gierasch

In the first decade of the 21st century if a movie was an unwatchable debacle or just plain mediocre it was almost a given that it would end up in the ignominious direct-to-video format capitalizing on the gullibility of videophiles; it’s a label that automatically authenticates its status as a lousy movie. This odious modernization of Night of the Demons was released direct-to-video – the other Night of the Demons sequels were also released in the direct-to-video format, yet for some inexplicable reason in the nineties they still at least had some dignity and tried to make the most of the limited format – is a remake that embodies all the digital ugliness and budgetary squalor in which all the movies that were released on Dvd/Blu ray in the inglorious golden years of this capitalist modus operandi have rightly been pigeonholed. The Night of the Demons franchise to me represents the most parodic side of modern horror culture as seen through the tacky lens of a pornographic camera. Adam Gierasch understood that doing a reinterpretation of these obscene ideals would force him to make erotic hyperbole once again a staple in this story of vile demons in search of debauchery and mayhem. It is brainlessly bawdy like its predecessors but unfathomably soporific.

There’s no Hull House in this remake of Night of the Demons and no Amelia Kinkade as Angela, instead we get an old-fashioned melodramatic tragedy as the origin of a haunted house, in which years after the fatal, supernatural love story, Shannon Elizabeth as the new Angela throws a ghoulish Halloween party that finally gets out of control by awakening the horny evil spirits that inhabit it. Among the guests are bad boy Edward Furlong, Monica Keena and bosomy Bobbi Sue Luther. A demon sodomizing a girl, sapphic dances and lubricious optical innuendos all have a certain depraved charm, one that I always expect when watching a Night of the Demons movie, yet it feels more like an obligation than a pleasure for the filmmakers. Any movie that exhibits so much sexual naughtiness and yet is a total bore should be considered a biological crime. Adding to these complaints, my tolerance for the horrendous CGI quickly transitioned to intolerance when the story neglects the comedy and focuses on the horror, as if the horror was something scary, when it’s evidently anything but.