DVD...

Skin...

1985/1986
Directed by: Lamberto Bava
Written by: Dario Argento, Lamberto Bava
Produced by: Dario Argento
Studio: DACFILM Rome

Starring (Demons):
Urbano Barberini | Natasha Hovey | Karl Zinny | Fiore Argento | Paola Cozzo | Fabiola Toledo | Nicoletta Elmi | Michele Soavi |

Starring (Demons 2):
David Edwin Knight | Nancy Brilli | Coralina Cataldi Tassoni | Bobby Rhodes | Asia Argento | Virginia Bryant | Anita Bartolucci | Antonio Cantafora |

I'm reviewing Demons and Demons 2 (aka Demoni and Demoni 2) together because they are very similar movies made a year apart by mostly the same people. They were written by legendary director and writer Dario Argento along with Lamberto Bava, the son of the late, great director Mario Bava. Dario also produced both movies and Lamberto directed both movies. They were both filmed in Italy and made to look like an American city. They were both filmed in English with decent dubbing for the most part. They both very much celebrate the 80's both in music and fashion. And they are both very gory with lots of blood, puss and splatter.

Demons starts out with a strange man with a partial mask made out of metal riding around on roller skates passing out invitations to a horror movie at the reopening of some old theater. At the start of the movie the theater is about half full and the story on the screen is about teenagers who discover some old graveyard and a mask that turns one of them into zombies which starts the whole "If you get bitten by a zombie you turn into a zombie" thing. A girl attending the movie with a friend and their bald headed pimpish/he-man/studley-man type date is in the lobby and tries on a mask that is part of a lobby promotional prop for the film. She gets pricked by something sharp in the mask and it draws a little blood. After they sit down she notices some blood on her cheek and goes to the bathroom to clean up. In the bathroom she changes into a zombie and this starts the whole chain. After awhile there are zombies running around everywhere and the non-zombies left in the theater are trapped because the doors are inexplicably chained shut. Since there is no escape they have to resort to fighting and of course it is just a matter of time before they are slowly picked off. At one point towards the end some zombies make it outside and while we don't see it, a whole apocalypse type zombie movement starts in the city. The few characters that make it out of the theater alive get in a jeep and are headed for the hills away from the zombies.

In Demons 2, the setting is in a high rise apartment building and instead of the zombie movie being shown on a screen, it is being shown on the television. There are several different character plots occurring at the same time with the common theme that they all have a zombie movie playing on the TV. Somehow a demon comes out of the TV and starts to wreak havoc. Once again, before too long, the non-zombie people are grouped together and fighting for their lives. Asia Argento makes her first movie appearance in Demons 2 as a little girl fascinated by the zombie movie. This film does branch out a little bit from the first in that the demons have taken over a TV studio and are somehow transmitting their zombieness over the airwaves. Hey, it could happen! There was a little more money for Demons 2 and it shows in the makeup. While the first movie was a little more disgusting, this one has slightly better effects.

One of the funnest parts (or most painful depending on viewpoint) is the 80's music and styles in both films. Dead Can Dance, Billy Idol, Motley Crue, Rick Springfield and other make the soundtrack seem like a Time/Life 80's disk. The bright pastels and skinny ties worn by the actors also give it a very 80's look.

You can buy the movies separately or as part of the Anchor Bay's 2 disk set "Dario Argento Collection 2: Demons / Demons 2". This is the copy I owned (but sold on ebay) and has a commentary by director Dario Argento, special effects make-up effects artist Sergio Stivaletti, music composer Claudio Simonetti and journalist Loris Curci. There is also a behind the scenes segment and trailers. Both films are displayed in 1.66:1 and look and sound great.