After watching and reviewing Demons yesterday, I was extremely excited to watch the sequel, once again directed by Lamberto Bava. I had no idea where they’d go with the sequel, but I was confident that if it was anything like the first film, it’d be great. While Demons 2 was very similar, the few differences that it displayed managed to take some of the terror away, in turn diminishing a lot of the enjoyment I got out of its predecessor.
Various tenants in a building are watching a television show about a group of people searching for ancient demon remains. The youngsters accidentally resurrect the evil and after they are taken care of, the demon finds a way through the television screen of birthday girl, Sally (Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, Mother of Tears), spreading the contagion and starting the demon outbreak all over again.
Like the original Demons, Demons 2 starts off with a film inside of the film. This time, however, the worlds are connected in a supernatural way and the demon is able to transport from the fake world to the real world. This type of cross dimension travel kind of made me snicker, but I didn’t want to dismiss the film all together just yet. It wasn’t until later that I felt the greatness of the first had been lost. Too much silliness took place for my liking, including a tiny demon creature that looked like something that should have been in the Gremlins films. In addition to this, I felt that there was almost too much going on; instead of one group of people being locked in a theater, there were various groups throughout the building that we kept revisiting. It was kind of annoying to flip back and forth between characters so much and took away from the claustrophobic and secluded feeling of the first film.
While I didn’t enjoy this movie as much, it did still have some positives. The great looking practical effects were back in Demons 2 and this time things were a little better. The deaths weren’t as creative, no eye-gouging or scalping this time around, but the addition of a demon dog and child made up for that. Seeing the child creature squeezing himself through the tiny door opening was one of the freakiest things I’ve seen in a while and the dog transformation scene was pretty gnarly to watch.
The acting was on par with the first film, which was expected. Oddly enough, some actors from the first film returned to the sequel, but played different characters all together. Lino Salemme who played Ripper the first time around returned as the building’s security officer and Bobby Rhodes, originally Tony the pimp, now played Hank, the trainer and owner of the building’s gym. Also, make sure not to blink or you might miss a young Asia Argento in one of her very first on-screen roles.
Once again, Synapse has done an amazing job restoring picture and audio quality. Everything looks and sounds wonderful with the exception of a few shaky and unfocused shots, which Synapse had no power over, forced to leave the scenes as is. Akin to Demons, you can pick up a movie only Blu-ray of the film or a bonus features heavy Limited Edition Steelbook.
I give Demons 2 3 demon dogs out of 5.
