The Demon (1981)

When I started watching The Demon (on a poor quality VHS rip on youtube) I was initially surprised at how enjoyable I found it, considering the IMDb score is so low. As the film went on and I was still enjoying it, I began to think it could only have such a low score if it all went terribly downhill towards the end.Well, it does.The first hour is pretty interesting and engaging. I found the desperate couple employing an ex-soldier with ESP to help find their daughter and the killer and intriguing set up and I equally liked the 2 female school teachers when the story switched over to them. There were, of course, many flaws in this low budget affair but for the first hour it was a good watch. Some freaky suffocation scenes and a mysterious, almost supernatural, killer also added to the entertainment level.However, the last 30 minutes or so ruins the whole thing. Firstly, for some reason there were 2 parallel story lines in this film. One was the parents of a missing girl who hired the guy with ESP to find the daughter and killer. The other was about a schoolteacher who keeps seeing the killer hanging around outside her school. Now, I thought the 2 story lines were going to tie up somehow but they didn't. They were just 2 separate story lines only liked by the killer. This gave the film a completely unfocused feel – who was the main character supposed to be? Who was the film about? Towards the end, when the father finds the killer but gets killed, and the mother – completely randomly and illogically – shoots the ESP guy they hired, it all starts to fall apart. You suddenly realise that these 3 characters were completely unnecessary to the plot as they did nothing! The fact that the film introduces this ESP guy early on, then has him killed when he's not even done anything, reveals poor writing, a lack of focus and just a completely pointless character and subplot.Then for the rest of the end sequences, it's the killer in the house of the school teacher, chasing her around. It ends with a ridiculous scenario that results in the woman killing the killer, involving her spraying a shower in his face. The she stabs him, he dies and the credits roll. No idea why he went after her or who he was or anything. Odd.

Cameron Mitchel is listed as starring in, but in fact barely appears in this story of a maniac stalking and killing women.Confused and confusing story kind of builds a little bit of suspense but to me, at the late hour I was watching it, found it more fragments of a film then something that holds together. This is the sort of film that would have been a direct to video release if it were made now. Then again I picked this up in the dollar bin so its even lower than that. I don't know what else to say other than its just sort of there. For Cameron Mitchell fans only.3 out of 10

Wow, I have never disagreed more with the reviewers on this site. This movie is excellent. Not in a so-bad-it's-good way; it's just flat-out one of the best horror films ever. Though billed as a straight-up slasher film, this one has a lot of things going on beneath the surface that make it rise beyond the mediocrity of the late-70's-era slasher genre. I believe this should actually be referred to as an under-the-radar giallo gem rather than lump it in with your Freddy Kreugers and Jason Vorhees and other slasher joke characters.A lot of the problem people seem to have with this movie involves the non-reveal of who the demon is. Well, I'm about to reveal to you all the startling answer to this question: the demon is, in fact, the DEMON. .. that's the whole point of the movie! That's who he is! He's the demon! He's the personification of evil. Questioning his motivations is silly; it's obvious what he wants to do -- he wants to kill people. The movie never reveals why or where the demon came from, but does it really matter? Let me just say that he came from Flint, Michigan and he is killing people because Pee Wee Herman drank the last Faygo; does that make the movie better for everyone? Anyway, what's interesting to me about this movie is the mood it creates. The movie is very dark, but it's never so dark you can't tell what's going on. It's not like the whole movie is filmed in the woods with no light or something. The darkness is important to the movie and that combined with the music creates a mood that is rarely ever seen in horror films. The "hero" of the film, the character with ESP, is a great actor and it's even more shocking what happens to him.The kill scenes are great, and I always took the character of the demon seriously. This film isn't played for laughs at all; yet at the same time, it's not so ridiculously gory, brutal, and mean-spirited that you can't have any fun watching this. Artfully shot, genuinely creepy, a perfect length, well-acted, full of surprises, great pacing, and a hot teacher running around in just her panties: honestly, what's not to like? HIGHLY recommended. For fans of movies like "Bell from Hell" and "Don't Go in the House".(As a side note, everyone I've ever showed this movie to has liked it. Strange. Different strokes, I guess?)

Percival Rubens' "The Demon" is one of them late 70's low-budget horror oddities of which you can't help wondering why the hell it was ever made. What director, in his right state of mind, comes up with a completely illogical story about a malicious killer with unexplained motives and a heroic copper who gets killed even long before he's face-to-face with his nemesis? And this describes just a small part of everything that is wrong with the film's screenplay. There's a sadistic killer on the loose in a small town. He wears gloves with claws attached to them, yet he exclusively kills his victims by choking them with a plastic bag. He always seems to walk in the shadow, has the size of a giant and never speaks a word. Is he really a demon…or just a frustrated outcast who never received any motherly love? He seems to be after the local kindergarten teacher and her gorgeous cousin but why is anyone's guess. On the other side, we have an ex-cop gifted with psychic powers looking for the killer. Cameron Mitchell ("Blood and Black Lace", "Nightmare in Wax") truly makes a fool out of himself here, pretending to be in contact with higher forces and sniffing a missing girl's pillow for clues. He's smart enough to predict his own death, yet he doesn't take any efforts to prevent it. As you can see, the plot is one giant MESS and there's absolutely nothing that makes the slightest bit of sense. The only positive point I can raise is that "The Demon" benefits from a neat morbid atmosphere and an occasional flash or sheer suspense. It's also quite sleazy! The two lead girls regularly strip all their clothes off but this doesn't seem to influence the madman in any way. On the contrary, he's more interested in tearing apart the dressing gowns than in naked female bodies. Like I said, it's a bad bad bad BAD film…but curiously intriguing at the same time.