Demonia
Italy 1990. Director: Lucio Fulci
Cast: Meg Register, Brett Halsey, Lino Salemme, Al Clever
Liza Harris (Meg Register) is plagued by
nightmares about a nun crucified 600 years ago. She is currently working
on Sicily together with her father (Brett Halsey), an archaeologist,
when she stumbles upon the very same crypt where the nun together
with four other nuns were allegedly once crucified and left for dead.
Liza becomes obsessed by the legend and is slowly drawn into insanity.
Soon enough death strikes (we would be disappointed if it didn't).
About seven minutes into the film I fell asleep. That isn't anything to go by, though, Demonia isn't all that bad. Meg Register (Boxing Helena) is okey in the lead, if not great. The part was, according to Fulci legend, originally written for Katherine McColl, but Meg Register is passable I guess. And Al Cliver (billed as "Al Clever", someone must have had fun) is back on ship as well. Director Fulci himself does a surprisingly big role as a police inspector.
Much has been said about the weird and inconsistant cinematography by Luigi Ciccarese (a Bruno Mattei regular), even Fulci himself has claimed that it ruined the film. I really want to say that it's exaggerated, because there's much about the film I really like, but the photography here is admitedly peculiar. Sometimes it's gorgeous, sometimes it looks like apeshit. It's as if someone couldn't decide upon which lens to use, or which filter, so he grabbed whatever he had at hand. Particularly the outdoor scenes are often strangely foggy and oddly lit, while most indoor scenes works okey at least, if only because Fulci proves to have lost very little of his ability to shoot great suspence and create his trademark atmosphere.
Moving on, the story doesn't make much or any sense, but who can honestly say they fully understood such muddled affairs like City of the Living Dead? It's the splatter that matter. Among the gory highlights here is a scene near the end where a man is ripped apart lenghtwise in graphic detail. In a world of DVD it maybe doesn't look too convincing in replay (on a washed-out third-generation VHS-tape it looked awesome), but the intention is honorable. Further on a woman has her both eyes torned out slowly by her cats and, grossest of all, a man has his tongue nailed to a table.
Despite its shortcomings I enjoyed Demonia the first time I saw it and I enjoyed it the second time. Fulci keeps the tension tight throughout, making it a fair last shot at classic eye-poking horror for the old maestro. It definitely stand out compared to some of the other turds the director dumped upon us during his last decade. But please don't expect it to be The Beyond, because it isn't and nothing's ever gonna be again.
© The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.