The Demon

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.

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.

Neither have I until I saw The Demon. The Demon is an interesting picture and a poor picture. It has a script which just does not not make much sense. We have a story about some guy that goes around brutally killing young women and others and as a much smaller story - a psychic that is red-hot on his tail. Redhot? Cameron Mitchell plays the psychic and his presence is sorely needed for the film's credibility, yet he is barely in the picture. And yet, even though his character and dialog were quite ridiculous - especially what happens to him and the one-liner that follows - I thought he was the best thing in the picture. The demon is never explained at all in terms of why he is killing, why he is a "demon" if indeed he/it really is, or what any motivation is. He just likes killing with brutal coldness. Fortunately, the movie, filmed in England and with largely a British cast, is competently conceived in several ways. The acting rises above poor and is decent. The director - Percival Rubens who also wrote this nonsense - has some talent in creating some suspenseful scenes and a sense of tension. The scenes with the girl being chased in the house were fairly effective, despite the needless nudity. After awhile we got the point. But the script is just so awful and threadbare as to limit the film to anything other than garbled, ludicrous nonsense. At the very least, the film is watchable and will/should have you arching your eye brows trying to figure out what in the heck is going on. And listen closely to Mitchell's dialog - he and it are a real hoot!

Yet another attempt to duplicate "Halloween", and like most other rip-offs its unimaginative, pointless and extremely boring. It's claims of the victims being "made to experience their worst fears while being tortured to death" are a blatant lie and have nothing to do with what actually happens, not to mention this film is virtually gore-free. And despite the title there's nothing supernatural about the killer other than the fact he's very strong and likes to growl, but those are probably the least of this movie's problems. Only points of interests are the film's unbelievably amateurish editing and Cameron Mitchell's laughably bad performance. 2 out of 10, bad by even "Halloween" rip-off standards and overall just incredibly boring, don't waste your time and money.

Without getting into personalities, it's another film about a psychotic killer. These people are pretty much machines in these movies. The thing you need to do is pick vulnerable women, get to know them and their lives, and then thrown this guy in. He kills some, some he doesn't. There is also some superfluous nudity and titillation for the adolescents. But the film is just pretty dull. The copy I had was so full of dropouts and forced pauses that it just wears on. The real detractor is the darkness. Was the original print so dark. There are times when 20 seconds pass and we can't really see anything happening. There are things happening, but you get the point. This is so much like so many threat films that it offers little new to the viewer.