Black Demons (1991)

Too much of everything

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Ah, Umberto...what happened here? This man gave us Ghosthouse and House of Lost Souls and to a lesser extent House of Witchcraft, all fairly enjoyable late eighties Italian horror films, so what happened here? Is it because he didn't put the word 'house' in the titles? What we have is three folks,a girl and her boyfriend and her weird brother out on holiday in Brazil. Soon enough her brother picks up a copy of Now That's What I Call Voodoo Rituals VOL8 and before you know it six black demons are all up looking for The Fog type revenge on the white guy.Sounds good, right? Well, it takes a long time before anything good starts happening, as these zombie/demon/slave types just seem to like standing around brandishing stuff. About fifty minutes in roughly things pick up a bit as the zombies make themselves known and there a bit of this and that with the killing and what not.By no means a lost Lenzi classic, this is a poor low budget mess that somehow still makes a lot more sense than anything Fulci was producing at the time. I would have paid money for this in the past, but I'm glad that it's there on YouTube to watch. The Lenzi-man (after whom the Scottish town of Lenzie is named) did much better.

I'm pleased to add this little Cubic Zirconia to my collection of gems. The plot is almost non-existent, the characters incredibly one-dimensional, but despite that, it was a good effort. It was obvious that at least some research on Candomble was done, and the ritual scene was amazingly well-crafted. The "Black Demons" themselves had great make-up, and the few gory scenes there were left little to be desired. Now, we come to the meat of it all: the acting. In a word, terrible. This isn't a film to be taken seriously anyway, but the unintentional comedy is everywhere. From accents that randomly disappear, accents too thick to understand, and the eye-bulging freak-outs of the maid, this is one film that's worth seeing in spite of itself. Get some friends together,pop this in, and have some laughs.

Demons part three?!? How many parts three are there in this series? I thought "The Ogre" was supposed to be part three? Ah hell, who cares! And come to think of it, this one is a much more reminiscent successor for the series, as "The Ogre" revolved on … well … an ogre! The demons in "Demons 3" technically aren't demons, neither, but at least more demonic than ogres. Is anyone still following the logic here? No, didn't think so. "Demons", ladies and gentlemen, is the franchise infamous for NOT featuring anything even remotely resembling a storyline or tension-building, just buckets and buckets of gore! For this third venture into the universe of horribly nauseating demon-terror, Umberto Lenzi (taking over the director's seat from his pal Lamberto Bava) admirably attempted to come up with a slightly more ambitious screenplay. It's of little use, however, because the incoherence and senselessness begins to show within the first twenty minutes already. Five young persons (tourists? Scientists? Anthropology students?) become involved in South American voodoo practices, and without much further ado the mansion where they're staying is overrun by hideous black zombies craving for flesh and blood. You can say a lot about Italian horror directors, but not that they're discriminating anyone. The zombies in part three are resurrected black slaves with their minds set on vengeance, even if this means extracting it nearly a whole century overdue. Enough about the absent intellectual values and deeper morals of "Demons", let's just talk about what really matters: Gore! The make-up effects are awesome, plentiful and nauseating enough to make even the strongest stomachs churn. The first mentionable gory scene shows a girl (thankfully the worst actress of them all) who's eyeball is ripped out of the socket nice and not-so-clean! The image is so sickening that it would even make Lucio "The Eyeball Master" Fulci himself proud and emotional. The great gore also serves another purpose, namely to distract you from the painfully awful acting performances, the amateurish dialogs and the horrid cliché-sayings like "We're on the threshold of the 21st Century. Do you really expect us to believe in Voodoo". Yuck! The make-up on the zombies is particularly terrific. Please note how I keep talking about zombies instead of about demons, because that's what they are! Dead folks emerging from their graves and decomposing further as they slowly and aimlessly totter along. Actual demons, like the ones in Bava's previous two films, are hyperactive and unstoppable creatures from hell itself. Not intending to give a lecture here, just pointing out fairly important and relevant details. Now that we're splitting hairs anyway, the script repeatedly speaks of six cursed black slaves but the DVD cover depicts seven friendly fellas! And did you know you can only be 100% sure that a girl went missing if at least two pairs of shoes remained behind?

Possible Spoilers (not that it matters)I am used to some bad acting in B-horror movies, but this one really did a great job finding terrible actors. The lines are delivered in an absolutely wooden manner, obviously momentarily memorized shortly before filming. The worst by far is Jessica, "you. killed. Jose. didn't. you. He. found. out. about. you. Answer. me." <delivered in a monotone like a robot>. On top of that, she has a really big butt! Her brother is a complete joke, what a terrible actor. You have to see the incredibly bad attempt to kill his sister. He makes this really pathetic lunge at her with an axe, while she just goes through the motions of her saying her lines; "Noooo! You're. my. brother! <run away and fake fall down>" Terrible, just terrible.One thing that wasn't bad was the eerie music. And the actual production quality isn't bad either, the scenes of Brazil are pretty interesting. You just won't believe the acting. Wait until one scene where Jessica's boyfriend Kevin is attacked by the zombies. These are the slowest moving zombies on the planet. Yet when they attack, the victims just cringe, stand there, and are resigned to their fate. Instead of simply running away, Kevin ducks under the blade, but remains in place, dancing around the slow zombie blows. It would have been so easy to leisurely jog away, he wasn't even surrounded. It's almost like he is doing his best to make it look exciting but just can't pull it off. And Jose's death! Hahahaha! What a riot! You can clearly see him breathing when he is supposed to be dead. The whole movie was so fake it was worse than professional wrestling!And yet they made an effort to really play up the voodoo aspect, the ceremony was well done, the music was good, it was simply the cheesiest acting in film history. Oh and one more thing, these zombies explode if they get near an open flame. Even pouring gasoline on them doesn't just make them burn, it makes them go up like Hiroshima. Hilarious!Too bad. 2/10