Movie Info
Movie Name: Demons 2
Studio: DACFILM Rome
Genre(s): Horror
Release Date(s): October 9, 1986
MPAA Rating: R
Before The Ring (but after Videodrome)…there was a demon popping out of a TV
During a broadcast about a demonic outbreak, something escapes. A girl named Sally (Coralina Cataldi Tassoni) finds herself transformed into a monster at her own birthday party and begins to spread the demon curse among her friends Trapped in a high-rise apartment with no power, the demons are seeking an exit and those who haven’t been turned are fighting for survival. The demons are coming, and no one is safe!
Directed by Lamberto Bava and produced by Dario Argento (both of which helped with the script), Demons 2 (Dèmoni 2) is an Italian horror film. A sequel to the successful Demons in 1985, the movie was released to mixed reviews but like the first film gained a cult following.
The Uninvited Cat has nothing on the Demons 2 dog!
I always liked looking at the VHS covers of Demons and Demons 2. The movie is everything you would want from a horror movie from the 1980s…and an Italian horror movie at that.
While Demons had a weird parallel story involving a cursed movie, Demons 2 likewise does something odd in its storytelling. It appears that the first movie was a movie, but it also indicates that the first movie might have been reality as well. Regardless, the “second movie within a movie” releases a demon through the television (much like Videodrome or The Ring)…and of course all hell breaks loose. Like the first film, the characters are essentially trapped in a confined space, but an apartment building does provide a much larger and more realistic landscape for the survivors to fight and hide. It feels a little more developed in plot, but less original due to it being in many ways a larger version of the original film.
The Boy Scouts really do want you to buy their popcorn
Like the first movie, Demons 2 suffers because you don’t have anyone to associate with, and there are too many characters that get their own storyline. There are the gym survivors (with a return of Bobby Rhodes from the first film as a separate character), the pregnant couple (David Knight and Nancy Brilli), the partiers, the family (featuring a young Asia Argento in her first role), the woman with the dog, and the man and the prostitute…and there is the guy stuck outside along with a few others who randomly are inserted in-between the story of the survivors inside. This movie and set-up gives more people to be killed and turned into demons, but it doesn’t give you a real character to root for…but that also increases the idea that anyone could die (any movie that kills a kid get that categorization).
It’s like the Baby Yoda of demons
I like the demons design and the movie plays a bit more with the possession. You have a demonic dog (which looks pretty ridiculous and rivals the demon cat from Uninvited), a demonic child (played by adult actor Davide Marotta), and a very un-scary Gremlin-Ghoulies-esque mini-demon (it looks a lot like a Muppet and is just as menacing)…I actually preferred the more scaled back demons version of the first film. The movie does amp up the horror by having the demons running much like the zombies from 28 Days Later (and despite being a demon film, the monsters are essentially zombies).
Demons 2 is fun, and like the first film, not necessarily the best film. I like the spirit of Demons 2 more than I like Demons 2…but if you put it in front of me I’d watch it in a second. It is goofy, gory, and a quick ride. It pairs perfectly with the first film for a good double feature. A third film was planned, but Demons 3 turned into 1989’s The Church which was released as a standalone film.
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