Demonicus (2001)

okay, this movie f*ck in' rules. it is without question one of the most technically inept pieces of cinema ever made. absolutely terrible, but you GOTTA see it. rent this with your buddies and come up with a drinking game or just have fun, it's hilarious. and the behind-the-scenes featurette proves it, you can do anything with paper plates and finger paint. awesome. okay, rent it just for this one scene: two characters are actually WALKING IN PLACE for about 3 minutes in a shot. the director (on the commentary) says "yeah, the tracking was so smooth it looks like they're...". yeah, right man, they are totally walking in place. it's so funny.

This film is exactly what you get when you really over stretch your abilities, it's like someone who has just passed there driving test and then pitting them in a formula 1 Grand Prix (not I might add, the US Grand Prix as everyone might pull out due to dodgy tyres and you might just win), that is how far short this film falls. Now don't take this the wrong way, I love B-Movies, around half my collection is made of B-Movies but I don't think there are enough letters in the alphabet to describe how bad this film is.First of the story (for a B-Movie) isn't that bad, it has potential there to make a B-Movie brand, were not talking Friday 13th potential, but potential none the less. But what really lets this film down is the acting, at not one second do I believe anything, it's like watching QVC except the presenters on QVC tend to have a heavier tan.In summary I'd like to say I've seen worse films, but I can't.

Really. This movie makes a great comic monologue.No matter what anyone says, not all movies are fun to mock. There are suprisingly few movies which really offer material throughout that is true food for humor, but this is one - unlike a movie such as, say, "Severed," or Full Moon's own "Killjoy" which are just plain unwatchably bad.Still, Demonicus is close to the bottom of the Full Moon barrel.In the Italian Alps, seven Americans (3 couples and a nerd - who explains that his girlfriend left him just before the trip, but I'm not sure if this was just written in to explain why they couldn't afford a fourth actress) are "competing" to see which couple (or nerd) can get to "base camp" first, taking different (but very wide and well-marked) trails.One couple stop near a cave (which looks like a railroad tunnel from the outside, but papier-mâché on the inside). The guy decides to go in and check it out, and finds a mummified gladiator and is possessed by it. He then puts on all its armor (under the opening credits, somewhat reminiscent of the Rambo(R) Cartoon) and goes off to kill his friends and bring back their bits to make a stew ("is it soup yet?") to raise the gladiator, Tyrannus (nicknamed Demonicus), from the dead.The actor playing the guy who gets possessed is also the film's fight coordinator, which I wouldn't admit. The fight scenes are very bad. In fact, the nerd dies taking a sword UNDER his arm. When have we seen that special effect, outside of a high-school performance of Romeo & Juliet?One of my favorite scenes is where the nerd and the tough guy (whose girlfriend - coincidentally a virgin - has been kidnapped by Tyrannus or Demonicus or whatever) are at camp and DON'T EVEN NOTICE another woman (all the women in this movie look pretty much alike) running frantically to them until she arrives, bleeding and breathless, to collapse, still clutching her "Time-Life Guide to the Secret Spookiness of the Italian Alps". She has just enough energy (having been running for so long that she lost her coat and backpack, but is still clutching The Book) to slap through the pages of the book and point to the legend of Demonicus. Then she dies. At least, they think she dies, and they wrap her in one of their sleeping bags (since a corpse needs the warmth much more than these bozos). Apparently, their main criteria for judging her dead is that her eyes closed, because she comes to later, and is fine.WHAT???Still, it's funny.

This low-budget project just doesn't have the sense of fun that it should have. Any enthusiasm or wit behind the camera (or in front of it, for that matter) just doesn't show. It appears more and more hapzard as it goes on. Low budgets and quick wrap times considered, this one just offers wasted potential and no energy. Not one of Charlie Band and company's better efforts, particulary disappointing, since it's one of his few slasher-style efforts.