Night of the Demons (2009) – Review

Where to watch Night of the Demons

3 Stars

Maddie (Monica Keena) and her two friends are headed out to the Halloween bash of the decade, thrown by Angela (Shannon Elizabeth) and hosted at the notorious Broussard Mansion in New Orleans. Over eighty years ago during a party six people vanished from the house and its owner, Evangeline Broussard, hung herself. Colin (Edward Furlong) joins the party hoping to make a killing off selling drugs to the partiers. He’s just come from his dealer, who’s giving him one night to double his money or die. Maddie’s friends run into two guys they know and the party moves into full swing. Quickly the cops show up and shut it down, leaving the seven twenty-somethings alone in the house. They stumble upon a secret door in the basement and find several dead bodies there. But these aren’t your normal dead bodies, they’re possessed by demons! One by one our heroes fall as the demons take over their bodies. Can they be stopped, or will they be successful in their plight to take over the world?

Night of the Demons is a remake of a 1988 horror film of the same name. This is one of the few 80’s remakes that’s actually decent. It keeps a lot of the things about the original that made it fun and translates them into a more modern film. This is a campy flick that is oddly overtly sexual. The main way the demons get into human bodies is through acts of sex, but this is a horror film so most of these sexual encounters don’t end well. As such there is a bit of nudity and lesbianism here.

Gorehounds will enjoy the special effects. The demon makeup is pushed to the extremes but does make each character unique. They all have different ways of taking down human prey, such as tentacles that come out of breasts to grab unsuspecting victims. There’s also plenty of blood here, both in the kills and as gross out effects (bleeding walls).

Overall the plot is well worked out, this is a simple movie, but at least there are setups and payoffs throughout. The only complaint I have about the plot is the unused setup of Colin’s drug dealer telling him he’d kill him no matter what crazy thing happened that stopped him from selling the drugs. I would have liked to have explored that ending – what would Colin have been capable of doing to his dealer after going through all of this? Having veteran actors also helps this picture quite a bit. No stilted performances or stiff dialogue deliveries.

Overall I enjoyed the gore, scares and fun in Night of the Demons and would recommend it to those with a stomach for blood, guts and sex.

Director: Adam Gierasch
Stars: Monica Keena, Edward Furlong, Shannon Elizabeth