The demon's nightmare - Il ritorno

(**1/2 out of *****) Very strange and disjointed film (though, I'll admit, I think I dozed once or twice during crucial scenes) about a sub-human serial killer who uses razor-tipped gloves and plastic bags to kill people. The soundtrack is very loud and erratic and people are always screaming, which makes sleeping straight through this often-dull movie pretty difficult. It ends rather abruptly and offers little to no explanation for the killer's identity or motivation. We never even get to see what his face looks like under his mask. But, even with these setbacks, the direction shows some flair and there are a few frightening demon-attack scenes, especially at the end. Cameron Mitchell plays a psychic detective on the case of a missing girl abducted by the demon, and Jennifer Holmes plays the pretty blonde schoolteacher who gets chased through her house in just her panties in the suspenseful climax (I was wide awake for that part.)

HIGHLIGHT: The pretty blonde schoolteacher gets chased through her house in just her panties (what else?)

The Demon really doesn't have much going for it. The lighting is awful, dialogue is ridiculous in some spots, and some things in it just make no sense (you've got to love the random shots of waves crashing onto rocks).

At least at the beginning there's something slightly different going on. The killer kidnaps a family's daughter and so they enlist the help of a psychic gifted with ESP (Cameron Mitchell). Now, I'd like to think that Mitchell is a good actor but it's really hard to judge when he's given ridiculous things to do and say ("I get feelings sometimes. Vibes, as the kids might say.")

Sure, it's not very good at all, but the least they could have done was not abandon this part of the story. Cameron and the kidnapping plot end up almost being dropped completely, leading us to the story that takes over the rest of the film.

Ever hear the one about the guy in the white mask who stalks some girls?

Yeah, that happens here too. To be fair, this portion isn't as bad despite being a blatant ripoff. The girls are decent at acting and serve the dual purpose of being easy on the eyes. There's a few suspenseful scenes and the climax isn't all that bad despite being completely wacky.

That doesn't make up for everything else, though. In the end, The Demon mostly just provides moments of boredom and stupidity.

DEMON, THE (1979)

1/2 (out of four)

A small town is terrorized by a monster who appears to be killing people so that he can suck their blood out. Poor Cameron Mitchell plays some sort of psychic but there isn't a single thing in this movie that makes sense. I've read a couple reviews on the film and even they don't make any sense out of this "horror" movie, which forgot the horror, the scares and the gore. Off topic but poor Mitchell would spend the rest of the decade appearing in this low budget films. Others of interest is FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND, MEMORIAL DAY MASSACRE and JACK-O.

I recently saw this movie in a video store, for sale, on DVD (for only $5.99). Thank God, I did`nt buy it. I ended up renting it, for a buck, a week later and wished I had`nt done that either.

The first part of the movie deals with a man, the "Demon", abducting a 14 year old girl and murdering her. When the parents can`t find her (dead or alive) they enlist the services of an ex-marine colonel with ESP no less (Cameron Mitchell).

Mitchell`s overacting aside the movie has some flow at this point but not for long. It quickly becomes a disjointed mess as it jumps completely away from it`s beginning plot.

I kept getting the sense that they started a movie and after getting so far into it they decided the plot was`nt working so they scrapped their original idea and went for something else but left in the footage they had already shot.

After breaking away from the Esp aspect (plot) the movie jumps from one plot to another until they decide to mercifully end the movie as well as the watchers misery.

So much about this film makes no sense.The juxtaposition of American and South African accents with no sense of where its supposed to be set.The killer is a complete blank,we never find out if hes a "demon" of the title or just some homicidal nut.Many of the murders make no sense whatsoever,he kidnaps women,kills people randomly and does this weird heavy breathing.Police are nowhere to be seen.And it feels like two different films merged into one,with the Cameron Mitchell psychic subplot being only connected via the killer with the two nubile young women whose scenes in a state of undress are the highlight.As mentioned by others the transfer to DVD is terrible,my copy also wrongly states the release year as 1971.