Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Most direct to video horror movies from the 80's and late 90's knew the formula to follow. 1. Provide a ridiculous plot. 2. Give your characters ridiculous dialogue 3. Provide the audience with a ton of blood and gore (to the comical Evil Dead level). 4. Never take yourself serious. Demon Wind does all of this and more. I remember watching this movie on HBO or maybe Cinemax (they both rotated the same films periodically in the 90's) when I was younger. Even then - the movie made me laugh and appreciate how silly it was. This movie won't scare you, most likely. It will, however, make you laugh at how ridiculous the dialogue, acting, and production value (though I really appreciated the makeup effects) is.

DEMON WIND is an American B-movie about a bunch of kids who head off to the archetypal old abandoned farmhouse in order to investigate a historical mystery: the death of one of the character's grandparents. While there, they accidentally summon up a whole host of demons, who proceed to take over the members of the party one at a time. I can report that Vinegar Syndrome have done an excellent job in transferring this film to high definition, making it look the best that it's ever going to look, and that high quality helps to make it more enjoyable. Seen uncut, this is gruesome little enterprise more than a little inspired by NIGHT OF THE DEMONS. It's essentially a typical horror flick as dumb characters get gorily dispatched, one at a time, by a gang of rubber-faced demons. The special effects are quite remarkable and very ghastly looking. Expect cheesy one-liners, a moment of gratuitous nudity, and more twist endings than you can shake a stick at. It's cheap and cheesy for sure, but cheerful with it, and that enjoyment rubs off on the viewer.

The best description I can find in my head for this film is a mix of Fulci and the Evil Dead, but a movie that makes way less sense. Yes, a film with less sense of plot than The Beyond and none of the aspiration toward art. And yet there's so much to like!In 1931, we see a body burned on a cross in the front yard. There's another in the hallway and plenty of paintings of Jesus, as we hear singing about being washed in the blood of the lamp. We discover that a woman and her husband are trying to hide from demons. Instead, the husband transforms into a demon and kills her.Fast forward to 1991 and Cory is dealing with the suicide of his father. He's the grandson of the people we saw in the opening and has decided to go back to the farmhouse where they died. Often in these posts, I try and give advice. Here's a new piece: if your family has a weird supernatural death or disappearance in its history, just leave it alone. Don't go back to the cabin. Don't go into the woods. Don't go to the farmhouse. Just don't.He puts together a gang of his friends to hang out at the farmhouse, but of course a fog rolls in. And some demons. And lots of death. The farmhouse has a shield that keeps the demons out, but one by one, the teens are turned into demons. Luckily, they find some daggers that can kill the demons. Unluckily, the demon's master arrives and they need to do much more to defeat him.That said, where you'd expect things to make sense, Demon Wind goes in a much stranger direction. Like when Cory mentions he has been in a gas station before in a dream, we get to see that dream - in which he's holding a big book while talking to his grandmother. Naked. Buck ass naked.Also, the kids in these films have weird interconnected relationships. Like Cory's girlfriend, Elaine used to date his best friend Dell. He greets her by kissing her directly on the lips and then high fives Cory. As you do. Dell's new girlfriend, Terry, has an ex-boyfriend named Chuck, who brings his girlfriend Stacy, his magic tricks and an arsenal of roundhouse kicks. I can only imagine that if these kids all worked in a mall together, they'd all have sex in the same room like Chopping Mall. Only Jack and Bonnie seem like they aren't Eskimo brothers or sisters with someone else.Despite warnings from old creepy men at gas stations - hello, Friday the 13th - and dead bodies and evil statements in blood on the walls, everyone acts like things are as normal as possible. It's not just wooden acting. It's literally like nothing phases these kids.Bonnie reads the words off the wall a- "Now Satan shall walk" in Latin - and an explosive chicken shoots out of the oven and almost kills everyone. You read that one right. An explosive chicken. Somehow, Bonnie instinctively knows how this all works and has one request: when she dies, please don't bury her here.Also - The Fog (or the fog) covers the town, making sure that every escape attempt brings them right back to the farmhouse. And then three little girls take Bonnie, who disappears, leaving behind a burning baby doll.Everyone decides that they will stay in the farmhouse for protection. Whereas in a film like Night of the Living Dead you'd batten down the hatches and board up the windows, these kids clean the house. Yes, in the face of certain death, the first thing they decide to do is some spring cleaning.Then another couple just randomly shows up! Demon Wind doesn't just go off the rails. It throws the rails off a cliff and follows them into the abyss.The final act of this film just gets more and more bizarre. There's gunplay. Demons feel up women and trying to get them off just by touching their breasts. Cow skulls eat faces. A female demon strips in the front yard, begging for the guys to come out and have sex, at which point they look at one another and say, "Demon," like this is some demented Bud Lite commercial. And oh yeah - Cory transforms into a demon himself to battle the final boss.There's some decent gore. Some horrible acting. And no relation to the normal world in which you live and breathe. I often joke that there are some films that I just won't recommend to normal people. Demon Wind is one of those films. But to my friends that I trust, to those that can effortlessly deal with trifling concerns like plot, motivation or dealing with multiple dream sequences, I'll give this a recommendation.

Cory (a solid and likable performance by Eric Larson) and his friends go to an old shack located in the middle of a remote woodland area to investigate the mysterious circumstances pertaining to the deaths of Cory's grandparents. The group uncover a powerful demonic force that threatens to destroy them all.While the story clearly copies "The Evil Dead" and takes a little while to get going, the competent direction by Charles Philip Moore, a potently brooding gloom-doom atmosphere, the neat array of colorful secondary characters (the magician duo in particular are a total hoot), a generous amount of gloriously outrageous over-the-top gore, several inspired bizarre touches (one poor gal gets transformed into a doll!), the nifty practical make-up and equally gnarly optical special effects, and the wild fiery climax more than compensate for both the occasional sluggish pacing and dearth of originality. Moreover, the sound acting by the able cast helps a lot, with especially praiseworthy contributions from Francine Lapensee as Cory's sassy girlfriend Elaine, Rufus Harris as cranky old-timer Harcourt, Mark David Fritsche as the brave Jack, Sherry Leigh as the spunky Bonnie, and Bobby Johnston as obnoxious macho jerk Dell. Both Thomas L. Calloway's polished cinematography and Bruce Wallenstein's spirited shivery score are up to speed. A really fun fright flick.