The Demons of Ludlow

Although the first one/third is a little slow, 'The Demons of Ludlow' winds up being a surprisingly decent little B horror flick.

The premise is very good, with a 200-year-old New England town in which the history has mysteriously disappeared and those who know about it refuse to talk. A pair of apparent siblings, supposedly on some sort of journalistic assignment are in town, checking into its history, when a historic piano, belonging to the town's founder, is returned to the town by the founders' ancestors. As soon as the apparently generous gift is received, locals begin dying grizzly deaths.

There are a few plot holes and one gets a bit tired of the preacher's alcoholic wife constantly calling, "Chris, is that YOU?" The DVD I have (part of a collection of 50 B thrillers) is a bit dark and in a few cases it is hard to tell one female from another – not to mention one figure running through the snow in the distance from another. Plus, about the second and third/eighths of the film seems to bog down a little, and the colonial ghosts somehow all resemble pirates. Still, it manages to capture a creepy mood that works pretty well. For a 26-year-old low-budget film, it has some pretty good special effects and the unknown cast does decent enough work. Overall, it's one of the better ones I've found so far on this super collection of B and C horror flicks. If you like B horror, this is well worth watching.

Using the TV previously, I forgot I had the volume turned up, a little higher than usual. Bang straight away, it made me jump, as hitting play; a creepy sounding organ score started playing over the opening credits. And that's where it ends. Bill Rebane's clunky, second-string supernatural horror falls more on mean-spirited and strange with a jaunty dream-like quality, than anything overly chilling. Even trying to make sense of the choppy story, is far from Rebane's mind.

Well having an antique piano, that when it's played, unleashes a demonic force seeking revenge against the towns cursed descendants. And these superstitious folks, along with a head tilting dog, are quite a disinterested looking bunch too. Meaning there are going to be a few silly, gaudy shocks. Malevolent ghosts start showing up, ladies clothes get torn off their bodies, limbs are cut off, objects begin floating around, small-time pyrotechnics ignite, every now and again a green glowing demonic hand pops out of nowhere and a grand white piano that bleeds blood, begins playing by itself and even at one stage laughing while elevating. Those moments with their cheap effects, limited sets are weirdly fun.

It's just in between those hokey, exaggerated set-pieces, it can look flat. Ignoring the picturesque locations and concentrating on stodgy background exposition of a priest and freelance journalist simply going around in circles trying to uncover and convince everyone of what's happening in the town is a result of its past. Even small community dramas, the cliché kind, play apart.

I think The Demons of Ludlow may very well be director Bill Rebane's masterpiece. Anyone familiar with Bill's output will be well aware that this is a very relative statement, seeing as this is the man partially responsible for Monster a-Go Go and fully responsible for The Cold. Yep, Rebane well and truly operates in the Z-Grade sphere of the film industry. So all things considered, I was pleasantly surprised with The Demons of Ludlow. Not that it is by any means a good film – it's shoddy – but it has some moments that actually could be described as being effective. And overall it does sort of have a strange charm of sorts.

The story is about a cursed piano that harbours an evil entity that unleashes all manner of nasty events onto the inhabitants of a tiny town called Ludlow. It seems that this is all tied in with nefarious events that occurred hundreds of years ago, and its all part of a deadly revenge…

Like you should expect, production values are basic as hell. But the film does have a sense of place at least; the snowy remote community is fairly believable, while it also manages to incorporate some period costumes and even utilizes some raw but not entirely awful special-effects – so the movie does at least have some ambition. Of course it would be wrong not to acknowledge that The Demons of Ludlow has a fair few flaws too. It's quite haphazardly put together and is verging on being senseless a lot of the time, while the low budget does show in more or less every frame. Pacing, too, isn't always its strong point but it does at least provide a lot of varied events to keep us entertained, many of which seem to involve acts of violence. The best singular scene has to be when the disturbed young girl happens upon the demons at the table in the dining room. This sequence was even verging on actually being quite scary. Although it would be remiss to not add that many of the horror set-pieces are in actual fact pretty hilarious – the little girl ghost lobbing rocks at the old woman's coupon being a very good example.

All-in-all though, this has to be considered a success, seeing as it's a Bill Rebane film. Not for everyone to be fair, but if you don't mind dipping your toes into Z-Grade waters then you might have quite a good time with this.

On its 200th birthday a town is given a piano as a gift. Unfotunately its haunted by the spirit of sorcerer killed by some of the town's founders.

You've seen it all before and better. Actually you've also seen it shorter on any number of old TV anthology shows. And to be honest the script is not all that bad (even if it is full of plot holes and contradictions). The problem with this film is that anytime the ghosts of the past show up to torment and kill someone this film goes from just okay thriller to jaw droppingly awful. You will not believe how bad the scenes with the ghost are. They are so badly filmed, costumed and played out as to resemble nothing so much as the worst grammar school production of a Thanksgiving pageant that you can imagine. Its really bad.

This is a movie to avoid since its not good in a bad sort of way, its just bad.

Nonsense about an old, haunted piano being brought to the small town of Ludlow, population: 47, and it causes all sorts of murder and mayhem there. The plot is obviously rather thin.

A surprising, although slightly silly, killing in a barn is a highlight. Snowy photography is well done, film has the look and feel of a small town in the middle of winter, to great effect, but interior photography is unmemorable; the special effects are variable: sink catches fire (already done in Boogeyman, three years earlier) and a girl is attacked by a roll of toilet paper? Did I see that correctly? An overlong, dumbass sequence with a girl trimming her doll's hair and being attacked by people in white wigs and dressed like it's the 1700s was seemingly trying to be so-bad-it's-good, but ended up just trying this viewer's patience.

The first half hour was pretty good, and there is a bit of atmosphere throughout, but it's a downhill after that first third.