Demons 2
(1986)
The advantage of our new high rise apartment building setting is an extended cast of characters, thrown into the situation simply because they're all neighbors. One such character is Sally: a very bitchy young lady whose parents have given her run of the apartment so she can have a enjoyable birthday party... if "enjoyable" is Italian for "the bitch doesn't even want company, yet she throws the party anyway and makes her friends suffer because she's on the rag the whole time". The woman's so damn concerned about her looks that she doesn't even bother to leave her room half the time which, speaking as someone who's been to similar socials, is a good thing for her guests. Also amongst the building's doomed tenants are a young boy left home alone while his parents have a night on the town, a lonely woman and her annoying yappy dog, newlywed pregnant couple George and Hannah (names familiar from the DEMONS), a hooker and her clientele, a little girl named Ingrid (Asia Argento with another name found in DEMONS) and a health spa full of steroid cases and one very stressed out bald brotha man! Everyone in the building (including Sally) are watching a special showing of what I'm guessing is a movie, possibly the same film shown in the theater of DEMONS? Boy, only a year later and it's already in syndication?! That's gotta be worse box office than CATS DON'T DANCE! Oh man, I still get a chuckle thinking about that horrid little animated turd and the mere $800 it pulled in on it's first weekend of release... makes my gall bladder tremble with hilarity for the misfortune of others! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Such is what you get when you squeeze out nuggets as rancid as that! Then of course, HUDSON HAWK deserves just as much insult, but time for that later...
The shit hits the fan suddenly when Sally, who's ordered her party disbanded when she finds out her ex-boyfriend was invited, is happily watching the flick on TV, only to be attacked by a demon that comes right out of the screen like a bad 3-D moment! Or like that "Freddyvision" scene from A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3! After Sally's been plenty mauled and eviscerated, she of course becomes as demon as well, breaking from her room and proceeding to assault those party guests foolish enough to linger after the festivities had been canceled! Everyone's infected now with demonitis, complete with the gory transformation FX that helped make DEMONS a better-than-average film! Amidst the carnage, demon blood is spilled and, like ALIEN blood, eats through the levels of the building like super acid, dripping on and infecting any people (or yappy dogs) that come in contact with the concoction... nasty monster jizz! Not only does the acrid plasma contaminate several people, but it also manages to dissolve through the building's power lines, cutting of the precious electricity and phones, eliminating contact with the outside world. In other words, since there's no power, the electronic doors leading into the building are closed tight now and there's not only no way out, but no way to contact help. Everyone's now trapped in a poorly lit towering Hell!... and there's probably no hot water in case anyone wants to shower either! Demonic bastards!
Amidst the resulting chaos and havoc caused by the demon zombie killer outbreak, once more a bald and charismatic black dude must rise to lead the huddled and frightened masses! As I've eluded to earlier, this leader comes in the form of Hank, one of the health spa's physical trainers. Rhodes is kickin' demonic ass once more and hasn't lost a step since his pimpin' days as he rallies the muscle-bound braindead exercise freaks to defend themselves! Elsewhere in the building, other people are falling victim to the infestation, including the lonely lady with the dog, who winds up puppy chow to her mutated Benji. The young boy and prostitute also get into Demons-Mania, which becomes bad news for both George, who gets trapped on the elevator with the flesh eating hooker, and Hannah, who winds up trapped with the little monster boy! Newlyweds always run into the toughest situations during the first year... Elsewhere in the city, we pause for what I can only describe as a public service announcement from Bava. Why? Well, the situation involves a car load of rowdy punk kids runs right through a red light, colliding with another car, which happens to be driven by the neglectful parents who left their young son home alone in the apartment building, and everyone involved dies... I think. Not only does this promote safe driving, seatbelt use and not to leave your kids at home while you go out to enjoy yourself, but it also has NOTHING to do with advancing whatever plot the flick may have! Therefore, as I said, it must just be Bava and Argento using the time to tell us all to take care of ourselves and be good and look after our kids... fuck this crap, back to the demons.
After the neglected demon boy chases Hannah around for a while, he suddenly keels over and a badly animated demon puppet springs out of his chest... another ALIEN influence? The puppet then takes up where the kid left off: chasing the pregnant young Hannah around her apartment and probably giving her second thoughts on this whole childbirth situation. Wait, we pause for station identification here... all the power in the building's been cut, correct? Well, if that's the case, then where's the juice coming from for all the strobes and neon and loud music and other electric shit that's going on while Hannah is pursued by the buck-toothed pygmy attacker?! Whatever the answer to this confusing situation, the mother-to-be badly injures the monster when she douses it with Hydrochloric Acid... I don't know why she has a jar of acid sitting in her apartment, but whatever the reason, more power to her... just as long as I'm not on the receiving end of that shit. I get enough heartburn from my own digestive acids as it is. Anyway, the beasty's not done yet, but Hannah's got no worries because her John Leguizammo-lookin' hubby George (having escaped the man-eater in one piece) is finally home and he'll kick the demon's ass for her, much like she probably has to save his car keys from tiny spiders, as men like himself are prone to having crippling fears of small things like that... I don't know where I am right now, as I think I may have swallowed a collection of Jeff Daniels films and have no idea how long I have to live... you understand the predicament I'm in...
As the happy couple are reunited, those meatheads from the health club are trapped in the basement parking garage, attempting to ram the security doors open before they're sieged by the angry... nevermind, the demons have broken past their puny defenses and everyone's doomed. Even mighty Hank takes the big fall, getting his massive grapefruit sized balls clipped off... hey, they're not called demons for nothing! So, after everyone in the garage is infected and becomes demons, it becomes a race for George and Hannah as they attempt escaping a similar fate courtesy of the roof. Though they do meet unholy resistance in their clime to the roof, a few well placed tosses, an explosion and an old fashioned pole impalement remedy that. Upon reaching their destination, our heroes use George's mountain climbing equipment to repel off the side of the building and down to the roof of a neighboring TV studio. Making their way inside, Hannah now gives birth as the sun rises, marking the end of yet another... HOLY SHIT! Sally's still alive! Looks like being blinded by an explosion and impaled on a pole she still keeps kick... oh wait, scratch that, I guess she just wanted a little more screen time before officially dying... what a rip-off! What the Hell is up with that?! Afterwards George smashes some TV monitors... what an anti-climactic little ending that was. You know, if they had run the end credits a good 8 minutes or so earlier, this might not have been such a disappointment. Say, right after Sally was impaled on the pole. Some movies are made or broken on their endings. DEMONS 2 wasn't broken by this pathetic ending though... the rest of the movie helped contribute to that little humiliation.
What is it with Italian filmmakers and their apparent phobia with telling a story? If they didn't steal the concept from someone else, then they're just throwing shit together and calling it a movie. I can see why Lamberto would go on to do 90% TV movies after this. The transformation FX were good, except the Benji demon reminded me of that horrible feline mutation in UNINVITED and the demon that popped out of the kid's chest was almost as badly puppeteered and inanimate as Uncle Impy in SORORITY BABES IN THE SLIMEBALL BOWL-O-RAMA! THAT is bad! I don't know, maybe it wouldn't have been so bad were I not expecting it to be as good as the film it's sequeling. Maybe if it actually CONTINUED from where DEMONS left off I would've walked off with a feeling of interest and not a feeling of, "Hey! They did the same fucking thing those jackasses on RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD PART II did! I hate being lied to like that!". The whole thing was dubbed, so I can't really comment on the acting, though Bobby Rhodes is so badass that DEMONS 2 gets an extra 1/2 smiley face just for him! Other than Mr. Rhodes though, the rest of the cast gets no special mention from me, especially young Asia, who hasn't even come close to utilizing her ASSets at this point, and thus goes unnoticed by my coal black eyes. Speaking of coal black, I can feel the second reel of THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO making it's way through the last defenses of colon as I type this, so I better head to the turlet to plop out some cinema. Now, as I was saying about HUDSON HAWK...
Also Known As: DEMONS 2: THE NIGHTMARE IS BACK; DEMONS 2: THE NIGHTMARE RETURNS
Sequels: DEMONS 3: THE CHURCH; DEMONS '95
If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: NIGHT OF THE DEMONS 2 or EVIL DEAD 2
