Demonia
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- Release Date: October 1990
- Directed by: Lucio Fulci
- Written by: Pietro Regnoli and Lucio Fulci
- Runtime: 1 hour 28 minutes
Released the same year as A Cat in the Brain, Demonia was supposed to be Lucio Fulci's return to theatrical horror films after several direct-to-video and TV releases. Suffering from budget cuts that cut the film's shooting schedule short at numerous points, the movie got rejected by theatrical distributors and was instead dumped direct-to-video in late 1990. Like The House of Clocks and The Sweet House of Horrors, it would remain completely unreleased in America until its DVD release in the early 2000s. For a movie that was supposed to herald an iconic director's return to form, it seems to have been forgotten by time and only appreciated by Fulci's hardcore fans. Is Demonia a misunderstood gem, or yet another low-tier effort from a director who was past his prime? If you ask me, the answer is somewhere in the middle.
The movie follows a survey team that is studying a ruined monastery where several nuns who were accused of witchcraft were crucified centuries ago. As their investigation continues and the locals become more irritated by their presence, a string of murders begins to occur in the nearby village, and the locals believe the ghosts of the nuns have returned with a vengeance. Right off the bat, you can tell that this movie has a higher production value than anything that Fulci had made so far in his sickness era. It appears to be shot on 35mm film as opposed to the 16mm stock of his direct-to-video and TV productions, and that alone makes the movie look more in line with his classic productions. It takes place in Sicily, and the shooting locations show off a lot of beautiful countryside and some great-looking ruins for the monastery scenes. Some of Fulci's trademark camerawork also makes a return, such as zoom-ins on eyes and faces. Visually-speaking, this is the best-looking movie of his since 1987's Aenigma. However, there are a few oddities that show the lack of budget, such as some shots where you can see the mesh on the front of the camera lens or the lighting being off between shots. I can look past those though, since I like those kinds of quirks in low-budget films.
There are also some pretty fun gory highlights in this one. The classic eyeball violence makes a return courtesy of some vicious cats, and another hilarious scene involves a naked ghost girl shooting a man in the chest with a harpoon gun. Easily the best gore shot in the movie features a man getting ripped in half down the middle of his body. While the makeup prosthetics are clearly visible, it's still an excessive treat that is probably the best kill of this sickness era. You would think that some good kills mixed with a higher production value really would mean a return to form for Fulci, but sadly, that's about where the positives end on this one. Whatever technical improvements this movie has can't make up for how plodding it is to watch at times.
What kills this movie for me are its characters and pacing. Brett Halsey is fine as the male lead, but Meg Register as Liza is basically sleepwalking through the movie. Aside from a few scenes where she has to act as an evil nun, many of her scenes simply show her looking scared at things or staring off in a dazed trance. She doesn't give much of a performance to this character, so it's pretty hard to get invested in her as a main character, let alone anyone else. Along with the uninteresting characters, the pacing of this movie has absolutely no momentum to it. Aside from the exciting opening showing the crucifixion of the evil nuns, the entire movie moves along at a slow, almost dreamlike pace. I like slow-burn horror and dreamy movies, but the best ones know how to take a slow pace while making the movie feel like it's progressing at a steady rate. Many of the slow portions of this movie simply feature our heroine being scared or wandering around, and that made it drag on and on for me. During one investigation scene that felt like it was at the beginning of the third act, I checked the running time and saw that only 10 minutes remained. Nothing resembling a climax had occurred yet, and the rest of the movie was wrapped up at a really sloppy rate. If it had a much more interesting lead character and featured the evil nuns more prominently in the plot, I could see this thing packing way more of a punch.
I've read on various sites that Lucio Fulci was so displeased with this movie that he tried to get his name taken off of it. Is Demonia really that bad? While it's not the best movie of his sickness era, I don't think it's so bad that it deserved to be relegated to foreign video store shelves for so long. If he had been given more money and had access to better actors, I really could see this one being a return to form for the Maestro. It's a shame that his vision got compromised so badly during its production, and I wonder how much it affected him, since he only made two more movies after this one. It's a very flawed what-if point in his career, but still worth checking out if you're a fan of his work.