Demonia (1988) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski) 
The Top Signs of demonic possession or latent homosexuality: 

8. Best-dressed at a Black Mass

7. Conversations with dead mother

6. Head spinning around and around

5. The gift of tongues

4. Fast forwarding through the shower scenes in "women in prison" movies

3. Floating on gossamer wings

2. Saving your ticket stubs to "Cats"

1. Intimate knowledge of forgotten Greek cultures.

 

The demons in Demonia concentrate mostly on forgotten Greek cultures. Frankly, I still don't know what the hell was going on in this movie. Some archeologists were digging in Greek ruins in Sicily, near the ruins of a 15th century convent. Some nuns were crucified at that convent in 1486 because the locals believed they were witches. 

Some people start dying. Maybe it had something to do with the archeologists. Or not. Maybe the female scientist was the re-incarnation of one of the ancient witch-nuns. Or not. 

Beats the shit out of me.

 

My favorite dialogue from Demonia:

 

Policeman: it's been my experience that killers need to leave a unique signature as a way to affirm their self-image

Professor: Well, if that's true, then this crime, cutting off a man's head and impaling it on an anchor, must be the work of a truly deranged mind

Policemen: Possibly, but I don't want to jump to any conclusions.

 

 

This is one disjointed movie. There is one sequence that goes like this: 

male scientist asks to come into female scientist's tent at night

cut

people singing around a campfire, ending with one particularly drunken guy leaning back

cut

male scientist leaves female's tent

cut

dream sequence (we later determine), in which the female sees mysterious ancient rites

cut

the next day - female goes to town to check out ancient archives in the hall of public records, researches her dream

cut

people singing around a campfire, picking up in the exact same spot, with the drunken guy leaning back

 

Could somebody explain all that to me? I guess the scenes were cut back in the wrong order, or perhaps they were supposed to be singing around the campfire two nights in a row, and they just used the exact same footage to represent both nights. I don't know.

There is also a great murder in the film, in which three cute little kitty cats kill an old fortune teller. They show the obvious stunt cats (hand puppets!) jumping at her face, then they show an obviously false kitty paw ripping out her obviously false eyeball, then they cut in pictures of the real kitties just kind of rubbing against her legs, or being dropped from a couple feet in the air to make them appear sort of panicky and not like cute little kitty cats. 

NUDITY REPORT
two of the ancient nuns are seen topless in sex scenes. unfortunately, their demonic rites involved having demure sex under blankets
By the way, they also use hand puppets to create mysterious shadows on the walls of an ancient cave!

Good stuff! If you are terrified by Sheri Lewis and Lambchop and some cute little kitty cats, and if you love phony-baloney religious symbolism, this is your movie.

DVD info from Amazon.

  • Letterboxed, 1.66:1

  • minor features
With the bad dubbing, gratuitous zoom lens, pseudo-romantic musical score, and generally incoherent editing, it could easily be a Jess Franco movie, but it isn't. It was actually directed by Lucio Fulci, who is considered by some to be one of the better directors in the sub-genre of Italian horror/gore. I don't really know much about him (Tuna has done some of his films now and then), but Fulci's top rated horror films, like Don't Torture the Duckling and The Beyond, were created in the 1971-1982 period, and this one came later. I have to think those other films must have a better narrative structure and more creative gore than this dreck, which is both tame and hard to follow, a bad combination for a gore film. 

The Critics Vote

  • no major reviews online

The People Vote ...

IMDb guideline: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence, about like three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, about like two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, about like two stars from the critics. Films under five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film, equivalent to about one and a half stars from the critics or less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, this film is a D or an E. If it were re-dubbed and properly edited, it might be a C- as somewhat subpar European horror/gore film. 

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