One of the many charms of the Lamberto Bava film Demons (1985) is its remarkable vagueness and the multiple eyebrow-raising, preposterous events that occur within. Let's take a look at five things I've been thinking about lately shall we:
1) The Man in Black.
Demons opens up with a girl named Cheryl riding il tram to school. This chick must have smoked some serious dope or something because she's all twitchy, looks super paranoid and is just acting really weird. She doesn't look weird at all, no in fact she looks rather pretty and a bit plain, but all the other weirdos on the train are acting normal. She starts seeing visions of a creepy masked man in the windows and once she finally gets off the train, she starts to feel really uneasy.
There's nobody around, the sound of footsteps and rattling chains are drawing closer and she panics. She runs up the escalator in a desperate flee, when suddenly she's face to face with this creepy dude in a silver half-mask! Cheryl starts twitching and blinking and gasping like Bella as this grim looking fucker just stares piercing right into her eyes. After about a minute of thinking something up to say, he hands her a golden ticket to movie theater called the Metropol.
There's nobody around, the sound of footsteps and rattling chains are drawing closer and she panics. She runs up the escalator in a desperate flee, when suddenly she's face to face with this creepy dude in a silver half-mask! Cheryl starts twitching and blinking and gasping like Bella as this grim looking fucker just stares piercing right into her eyes. After about a minute of thinking something up to say, he hands her a golden ticket to movie theater called the Metropol.
As he silently walks off and starts handing out more tickets to random strangers, she thinks to herself 'Cheryl you dumbass' and runs up to the man. "Can I have another one? It's for a friend of mine, she's waiting for me." The masked man hands her another and tries to leave when she then asks him if he's dressed this way for the promotion of the film. This guy doesn't like to talk much obviously, and just slyly smiles at her before walking away. And that's pretty much the last we see of this guy for the next hour and fifteen minutes.
During her cinema visit, Cheryl becomes acquainted with a guy named George and the two of them form a first date potential like friendship as everyone else in this theater transforms into a grue dripping demon hell spawn. During their inexplicable rooftop escape (more on that later), they seem to be finally out of the imminent dangers when suddenly the masked man approaches once more from behind. He kicks George over and leaves him dangling from the rafters. Cheryl attempts to take the mysterious stranger down and he just swats her away to deal with later.
The man in the iron mask Leonardo Decapitation seems much more intent on toying with George, fucking with him, taunting... playing with his demon food. But why? As the leather clad stalker wastes time grunting with devilish glee as George hangs for dear life, Cheryl reaches high with a sharp pointed grappling hook and stabs Masky right in the back! Wow... that's fucked up. George climbs up and the two of them then hold him down somehow with one side of an iron bar, shoving his face down onto two steel rods and piercing his eyeball, killing the poor messenger from the netherworld.
So then, what's the deal with The Man in Black? Who is he and what is his relation to the Demons? Is he indeed just a "messenger from hell"? Does he work for Satan? What the hell was he doing on the roof the whole time? What is the connection with the mask he's got cemented into his face and the mask from the film and the film within the film? Is this guy the same guy from the movie they're all going to see? If the Man in the Mask is in league with the Demons, why is he different and even more so, how far down does this plague really go?
The masked man never speaks, in fact he only grunts a few times, but his grunts of a demonic nature and definitely not human. He's got style, sophistication and obvious self-control as he doesn't violently lunge at anyone in the film other than George. But that's most likely due to the fact that George had befriended Cheryl, and His Maskedness obviously wanted her all for himself. Why else would he be so thoroughly stalking her, or swat her aside like that in order to take George out just so later he could have his way with her.
I wonder what would have happened if George died at that point and the masked man came face to face with Cheryl again. He's obviously not a Demon, at least not how we know them to be, so how would he assimilate her into his evil world? Would she end up with a half-silver face as well? Or would he just strangle her to death and get is freaky freak on. There must be more to this guy than just luring a large group of people to become Demonic creatures, right? Why else would he still be around at the end when our protagonists try and escape.
If it's his soulless duty to produce gatherings for mass demonic uprisings, why wait up on the rooftop while it all goes down? Shouldn't he be out gathering more people at another location to expand hell's army?! Is he the only messenger out there or are there more like him? Shouldn't he be somewhere else handing out tickets for some other free event that the cheapskates will go for, instead of trying to get Laid? Now that I think about it, there are a lot of people trying to get laid in this movie. Either way you look at this guy, he's a total mystery. But I don't blame him for wanting some of Natasha Hovey.
2) The Usherette.
Ingrid The Usherette is another enigma when it comes to The Metropol. As far as we know, she's the only person who actually works there. Nobody else aside from The Man in the Mask handing out free screener tickets is seen anywhere in the film performing a job in this theater. Hell, there's not even a projectionist in the building as the machines are automatic and run on their own. We're never shown who turns the lights on in the building or loaded the film into the auto-run, but it can be assumed that it was either Ingrid, the masked man or... perhaps the Theater itself?
So how did Ingrid get this job? Did the masked man give it to her? Is she aware of what horrendous events are about to unfold? You see her in the lobby, ripping tickets in half with a sexy sinister smirk on her face. She rips those golden tickets like a demon ripping into the succulent flesh of a delicate human body. She seems to be there just doing her job, offering friendly greetings and nothing more. But when Rosemary the Prostitute puts on a Silver Demon Mask to scare her other whorish friend, the Usherette slowly turns her attention towards her. The look on her face tells the tale of a lustful desire for bloodshed and gore!
She seems oddly satisfied that that whore put that mask on and scratched herself. And later when Rosemary makes her way to the ladies room after her cheek starts bleeding again, she opens the red curtains to find Ingrid there staring her down. Strangely enough though, after that she doesn't again really show any signs that she's part of some evil corporation or even in on the scheme to get the transformations rolling. When all hell breaks loose and the place is in chaos, she even leads a group of people to the projection booth to stop the movie! Then after trying to escape through a pile of chairs, she herself is snatched up and turned into a mindless, drooling demon. Left only to run around scratching more people up and spreading the sickness, while looking a lot less hot.
George eventually fucks her demonic ass to death with a Samurai Sword. Look at the way she was dressed though, hell, she was askin' for it. If she is indeed just a pawn in this game of devilish conjuring, then perhaps her fate all along was to become a demon. After all, who says that being a demon is such a horrible fate? She could have been so in lust with the Devil that she begged him, gargling on her knees to become one of his precious demons. You know how these redheads throw themselves all over the King's Evil. Then again, you never know... she could just be another innocent "victim" in the whole ordeal, which brings me to:
3) The Metropol Theater.
The Old Blind Dude who came to the movie with his niece/daughter/wife(?) Liz, slowly walks out from a dark area later where she's been killed, and tells the other moviegoers that "It's not the movie! It's this Theater that kills!" How does he know this? Another interesting note, just before the prostitute puts that silver mask on in the lobby, he touches it and warns Liz not to do the same. There's something about that mask, an aura that permeates evil! But again, how does he know this? Is it because he's blind? Does being blind heighten the other senses, particularly the 6th sense of recognizing otherworldly forces?
Then why in the Fuck would he even go into the theater to begin with!? That's a good question Drunketh. Perhaps he was just trying to get laid like everyone else. Maybe the mask was just oozing with pure concentrated evil whereas the theater had its sinister forces clouded by some sort of uhh... what's another word for mask? Devil's veil, black cloak, darkness crown, you get the picture. So is this theater really just some demonic entity? When all the helpless motherfuckers are running from the Demons they first do what any rational person would, and that's head straight for the door they came in through.
Only one big problem: Behind the doors that they all originally came through now sits a huge brick wall! In fact, all of the exits are blocked or have disappeared, so there's no way out. Which makes me wonder, was this theater built or does it just exist? The blind guy screams out "This place is cursed!", but that in itself is a pretty vague statement for a pretty vague movie. Later on when the punks that are out driving have to ditch their stolen car and run from the police, they head down a dark alley that turns out to be a dead end. They're completely fucked now, except one side of that alleyway just happens to be the back of the theater and a door unexpectedly opens up for them.
"What the fuck!?" Shouts the gang leader, and they all scramble inside. Just after they enter the inauspicious building, the now doubly-blind old man (a demonic prostitute clawed his nonworking eyes out) scurries out the door. Nobody opened this door, especially not the blind dude, and it's most likely not on some sort of electric switch controlled by those guys from Cabin in the Woods! But this door opening on its own is straight up horror business. The building doesn't allow humans to leave, but does invite them in, and will let one of its own out unto the world to thrive. Interesting.
4) The Helicopter.
A helicopter falls through the roof of the theater for absolutely no apparent reason.
There really isn't much to speculate on this one. You hear a noise like a flying vehicle is getting closer, there's a quick zoom in on the theater and then the roof starts to crack. When the helicopter falls through the ceiling, there are no demons in it. In fact, the two guys that are in it are dead as fuck, and don't seem to be showing any signs that they'll soon become demons. George and Cheryl look up towards their new way out and there aren't any demons looking down at them growling or anything, just sweet fresh air and sky. What we do know is that the old blind demon "escaped" the building and now the epidemic has spread to a police officer that he scratched outside. We also know that the officer's partner shot the demon and presumably killed it.
Now, I don't know what medical choppers in Italy look like, let alone what they looked like in 1985... but I really doubt they were air lifting this cop to the medical center for a scratch. So let's assume this isn't a rescue copter. The two dead guys in the helicopter are wearing regular clothes, if you count clothes covered in a shitload of blood to be regular, so I doubt these guys were cops. Just where in the hell did this helicopter come from? If it were originally in the general vicinity of the theater where the outbreak out-broke, don't you think that these fuckers would be flying away from it? What if it's a news copter? That kinda makes sense, since that would be the only thing flying towards some crazy shit like this right?
But that doesn't explain how these two guys died or why the roof to this impenetrable building was built out of nothing but Sheetrock an 2x4s. Was one of the guys in the copter a demon and he just died in the crash? Demons seem to die just as easily as humans so I guess it's a possibility. Was the guy with the silver half-face mask and leather clothes taking a helicopter flying lesson at the time? Is that how he got on the roof? Did he pay for the lesson or simply hijack the thing by knife point? If he got on the copter and forced it to crash land on the roof, then jumped off before it fell through so he could wait for Cheryl to climb up and rape her, wouldn't he have tossed the passenger out before getting in so he would be the only other dude in it aside from the pilot?
5) Kathy's Possession.
What are the guidelines in this film for Demonic Possession? It's already been established that there's a demoniacal mask that once adorned by the human face will cut the cheek upon removal and therein either a spell or a virus or watching a horror movie will trigger the gruesome transformation process. It seems pretty straightforward. Dig up the tomb of Nostradamus, find a weird mask wrapped in cloth, put it on and become a demon... sure, happens all the time. Also, as we all know since I'm constantly repeating myself, Demons spread their contagion through their fingernails.
But just as the theater seems to do whatever it wants, it's as if bending the rules has become a common play here. Kathy was never scratched. She never put that mask on, and she was never bled or drooled on. She was just annoying, that's all. She actually seemed to be hiding behind her friends for the most part. Out of nowhere she just starts getting dizzy, and acting disorientated. George suggests that she could be in shock, but obviously it's more than that. Kathy looks up at her friend Cheryl, her face covered in sweat, and asks "This place... where am I"? Then again a few moments later, with a gnarly sounding voice and reddish eyes, "Who are you?"
A similar thing happened to Sally in Demons 2, where a demon came through the television and attacked her. Though she was never scratched (or even really touched) and that demon was never seen again, I assume that this demon spirit had been embodied within her through some form of astral projection or some such bullshit. Both ladies ended up transforming into demons. Poor Kathy got pregnant from her possession and ended up birthing a fucking Demon kid out of her back! Sally had a lengthy run of scratching up nearly every victim she was offered after being possessed, but at least she got her period!!
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