The Demon (1981)

Waste of time

Sorry, this movie sucks

Memorable, crazy movie

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

After home invasion and kidnapping of a young girl an older couple decides to hire a mystic(Cameron Mitchell)with extrasensory perception to find missing child.There is also demonic strangler on the loose,who kills some victims and stalks a nursery school teacher."The Demon" is "Halloween" clone from South Africa.The climax resembles John Carpenter's dark house stalk with the exception of the Strode-like blonde teacher running topless in panties around the house and locking herself in the bathroom to finally defeat her masked stalker with a pair of scissors."The Demon" is slow-moving and lacks suspense and gore.Still it's watchable enough to give it 6 out of 10.

The Demon really doesn't have much going for it. The lighting is awful, dialogue is ridiculous in some spots, and some things in it just make no sense (you've got to love the random shots of waves crashing onto rocks).At least at the beginning there's something slightly different going on. The killer kidnaps a family's daughter and so they enlist the help of a psychic gifted with ESP (Cameron Mitchell). Now, I'd like to think that Mitchell is a good actor but it's really hard to judge when he's given ridiculous things to do and say ("I get feelings sometimes. Vibes, as the kids might say.")Sure, it's not very good at all, but the least they could have done was not abandon this part of the story. Cameron and the kidnapping plot end up almost being dropped completely, leading us to the story that takes over the rest of the film.Ever hear the one about the guy in the white mask who stalks some girls?Yeah, that happens here too. To be fair, this portion isn't as bad despite being a blatant ripoff. The girls are decent at acting and serve the dual purpose of being easy on the eyes. There's a few suspenseful scenes and the climax isn't all that bad despite being completely wacky. That doesn't make up for everything else, though. In the end, The Demon mostly just provides moments of boredom and stupidity.

Wow, I have never disagreed more with the reviewers on this site. This movie is excellent. Not in a so-bad-it's-good way; it's just flat-out one of the best horror films ever. Though billed as a straight-up slasher film, this one has a lot of things going on beneath the surface that make it rise beyond the mediocrity of the late-70's-era slasher genre. I believe this should actually be referred to as an under-the-radar giallo gem rather than lump it in with your Freddy Kreugers and Jason Vorhees and other slasher joke characters.A lot of the problem people seem to have with this movie involves the non-reveal of who the demon is. Well, I'm about to reveal to you all the startling answer to this question: the demon is, in fact, the DEMON. .. that's the whole point of the movie! That's who he is! He's the demon! He's the personification of evil. Questioning his motivations is silly; it's obvious what he wants to do -- he wants to kill people. The movie never reveals why or where the demon came from, but does it really matter? Let me just say that he came from Flint, Michigan and he is killing people because Pee Wee Herman drank the last Faygo; does that make the movie better for everyone? Anyway, what's interesting to me about this movie is the mood it creates. The movie is very dark, but it's never so dark you can't tell what's going on. It's not like the whole movie is filmed in the woods with no light or something. The darkness is important to the movie and that combined with the music creates a mood that is rarely ever seen in horror films. The "hero" of the film, the character with ESP, is a great actor and it's even more shocking what happens to him.The kill scenes are great, and I always took the character of the demon seriously. This film isn't played for laughs at all; yet at the same time, it's not so ridiculously gory, brutal, and mean-spirited that you can't have any fun watching this. Artfully shot, genuinely creepy, a perfect length, well-acted, full of surprises, great pacing, and a hot teacher running around in just her panties: honestly, what's not to like? HIGHLY recommended. For fans of movies like "Bell from Hell" and "Don't Go in the House".(As a side note, everyone I've ever showed this movie to has liked it. Strange. Different strokes, I guess?)

DEMON, THE (1979) 1/2 (out of four) A small town is terrorized by a monster who appears to be killing people so that he can suck their blood out. Poor Cameron Mitchell plays some sort of psychic but there isn't a single thing in this movie that makes sense. I've read a couple reviews on the film and even they don't make any sense out of this "horror" movie, which forgot the horror, the scares and the gore. Off topic but poor Mitchell would spend the rest of the decade appearing in this low budget films. Others of interest is FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND, MEMORIAL DAY MASSACRE and JACK-O.