Night of the Demons '09

Hey, bitches! You ready for a wild Halloween?!?!


What?! You worked at Taco Bell! That is awesome!

The Broussard Mansion. A suicidal hanging that leads to a decapitation a long time ago. New Orleans circa 2009. Angela is throwing a wild party at this mansion and not only are a lot of "the hot ones" descending upon this shindig...some demons might drop by as well. Angela wants her congregation of celebrators of excess to let it all go, debauchery to the fullest, but the police show up to halt the festivities, with a lot of the partyers hitting the bricks, a small few who weren't able to leave for whatever reason (...looking for friend passed out, waiting for the fuzz to disperse to retrieve tossed drugs, etc.) about to face the evil that lives within. Down in the lower bowels of the mansion is a hidden room.

Edward Furlong is a drug dealer, Collin, needing to score some major green for his supplier is not happy with him. Collin calls everyone "dude", even Angela who helps him try to find his supply, tossed in a furnace that leads to the basement area which is reputed to house rooms left over from Prohibition. "Hey, guys...there are bodies in the basement!" Angela says with radiating excitement.

I have the give the film credit...I can't recall off the top a moment where a skeleton bite caused an infection of evil demonic possession, but I went with it. I was in the right mood for such lunacy. Then you get a demon kiss (after two of the girls and two of the guys swap spit) that spreads it from Angela to another, so on and so forth.

A good deal of the film deals with Collin, Jason (the hilariously animated John F Beach), and Collin's former flame, Maddie (Monica Keena, a definite sight for sore eyes) trying to find a way out of the mansion, scared shit-less, and arguing back and forth while filling every sentence with "fuck" or "fucking". The film could be called "No Exit" because the gate remains locked (no ideas about possibly using something to knock it open?) and every possible method for escape seems pursued.

The demons of this film are as "so badass", they "couldn't even follow hell's rules". That's right the demons of this night wanted Satan's power (I find this a funny play on Satan's desire to be God and being denounced from Heaven to roam the Earth) and were sentenced to wherever, the mansion of this film their place of confinement unless seven people are possessed. This frees them.

You have the woman who committed suicide named Evangeline (the lady who is featured in the silent clip with the man she desired, used a spell (she thought was a love spell) to gain his love which turned out to be used by the demons to gain entry into our world, took control of a group that came with the man she desired, but could not gain access to Evangeline because she took a neck noose flight that ended with her head decapitated by the rope; I think I covered it all here, but Monica done so with a funnier look of "I can't believe this is happening to me?" on her face that sells this malarkey a bit more amusingly) and her story told to us after the trio discover the "black magic room" where all the spells and incantations are written all over the walls (hidden under a poor excuse of a paint job).

 "So....we're the only thing standing between them and the end of the world? That's awesome."

Furlong delivers this with a sense of sarcasm that speaks, "Great. Just great." All I know is I never want to see demons making out ever again.

The horror screenwriting team of Jace Anderson and (director) Adam Gierasch (responsible for writing Tobe Hooper's Toolbox Murders and Dario Argento's Mother of Tears) offer a playful and out of control movie with a cast that know exactly what they've gotten themselves into. While I could give or take this movie, seeing a blood-drenched (blood-dried) Monica Keena, packing heat with rusty nails (rust seems to hurt the demons since they are from "the natural elements") loaded in shut gun shells, cocking it before uttering with stone cold defiance, "Come and get me, mutherfukers" doesn't bother me at all.

"Demons. Not so smart."

Well, this movie does have a face being taken off thanks to demon teeth, breasts bursting open long appendages, girls kissing (including Monica Keena engaged in a nice bit of lip lock with Bobbi Sue Luther), and Diora Baird dressed as a slutty cat. I can't really complain too much. Particularly since Bobbi Sue's boobs, barely able to stay inside her corset, finally get pulled from their hold by a demonic Angela (once she's full blown demon, Shannon Elizabeth's time in the film is brief) ready to chow down.

The soundtrack has a lot of those obnoxious booms and bangs that happen when mirror cabinets are open and shut and industrial rock blaring away when the demons (rarely seen on screen for any length of time; unfortunately Gierasch is of the directorial school who can't keep the damn camera still...) pop their heads up momentarily from a feast, scaling up and down walls (when they aren't collapsing old walls with holes due to superior Hulk-like "bam"/"smash" arm strength), or shaking their heads really, really fast at a dizzying speed for whatever reason. These demons would feel at ease in the underground cavern of the Firefly family in House of 1000 Corpses.

It is what it is. Keena. Man, I can really spend a movie with her. I won't spend time comparing remake to original. I will say that the lipstick scene in this movie feels forced (as if Jace and Adam felt obligated as a peace offering to fans of the original) while its out-of-the-blue strangeness seems right at home in the original. I did appreciate allowing Quigley to have an early cameo (..in that old ballerina suit no less, although she bent over in front of a couple of little girls which felt a bit icky), but the demon make-up lacks the personality of the original (..although, the demon with the skull-face was grotesquely impressive). Furlong doesn't seem to be going through the motions in this film, and he actually looks to be having fun. I'm not sure what it was but the setting in the original just felt more atmospheric and eerie than the Boussard Mansion which felt liked dressed sets. Still seeing Furlong fall through multiple floors, his leg with a broken protruding bone, felt kind of special...