Days of Halloween Redux: Night of the Demons

2009, Adam Gierasch -- download

This is a remake of the 1988 demon summoning movie, one whose cover you have probably seen on all your mom & pop video store shelves in an age past.  If I think hard enough, it was probably one that my brother brought home that I snubbed my nose at.  I was not fond of the shtick of horror movies where monsters ran around killing the half-dressed, all horny teenager set, and yet I have seen so many.  But definitely there is an entire crowd that appreciates the nostalgic contribution this one (and its two sequels) had to the horror movie canon, for the remake is truly a labor of love.

Short plot description? New Orleans Halloween party set in a house where it was said a demon summoning went wrong and the hostess hung herself rather than be possessed by the summoned.  Here we are decades later and the local party girl has rented the empty place for her Halloween night event.  And to the party, she has invited the big boobed bimbos who are to be our main characters.  And their boyfriends and a few incidental characters.  They find the corpses of the afore mentioned demon summoners and through typical accident, start the summoning all over again.

Its actually somewhat a cute movie, wearing its homage and the heritage of its makers on its sleeve.  The movie is by the people you see at all the horror cons, the collection of 20sumthins and 30sumthins who love scream queens, splashing blood and monster makeup.  One of the stars cut her teeth on Freedy vs Jason while a background actor (Linnea Quigley) is from the original, while Edward Furlong is sad and tired looking and almost playing his real age.  The demons are over the top, top-of-their-class makeup effects and the protagonists actually respond in somewhat logical manners.  This is not good horror but definitely worth a Halloween movie night marathon.