Night of the Demons (2009)



OK, so I took a couple days off from the Ringmaster’s Realm as I continue to work on finding a happy medium with writing and such. Honestly, I seem to be having some moments of creativity, but do not seem to be able to get everything aligned to capitalize on them. Well, that is enough rambling… The next flick up is the 2009 remake (really???) of Night of the Demons.


Plot/ A group of kids go to a Halloween party, only to have to face down a group of demons.


This maybe themed a remake, but that is in name alone, as it falls far from the originals tree. In actuality, this is more of a re-interpretation of the 1987 cult classic, and one that really does not hit home and is just another member of the uninspired horror genre that seem out to make a buck. A low budget B movie at best, this one does have many of the staples that drive those, complete with hot chicks, some blood and some potential. Unfortunately, there is also the ill-fated scripting, lack of atmosphere, overuse of CGI, uneven acting and poor characterization that more times than not plague low budget entries. Honestly, there are times where the hot chicks and nudity can make up for the flaws of a low budget flick, but this is not one of those. In the end, this one does have a couple entertaining moments (the silent film at the beginning) but those are rare. Stay away…

Comments

  1. Nope.

    And I'll tell you why the remake in this case was better than not only the original film but the entire trilogy....

    The first was poorly paced, had terrible dialogue, the awful Linnea Quigley who couldn't act her way out of a wet paper bag, a couple of good effects (including the random lipstick in the boob trick which made no sense to anyone at all), horribly angry characters, a very annoying strobe light (twice), and the only decent looking girl in it was Cathy Podewell.

    The second, well, it was all over the place and didn't know whether to be a straight horror or a teen comedy. Not one character was believable unless they were escapees from a mental asylum. As for overused CGI, what about the boobs turning into hands or the lipstick snake at the end? What a shark-jumping piece of crap.

    The third one was at least mercifully short although it had some good characters and a more serious feel to it overall. Patricia Rodriquez was hot as Abbie and there was some pathos with the retired cop (albeit a trope).

    The remake took all the best elements from the trilogy and the worst, including the "hot chicks" (but replaced them with actual hot ones: Monica Keena, Shannon Elizabeth, Bobbie Sue Luther and Diora Baird. I don't include Tiffany Shepis because she does nothing for me.), made more of that stupid lipstick trick, took the cat from the second and the catgirl(s) from the third. It looked great (apart from one annoying handheld shot with the final trio), the sets really looked the part, had wittier dialogue, and it had real actors in it not just B movie wannabes. Even though it kept the uneven quality of the trilogy and went for the light-hearted approach it took all the important scenes, made them modern and did them better. The faux lesbian kissing scenes (and other seductions), the nudity, the sex, the gore, the horror...especially the horror.

    There were some great effects. Quite a lot of them were practical not CGI. The characterisation was much better. It even had a plot which didn't feel made up as it went along.

    The main problem with any of the Night of the Demons films is simply that none of them are scary. That would be the only reason to tell somebody to "stay away" from a horror film not because you're stuck in an '80s nostalgia crisis thinking that the original was so much better.

    The 1988 version was a piece of crap like all of Kevin Tenney's movies. Yeah, it made three times its budget but it was had a pretty large budget for something which looked so cheap and was actually equivalent to the remake if you work out the inflation.

    The remake was far slicker and very clever indeed because not only did it not try to be a better film than any of the others but actually intentionally tried to be identical to them including their flaws. The only place it went wrong was that it couldn't turn out to be that crappy in the hands of a better director and its overall production values were a little bit too good.

    I think you missed all these details in favour of predictably bitching about a remake. This was not a remake "in name alone", it was a true remake in every way possible.

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  2. Thanks for your insight.

    Actually, I have only seen the original a couple of times and am not one who thinks it is great either (although many do).

    In fact, I was so turned off by the original, I have never watched any of the sequels that it spawned. Because of that, I watched this as a stand-alone piece.

    However, now that I have learned about the connections, I will have to check those out and then rewatch this one, as it may make some more sense.

    Thanks again...

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