Let’s just assume that the events of Demons actually happened, as this movie does. Released just seven months after the original, this movie opens with the residents of a high-rise apartment building watching a movie dramatization of the events that took place in that film. They watch as several teenagers trespass into the closed-off city that was destroyed after the demonic outbreak. Finding the dead body of a demon, one of the teens accidentally drips blood in its mouth and the whole thing starts all over again.

Sally Day (Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, Mother of Tears, Opera) is upset that her boyfriend hasn’t come to her sweet sixteen party — or as they say in Italy, dolce sedici anni — and she decides to watch the movie. So, you know, as these things happen, a demon crawls out of her television set and infects her. She kills nearly everyone at her party and turns them into more demons, who begin to infect the entire apartment building. Little kids, dogs, cops, bodybuilders, pregnant women — no one is safe from these demons.

George and Hannah (David Edwin Knight and Nancy Brilli, who was also in Body Count) spend most of the movie trying to escape Sally so that they can have their child. She’s nearly unstoppable, plus she has a flying demon on her side.

Italian movie fans should keep their eyes open for Asia Argento, who debuted in this film as Ingrid. Plus, Bobby Rhodes (from the original, as well as Hercules and War Bus Commando), Virginia Bryant (who is also in the unrelated sequel Demons 3: The Ogre), Lino Salemme (Ripper from the first film), Davide Marotta (who played a child alien in a very famous series of Italian Kodak commercials and was also the monstrous boy in Phenomena) and Michele Mirabella (Dancing Crow from Thunder).

Originally, Hannah’s baby would become a demon inside her and claw its way out of her stomach. This scene was taken out when Lamberto Bava and Dario Argento decided they wanted a happier ending. Which is nice, I guess.

After all, this movie is more about jump scares and less about freaking you out with the sheer amount of gore that it features. Is it any wonder that it has less of a metal soundtrack and instead features new wave bands like The Smiths, The Cult, Fields of the Nephilim, Dead Can Dance, Peter Murphy, Love and Rockets, Gene Loves Jezebel and The Producers?

The 4K UHD release of Demons 2 is newly remastered in 4K from the original camera negative in Dolby Vision and has new audio commentary by film critic Travis Crawford. There’s also interviews with Luigi Cozzi, Sergio Stivaletti, Federico Zampaglione, Roy Bava and Simon Boswell, as well as a new visual essay on the space and technology in Demons and Demons 2 by author and critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and original Italian and English theatrical trailers. You can get this from MVD.

They will make cemeteries their cathedrals and the cities will be your tombs. With that line, you know that what you’re about to watch better be the most mind-blowing horror film possible. Good news — Demons is all of that and then some, the kind of movie that has everything that I watch movies for.

I can’t be silent or still while it runs, growing more excited by every moment. It is the perfect synthesis of 1980’s gore and heavy metal, presented with no characterization or character growth whatsoever. It’s also the most awesome movie you will ever watch.

This is an all-star film, if you consider Italian 80’s horror creators to be all-stars. There’s Lamberto Bava directing and doing special effects, Dario Argento producing, a script written by Bava, Argento, Franco Ferrini (Once Upon a Time in America, Phenomena) and Dardano Sacchetti (every single Italian horror film that was ever awesome…a short list includes A Bay of Blood, Shock, The Beyond, 1990: The Bronx Warriors, Blastfighter, Hands of Steel and so many more), and assistant directing and acting from Michele Soavi.

The movie starts on the Berlin subway, where Cheryl is pursued by a silver masked man (Soavi) who hands her tickets to see a movie at the Metropol. She brings along her friend Kathy (Paola Cozzo from A Cat in the Brain and Demonia) and they soon meet two boys, George (Urbano Barberini, Gor, Opera) and Ken.

The masked man has brought all manner of folks to the theater: a blind man and his daughter and some interesting couples, including a boyfriend and girlfriend, an older married one and Tony the pimp and his girls, one of whom is Shocking Dark‘s Geretta Geretta. As they wait for the movie to begin, a steel mask in the lobby scratches her.

The movie that unspools — a slasher about teenagers who disturb the final resting place of Nostradamus — also has that very same steel mask. When it touches anyone in the movie, they turn murderous. At the very same time, one of the prostitutes scratches herself in the bathroom and her face erupts into pus and reveals a demon. From here on out, the movie becomes one long action sequence, as the other prostitute transforms into a demon in front of the entire audience.

Meanwhile, four punks do cocaine in a Coke can and break in, releasing a demon into the city as the rest of the movie audience attempt to escape and are killed one by one. Only George and Cheryl survive, as our hero uses a sword and motorcycle to attack the demons before a helicopter crashes through the roof. But then the masked man attacks them!

I’m not going to ruin the rest of the movie, only to say that even the credits offer no safety in the world of Demons. And oh yeah — Giovanni Frezza (Bob from House by the Cemetery) shows up!

Look for Argento’s daughter Fiore as Angela and Ingrid the usherette is played by Nicoletta Elmi, who was the baron’s daughter in Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, as well as appearing in Baron Blood, A Bay of Blood and Who Saw Her Die?

Demons is ridiculous. Pure goop and gore mixed with power chords, samurai swords, punk rockers and even a Billy Idol song which had to blow the budget. It also looks gorgeous — filled with practical effects, gorgeous film stock and amazing colors, no doubt the influence of Bava’s father. The scene where the yellow-eyed demons emerge from the blue blackness is everything horror movies should be.

This doesn’t just have my highest recommendation. It earns my scorn if you haven’t seen it yet!

Want to know way too much about this movie and everything connected to it?

Check out this article and the video I created: So what’s up with all the Demons sequels?

The 4K UHD release of Demons is newly remastered in 4K from the original camera negative in Dolby Vision. There are two versions of the film: the full-length original cut in English and Italian and the shorter U.S. version featuring alternate dubbing and sound effects. There’s new audio commentary by critics Kat Ellinger and Heather Drain and an audio commentary with director Lamberto Bava, SPFX artist Sergio Stivaletti, composer Claudio Simonetti and actress Geretta Geretta. There’s a feature about Dario Argento producing this movie, interviews with Argento, Claudio Simonetti, Luigi Cozzi and Ottaviano Dell’Acqua, the original Italian and English international theatrical trailers and the U.S. theatrical trailer. You can get it from MVD.

Directed by Josh Yunis and written by David Kirkeby, Sarah Kruchowski and Jason Romaine, Camp attempts to be a throwback to the summer teen sex comedies that I grew up with, yet with its head and heart fully aware of the changes that have happened since then.

The thing you may not realize is that this was made in 2016. So maybe it’s not as much a throwback as a frozen leftover.

Teens gather for their last summer at Camp Pearlstein, a place that even has its own twin rabbis, Jason and Randy (played by the Sklar Brothers), as well as traditional counselors like Hulk (Horatio Sanz) and Ruth (Sarah Kruchowski). Well, traditional is just a title, because they’re stranger than any of the kids they’re watching over.

The plot is what you expect: Jake (Brendan Meyer) is in love with Maya (Mychala Lee) but has to contend with Ezra (Ian Nelson), a peeping tom with a smart phone who just wants to see as many of the girls naked and in his bed as possible. And despite being prominent on the poster, Joey King is barely in this. She became a bigger star than most of the cast in the time this sat on the shelf.

I guess instead of trying to relive my memories of all the sleepover camps of my teen years — which were only experienced on the TV and through VHS — I should just go back and watch those movies. There are a few funny parts — the Sklar Brothers are pretty funny — but that strange subplot about the counselors dressing as Nazi specters is…weird. Like the movie forgets that it’s a comedy weird.

You can watch this on Tubi.

On their wedding day, Ting Tzu-chu (Helen Poon Bing-Seung) explains to her husband — detective and martial artist Long Fei (Derek Yee) — the ritual that Xiao Lik (Yueh Hua) is leading the villagers in. They are making a peace offering to the Black Lizard, a centuries old demon that comes back every three years to take one life.

It’s a good thing she told him about this, because a few days later, Long Fei meets someone by the name of Visitor from Hell (Goo Goon-Chung), who tells him that if he doesn’t come home and stops taking a prisoner to jail, his wife will die. This is followed by meeting a man in red (Yuen Wah) and a woman in white (Chan Man-Na) who ends up being the dead wife of Xiao Lik. They are carrying a coffin with a woman in it that looks a lot like our hero’s wife. If that doesn’t weird you out, it turns out that Xiao Lik has already killed the Black Lizard once before and was cursed as it came back as his son Ruo Yu (Ng Yuen-Jun), who grew up to kill his mother and now isn’t waiting for three years to keep murdering.

Working with Chief Constable Tieh Hu (Hua Yueh), Long Fei must learn how to prevent the death of his wife while the world around him looks less like the Shaw Brothers sets and more like the world of Mario Bava, as colored gels make reality a comic book, cobwebs cover everything and talking wooden people are here to further screw with your brain. Imagine if Scooby-Doo had more fog than you though was possible, as well as sword fights and heroic fighters.

Chor Yuen also made Bat Without Wings and this has plenty of the mood from that film. I have a weakness for Shaw Brothers films that blend horror with their traditional wuxia elements. This movie glows in the dark.

Other than replacing Tien Niu with Niu Niu in the role of Huang Rong, Keung Hon taking over the role of Liang Ziweng and Norman Chu becoming Yao, the sequel to The Brave Archer keeps much of the same cast and feel as it continues to adapt Louis Cha’s The Legend of the Condor Heroes.

Huang Rong has been taken hostage by Ouyang Feng (Wang Lung-wei) who ransoms her for the Nine Yin Manual that is protected by heroic Guo Jing (Alexander Fu Sheng), who works with Hong Qigong (Ku Feng) to give the villain an incomplete version of the book. When he practices the forms in it, it drives him insane as they aren’t correct. He challenges the two, but is hurt and Guo Jing and Hong Qigong escape. However, Hong Qigong is injured and gives Huang Rong his weapon, the Dog Beating Staff, handing over his leadership of the Beggars’ Sect as well. But when she loses the staff to Yang Kang (Li Yi-Min), it causes a battle between several of the different sects trying to gain power, including the Tsuen Jen Taoists, the Iron Palm Clan and the Beggars’ Clan.

This is a movie that demands attention, as there are about twenty or so lead characters — or so it seems — and everyone has a conflict and story of their own. Director Chang Cheh believed that his versions of these stories weren’t as good as the novels that they came from. For Western audiences, it may be difficult to jump in and follow so much of what is going on. However, I have been enjoying their scope and trying to keep up as well as I can, despite language and culture barriers. It helps that when there is action, it’s thrilling and that the heroes are so likeable.

Ah Fen (Hsiao Yao) is best friends with Xi Xi. Just look at them having fun in the fields together.

Xi Xi is a snake.

Ah Fen is his owner.

Rich college boy Tang Shi-De (Tsung Hua) is in love with Ah Fen.

And then there’s Man-Ling (Dana), who has a plan with her lover Hu Lin (Frankie Wei Hung) where she’ll seduce Shi-De and steal his family’s money.

Hu Lin has some of his gang kidnap Man-Ling and Tang Shi-De, but they get Ah Fen instead. The poor daughter of a farmer and child of high caste fall in love and get married, so Hu Lin tries to blow up their limo, but the bomb gets foiled by the snake. Yes, this really happens.

But Shi-De hates Xi Xi.

He hates all snakes.

A snake killed his mother.

Now he’s forced his wife to leave her reptile friend forever, just in time for Hu Lin to try and kill her again.

As if that’s not enough, it feels like there’s a sex scene between Man-Ling and Hu Lin every few seconds.

Ah, Shaw Brothers, you are more than just martial arts. You have directors like Sun Chung, who also made Human Lanterns and The Devil’s Mirror, creating movies where gorgeous actresses handle cobras and a mongoose vs. snake scene is the best fight in the whole film. Actually, this movie, if anything, needs more Xi Xi and less humans.