Demon of Paradise

When I was a teenager I used to watch a lot of Cirio Santiago's war/action flicks like "Equalizer 2000","Nam Angels" or "Last Stand at Lang Mei".His cheaply made but highly energetic movies were popular during VHS revolution in Poland."Demon of Paradise" tells the story of Hawaiian fishing community terrorized by a man sized amphibious monster.I consider myself very tolerant when it comes to rating and reviewing Z-grade trash,unfortunately "Demon of Paradise" is simply dull.There is no gore and the bloodless killings are mostly off-screen.Admittedly Hawaiian landscapes are beautiful and the music is fine,but "Demon of Paradise" is a misfire.4 out of 10 for this low-budget monster dud.

Mmm… the poster artwork looked alright; too bad the feature didn't draw out the same excitement. 'Demon of Paradise' isn't the complete pits, but for most part is quite an flatfooted cheapjack co-American/Philippines monster feature, which treads water for too long and then amusingly erupts in the unimaginative final quarter. Philippine exploitation director/producer Cirio H. Santiago ('Cover Girl Models', 'T.N.T. Jackson' and 'Naked Vengeance') manages to keep you fascinated, but I don't know how. Maybe it's those cheap looking explosions. Yeah it could be. Caused by no other than the creature? No really it's plain stupidity. I don't know why they want to destroy it. I could've sworn when it's bobbing out of the water it likes to wave (not clawing), asking to jump in so it can hug you to death. But wherever it is about, for some reason there's dynamite and then explosions seem to follow. Maybe the director was adding those bangs to wake-up the viewer from the miserable dialogue exchanges and mainly limp acting. One scene involving a helicopter and the creature efforts to get up close for a ride is embarrassingly shonky. No wonder why he went all out in the final twenty minutes, but this creature could've been mistaken for a machine since all of the punishment it encounters and still it doesn't bleed. Where's Arnold Schwarzenegger when you need him. But more than one grenade thrown at the same time will get you a result. BOOM!

Really there wasn't enough buzz. Everything here is a cut and paste job with the story lazily mixing 'Jaws (1975)' and 'Creature from the Black lagoon (1954)' together. The prehistoric underwater monster (formed by some superstitious groundwork) is a lousy looking rubber suit, and the rest of the make-up FX is quite tatty. Performances come across rather drab, but Laura Banks, Frederick Bailey and especially Leslie Scarborough kick up plenty of spruce. The music score was painful.

Pointless trite, but watchable.

Someone wakes me up when something starts happening. Other

than Kathryn Witt's form fitting 80's jeans I see no reason to bother

with this stinker. Seems to have been fashioned as an excuse to

shoot a bunch of footage with one of those helicopter engine

pontoon swamp boats & discussion scenes at a Hawaiian tourist

resort during an off-season winter lull. I also love how the

hero/heroine are thrown out of the resort one scene & the next

they go back to have a drink. THEN they get thrown out again, and

are back four scenes later since that was the best set they had.

I love low budget horror trash as much as anyone else, but

something ought to happen every once in a while, and if you are

going to have an attractive woman play a herpatologist in a horror

film she had better be seen at least topless & getting far more out

of her career than she bargained on, or you have blown it.

As for the monster suit, heh, I thought it was kind of fun to see

someone not even bother to make something that looked "realistic" -- Kind of like Lamberto Bava's MONSTER SHARK, but

without any point to it & lacking that movie's ridiculous

entertainment value.

Best line: "It takes two to mate." [Flushing sound]

One of my many personal defaults is that, for some incomprehensible reason, I desperately desire to see all the cheesy mutant sea/swamp monster movies ever made. Knowing that approximately 95% of those are incompetent and amateurish Z-grade trash productions, my obsession is actually the equivalent of cinematic self-torture! "Demon of Paradise" is another piece of rock-bottom, pretty much on par with notorious titles such as "Zaat", "Octaman", "Spawn of the Slithis", "Hydra", "Rana: Legend of Shadow Lake", "Monstroid" and "Up from the Depths". If none of these titles rings a bell, that means there still hope for you! Stay away from them as far as possible! "Demon of Paradise" takes place in a small Hawaiian fishing community, where the obnoxious villagers have been using so much illegal dynamite in their profession that it has awakened an ancient and very upset lizard monster. What follows is an incredibly boring and clichéd film with immeasurably long sequences where nothing happens and pseudo-intellectual dialogs that are irrelevant and senseless. The monster itself is reasonably good-looking, although it's another umpteenth attempt to imitate the appearance of the "Creature of the Black Lagoon", but it nearly doesn't receive enough screen time. Cirio H. Santiago produced and directed approximately 80 exploitation films in his life, all of them shamelessly cashing in on some trend that was popular and money-earning at some point. I've only seen a handful of his titles, but more than enough to declare him to be one of the worst directors who ever lived.

Doyen of Philippine exploitation Cirio Santiago does a version of 'Creature from the Black Lagoon' (though closer in quality to 'Octaman' and the lead character is introduced as Dr Essex which seems too obvious to be coincidence) with this quaint action /horror where local folklore meets scaly reality when a swamp creature emerges from the depths to cause chaos on a small Hawaiian resort village.

The acting is variable, but the rubber lizard suit is really something to behold. Steis and Witt ('Tropic of Cancer') are decent in lead roles (local Sheriff and visiting herpetologist respectively) and along with Banks playing the selfish resort manager, the trio does a pretty good impersonation of 'Jaws' (there's also a 'Jaws 2' moment which you don't want to miss for pure ham value). Supporting actress Huntly is a minor highlight playing a busty model with a massive ego and a nose full of candy who dreams of making it in the movies.

As for the uncredited stuntman who gets to inhabit the Gillman suit, it's a thankless role which was never going to end well despite good intentions.

Not great, not awful, just mediocre with very mild gore, brief topless nudity, a couple of gunfights and a tonne of explosions shot on the grassy banks of an overcast Philippine river-bend.