Black démons

Why not bring director Umberto Lenzi in to direct a DEMONS movie? Sure, why not? Just remember this is not a DEMONS movie. It was just named that to try and cash in on the success of the earlier films.

Here two American siblings Dick (Joe Balogh) and Jessica (Sonia Curtis) along with her English boyfriend Kevin (Keith Van Hoven) are on a vacation in Brazil. Along the way Dick witnesses a black magic ritual. He records it on his tape recorder. The three of them are stranded, but luckily two strangers named Jose (Philip Murray) and Sonia (Juliana Teixeira) take them back to their house. It is here Dick replays the tape and revives the dead. Oopsy daisy.

Big problem I had with this movie was it became a little too dialogue happy. Too much yakkin' and not enough action. For gorehounds the death scenes are graphic and gory. Not worth it really.

This extremely cheap "sequel" to Lamberto Bava's two well crafted 'Demoni' movies (even though only the first one really rocked) has absolutely nothing to do with them. Umberto Lenzi tries to do the best out of a rather old fashioned story about voodoo rituals that - yes - wake the dead. So the demons are rather zombies, but they don't eat their victims - they just split their skulls with axes and/or gouge out their eyes with hooks (ah yeah, and once they also use a pitchfork).

Very similar (concerning production values and gore scenes; and in a way also concerning the story) to Lenzi's made for cable cheapo 'Le Porte dell'Inferno' two years earlier. Horror fans might like this one, but everybody else won't have a good time with this, I suppose.

After a strange amulet is stolen during a voodoo ceremony, the mouldering corpses of dead slaves arise in the Brazilian coffee fields. This almost reminds me of some of the high profile Italian gore films of the late '70's or early '80's. Director Lenzi shows that, after 30 years of film-making, he hasn't lost his touch for creating memorable horror films. A very good film which will keep you on the edge of your seat.

I'm pleased to add this little Cubic Zirconia to my collection of gems. The plot is almost non-existent, the characters incredibly one-dimensional, but despite that, it was a good effort. It was obvious that at least some research on Candomble was done, and the ritual scene was amazingly well-crafted. The "Black Demons" themselves had great make-up, and the few gory scenes there were left little to be desired. Now, we come to the meat of it all: the acting. In a word, terrible. This isn't a film to be taken seriously anyway, but the unintentional comedy is everywhere. From accents that randomly disappear, accents too thick to understand, and the eye-bulging freak-outs of the maid, this is one film that's worth seeing in spite of itself. Get some friends together,pop this in, and have some laughs.

This film is supposedly the second sequel to Lamberto Bava's fun eighties trash flick 'Demons', although I'd say it's more like a lacklustre version of Lucio Fulci's zombie masterpiece 'Zombie Flesh-Eaters'. Umberto Lenzi is undoubtedly one of Italy's most diverse and interesting directors, but like many of the best; his career took a downfall towards the end of the eighties, and it's hard to believe that the same man who directed such cult classics as Seven Blood-Stained Orchids and Almost Human also directed this film. The fact that this film is touted to be the third entry in the series started by Lamberto Bava is forgotten about when it comes to the plot, as the film really has nothing to do with the earlier series entries; and this is shown again by the fact that Lambero Bava's own 'The Ogre' is also known as Demons 3! The story here follows three kids who travel to Brazil. One of them is into voodoo, and uses his knowledge of the art to raise a load of dead black slaves. It's not long before the three kids and some other people in the vicinity have a big, flesh eating, problem on their hands!

The problem with this film is that it doesn't have anything in the way of surprises, and while there's some nice gore (including some good gory Fulci style eye gouging), the film is seriously lacking. If you're tuning in for gore only (as you probably should be), you're also likely to be disappointed as the gore isn't relentless, and there are only really a couple of memorable scenes. Bad acting is something you have to expect from a film like this, but with Black Demons; Umberto Lenzi has taken that expectation to a whole new level, with some truly diabolical performances from all concerned. The film starts off slowly, which puts itself on the back foot; as I was already starting to get bored of it before the gore even showed up. One thing that the film does do well, however, is hark back to the classic style of filming. The production values are a little better than Fulci's 1979 classic, but the basics of the film are the same. I can't say many good things about the zombie make-up, and they're nothing like the demons in Lamberto Bava's film. Overall, this movie isn't very good; but it's fairly fun at times, and I preferred it to Demons 2 at least.