Dreadfully Boring

A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

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

The Demon was a film that used both American and British players, but was shot in South Africa. This was an effort by the apartheid government to bring the movie business to their country as a place films could be shot in. After losing 93 minutes of my life I won't get back watching The Demon, I'm still trying to figure out what I saw. There's this guy stalking and killing people who wears a flesh like mask, the better not to read his character.The most well known name in the cast is shot and killed because Cameron Mitchell rubs the woman that hired him the wrong way. He's the guy who is a combination cop and psychic who will bring The Demon down. After that I was totally lost.Hopefully the Mandela government and his successors are doing better by the South African film industry.

(There may be Spoilers) Looking as if it's two different movies, both ridicules, rolled into one "The Demon" is about as mindless of a film that you'll ever come across and so badly constructed that it wouldn't even make it on the Mystery Science 3000 bad movie TV show. Cameron Mitchell obviously needing a paycheck and a free vacation in sunny Capetown South Africa plays this psychic detective Col. Bill Carson hired to both find the kidnapped daughter, Emily, of Mr & Mrs Parker, Peter J. Elliot & Molra Winslow, and the person who kidnapped her. Having been abducted by this faceless psycho Emily is feared to have been killed and the killer is expected to come back to the Parker home to finish the job, murdering the entire family, that he at first started.Carson showing up at the Parker house goes into some kind of mombo-jumbo act getting on all fours sniffing and licking, just like a bloodhound, objects as well as ripping up the sheets and pillow cases with his teeth in and around Emily's room. Carson comes up with this startling conclusion to who, he's sure that she's been murdered, Emily's killer is saying this about him as if he's in awe of the killer : "He's less then a man and at the same time more much more", whatever that means.Mr. Parker figuring out just where he can find the killer, from a number of Carson's psychic drawings, goes it alone to this creepy hotel in downtown Capetown only to get himself killed by the killer who catches him by surprise. Later a boy playing solider in the woods finds the skeletal remains of Emily's body hidden up on a tree. Mrs Parker is so pi**ed off at Carson for him and his meddling getting her husband killed that when he comes over to pays his respects she shoots the startled psychic right between the eyes. After all that we never see her or anyone else involved with the Parkers and Carson again in the movie.The same killer, or what seems to be him, is then seen stalking this kindergarten teacher Mary, Jennifer Holmes, and after a few minutes you get the impression that your watching a double-feature with Mary and the persons that she's associated with having nothing at all to do with Col. Carson and the Parkers! In fact Mary looks as if she's in another movie altogether! We never see her and the Parker's or Col. Carson together or even as much as even mention them! Going first after Mary then her young cousin Jo, Zoli Markl, as well as her poor little rich boyfriend Dean, Craig Gardner, the unseen and unknown serial killer is given no reason, or attempt, to murder them other then kill them off to raise the body-count.Eariler, after murdering Mr. Parker, the killer for some reason goes on a rampage in the Capetown night-club and red-light district attacking and possibly murdering a number of persons, workers and tourists, including a go-go dancer for no reason at all but what seems for him to keep in shape for the films climatic bloodbath!Like in most slasher films the killer, wearing what looks like a transparent rubber mask, goes into action murdering almost everyone in the cast which are the people in the second half of the movie. Only the plucky and topless Mary, who after getting away from him, surprises the psycho in her bathroom sticking him in the throat with a pair of scissors and shoving him into the overflowing bathtub where he eventually drowns.Were given the impression when the movie ends that the killer survived, together with his mask, and is soon going to be back to haunt and terrorize us yet again in a sequel! After some 25 years after "The Demon" was released we can all now be certain that isn't about to happen now or any time soon and we can all thank God for that!

DEMON, THE (1979) 1/2 (out of four) A small town is terrorized by a monster who appears to be killing people so that he can suck their blood out. Poor Cameron Mitchell plays some sort of psychic but there isn't a single thing in this movie that makes sense. I've read a couple reviews on the film and even they don't make any sense out of this "horror" movie, which forgot the horror, the scares and the gore. Off topic but poor Mitchell would spend the rest of the decade appearing in this low budget films. Others of interest is FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND, MEMORIAL DAY MASSACRE and JACK-O.

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.