Night of the Demons (1988)

Absolutely brilliant

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Blistering performances.

After numerous friends telling me how great this Halloween flick was, I checked on IMDb to see its rating. With a score of 6.3, I assumed that it must be pretty darn good. I was wrong. Sooooooooo wrong! As I began to endure this exercise in horrible acting, horrible directing, horrible script writing, and not great special effects, I began to wonder if it was the wrong movie. I paused the movie and asked fellows horror fiends, and found out no it was the movie that they had raved of to me. I continued to watch this until about the hour mark hoping it would get better. But noooooooo it did not! I finally turned this mess off. I'm so confused as to how anyone with horror chops could find this some masterpiece? I warn you my friends to skip this one! It's badddddddddd on every level. I've seen better acting and scripts in cat food commercials. It's that bad.

I am a connoisseur of bad horror movies from the 1980s, but this one is sadly lacking even by those standards. The dreary dialogue, made worse by appalling acting, with everyone grimacing and grinding out their lines by rote like automatons, were simply too much to bear. These performances are of the quality you might find in a high school drama production. Even worse, it lacked action, ignoring an unwritten rule for this sort of film: there simply must be a killing, maiming or supernatural occurrence during the first ten minutes. That doesn't happen here. The early scares are limited to silliness such as someone's little brother popping out of a closet shouting "Boo!" If you're 12 years old and willing to watch almost anything on TV while babysitting for your next door neighbors, you might find this acceptable. As for me, I tried to watch it but had to turn it off after 10 minutes. It was so stupid I couldn't stand any more.

Getting asked by a US-based friend if there were any guests at a Horror film fest that he was to attend that I would a signed photo from,I noticed that along with Brad Dourf,legendary "scream queen" Linnea Quigley was to attend the event.With another friend being a collector of signed film stars photos,I decided to sort out a signed photo of Quigley for him.Despite having heard of her for years,I have not got round to seeing any Quigley Horrors! With the photo being a still of the famous "lipstick" scene ,I felt that it was time that I finally spent a night out with the demons.The plot:Planning to attend their high-school Halloween dance,a gang suddenly receive an invitation to attend a party being held at a disused funeral home,which legend has it is built on Indian burial ground.Enetering the building,the gang find nothing but disused coffins in the building.Opening their cans of beer & partying,one member of the gang decides that it would be fun to hold a séance.Finding a large mirror,the group begin to take part in the séance,which will lead to them discovering the "fun" hidden within the walls of the funeral parlour.View on the film:Entering the movie bent over a shopping aisle, (which the camera stays focused on for a good while) Linnea Quigley gives a delicious performance as high-school rebel Suzanne,with Quigley giving Suzanne perfect shots of flirty sass,and a lip-curling grin,as Suzanne reveals her demon bite.Backed by a creepy score from his brother Dennis Michael Tenney,director Kevin Tenney and cinematographer David Lewis splash every penny of the titles low budget across the screen,with Tenney and Lewis using rapid,well- handled floating shots to show the closed-in corners of the funeral parlour,and also create a tense atmosphere of a deadly evil being in the air.Spreading eye-gauging's and mucus-spewing demons across the movie,Tenney and Lewis show an excellent amount of focus in using a long lens,which allows for the superbly designed demons to slowly creep up on the viewer.Whilst Tenney and Lewis do well in attempting to give the film a fast-pace feel,the screenplay by Joe Augustyn sadly slows their sprint down,due to Augustyn spending far too long on releasing the simple set-up,which leads to the demons flames burning out before they have had a chance to really burn.

A bunch of friends get an invitation from Angela (Kinkade) to attend a Halloween party at Hull House a possessed building and formal funeral home. After each character shows you what a complete asshole they are, some jerk suggests a séance. Soon after they start becoming slobbering demons and turn each other into demons. Director Kevin S. Tenney proved he can make a scary low budget horror film with "Witchboard" but this one keeps missing the mark despite having a decent set up. The elements are all present, Halloween night, a possessed ex funeral home and demons, how did they mess it up? Screenwriter Joe Augustyn delivers such annoying and unlikable characters you could care less what happens to them. The dialog is mostly pitiful and the movie never gets serious enough to be scary. Steve Johnson delivers some nice make up and gore but it is wasted on the lousy plotting. Not near enough is made of it being Halloween which could have really helped the atmosphere. The movie is lit very harshly with Director of Photography David Lewis just washing out the darkness with overflowing light that kills most of the outdoor scenes. The movie has a cult following which I can't figure out why?