The Demon Lover (1977)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Good movie but grossly overrated

Absolutely the worst movie.

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Try as they might, no-budget filmmakers working on DV just can't seem to capture this level of sordid, inept fun! THE DEMON LOVER has it all: Bad acting, lousy writing, murky camera work, a ridiculous-looking rubber monster, a little skin (not much), a little blood (not much), characters named after comic-book professionals, and a surprisingly accurate look at what a lot of fringe-type folks were like in the late 1970s. Yep, tasteless and stupid as the movie is, and awful as the people in it act and look, you really could've met people like the cultists in THE DEMON LOVER at the time! They might not have been devil worshippers who ended up facing their lord and master in person, but they still existed (and they're still out there with their, uh, lifestyles). BTW, the final confrontation between the ex-cultists and their blowhard former master is priceless: Watch for the crossbow bolt! And don't miss the big karate demo in the middle; it's truly the stuff of '70s I'm-so-cool wanking. A cruddy drive-in flashback par excellence.

When I first encountered THE DEMON LOVER I despised it and posted a bomb movie review -- three stars, which from me is pretty grim news -- but have since come to know & respect the film more over a few more viewings and a little more time. Also a little more familiarity with the whole low budget indie American horror scene from the 1970s, of which THE DEMON LOVER is actually a pretty competent example. I might even say I've sort of developed an affinity to it, partly due to some of the behind the camera talent responsible for the film.Namely Dennis and Robert Skotak, whom literally EVERYBODY has seen the work of by now. You'd have to be someone like my mom to not have seen TERMINATOR 2 or ALIENS or any of the dozens of high profile huge budget entertainments the Skotak's helped to visualize as production designers & creators of visual effects. They were nothing short of pioneers in the realm of science fiction horror action cinema and this is their first feature movie. They made the Demon costume with the glowing lights who looks like the bass player from Gwar, the gore effects, magic effects sequences and likely shot the gory still photos used in the film's police procedural subplot.In 1978 they may have just been a couple of talented punks looking to channel their creativity, but soon after THE DEMON LOVER was released they got jobs working at Roger Corman's New World studios, came into contact with another Corman employee named James Cameron, and worked with him on ALIENS, TERMINATOR 2 and TITANIC. Pwned! And co-director Donald G. Jackson went on to an illustrious career as a B movie maverick, producing the riotous HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN amongst other amphibiously themed schlock delights. Great things come from the most unlikely places sometimes.The one lesson I have learned over the years by studying low budget filmmaking is that you can't fault a movie for being made when it was & under the conditions it was made. That's not fair. However it came about they made the film and merely contrasting it unfavorably to other more well known or successful examples of the form doesn't get anyone anywhere. In it's own way THE DEMON LOVER is just as amusing & clever as other films of its like; CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS, BLOOD SABBATH, and ENTER THE DEVIL come to mind.It doesn't have the scope of THE DEVIL'S RAIN nor the thrills per minute ratio of RACE WITH THE DEVIL but instead tries to pay more attention to the occult angle without a large scale production getting in the way. Christmas Robbins is effective as the wannabe warlock who actually manages to evoke Mephistopholes even though nobody seems to believe him, and Tom Hutton does a better job as the polyester jacketed homicide cop assigned to a slew of murders than I recall from sitting through the film first time out. His baffled expressions are non-acting on the highest order.The film's greatest claim to fame is the presence of horror icon Gunnar Hansen as "Professor Peckinpah" in the film's most outrageous appropriation of names for it's characters. There's also a Frazetta, a Romero, and I believe I heard the name Leone at one point. The delivery of the film is just as unsubtle as the appropriation of names and its charm lies not so much in the execution as it does in the reckless abandon in the creative act at work here. The film has clumsy little homages to Dirty Harry movies & spaghetti westerns, and even manages to work in a bizarre little splatter bloodbath ending that seems to have been inspired by TAXI DRIVER.Sure, it's low budget kitsch really, a point I missed the first time through when expecting the film to be as straight up as it looked. There's a decided lack of artistry to the cinematography but an abundance of energy that makes up for it. If nothing else here's a chaotic little bit of mayhem for aspiring filmmakers to study to see how to make a passable little horror movie on the ultra cheap. These guys were determined to see the film as they were able to make it right then & there, and it actually does amount to an absorbing hour or so for fans of this kind of material. Perfect drive-in movie nonsense.And for the record I've encountered three different forms of this movie so far. Unicorn Video has the standard fullscreen version running just 70 minutes but it turns out there's some graphic carnage removed from it's print and some of its dialog scenes have been shortened. Severin Films apparently copped a Unicorn tape for their DVD presentation, which is to be expected I guess, and my verdict is to avoid it & get the real thing. Then there's another North American tape titled COVEN that has some footage removed from the very beginning but more of the gore clipped out of Unicorn's print, and also comes it at just around 70 minutes fullscreen with a rougher picture quality than Unicorn. But the real gem is a British made pre-cert PAL format tape running 72 minutes in a widescreen 1:85:1 ratio with all of the mayhem intact. Worth tracking down.5/10

Under-the-barrel raunch involving the usual wild-for-kicks teens...this time around they're a strange mottle resembling old-school Black Sabbath fans, and their audacious dabblings in black magic parenthetically unharness an ancient bloodthirsty demon. This financially underprivileged drive-in bombast is a showboat of laughably deficient capacities...not for one meteoric instant is DEMON LOVER indicative of professional contribution to any aspect of its barnyard production. Even by the casual standards of 70s era drive-in trash it's a wondrous botch, and a veritable Faberge Egg for any fan of golden-age filmschlock. Interestingly, the dubious "mountain in labor" origins of this celluloid poopstain were the subject of DEMON LOVER DIARY, a spectacular film-document which is cardinal viewing for anyone interested in the bizarre universe of impecunious ground-level movie-making. 3.5/10

When I saw this film I could have guessed that it came out on Trauma video instead of New Horizons and directed by Alan Ornsby. This movie has more of an early 80'e feel to it with the synthasized music and bad acting and I was surprised to see it made otherwise . Anyway, a cult of people resembling the looks of early Metallica, King Diamond (without his makeup) and Frank Zappa along with a chunky nerdy looking annoying guy get themselves involved in a satanic cult lead by a man that calls up this rubber looking demon that goes around killing people when he conjures him up and leaves a trail of dead bodies behind as the police investigate the killings and try to find the leader of this cult. The scene of when all the members kill each other is laughable, I couldn't stop laughing, in fact the whole movie is funny with it's terrible acting and terrible cast, terrible plot and the actors speak their lines so bad it's like they are reading from a cue card and their voices are dubbed. Please avoid this one!