Demons (Italian: Dèmoni) is a 1985 Italian horror film directed by Lamberto Bava and produced by Dario Argento, starring Urbano Barberini and Natasha Hovey. The screenplay was written by Bava, Argento, Franco Ferrini and Dardano Sacchetti, from a story by Sacchetti. Filming took place in Berlin and Rome.
A group of people are trapped in a large movie theater in West Berlin that is infected by ravenous demons who proceed to kill and posses the humans one-by-one, thereby multiplying their numbers…
Dario Argento had an important influence on Dèmoni. In addition to co-writing the script, he also produced the film. Argento’s daughter, Fiore, plays the character of Hannah. Michele Soavi, a devotee of Argento’s work and his assistant director on several films, also served as an assistant director on Dèmoni and has two starring roles, as the man wearing the silver mask and as Jerry, one of the characters in the film playing at the Metropol. Nicoletta Elmi, who plays the usherette, appeared in Argento’s 1975 classic giallo Deep Red, and she also had a small role in the 1971 horror film Twitch of the Death Nerve (directed by Mario Bava, the father of Dèmoni director Lamberto Bava).
Most of the interior cinema scenes were shot in an actual closed down movie theatre. The building still exists but is now a bank. At the same time, the building used for the exterior shots of the movie theatre still exists; it’s a club called “Goya”, whose appearance in the film has brought it fame and now regularly hosts horror conventions today. Filming took place in Germany and Italy, and as a reference to these countries’ cinema, posters for Werner Herzog‘s Nosferatu,The Vampyre and Argento’s Four Flies on Grey Velvet can be seen hanging in the Metropol’s lobby. The music chosen for the film features several Heavy metal classics, and there is also an AC/DC poster in one scene
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“What makes Demons so much fun? Well, how about: a total lack of logic, bad acting, horrendous dubbing, total predictability, extremely excessive blood and guts, hilarious plot and character development (when either is even present), bad 80s music and styles, sporadically intentional black humor and a wonderfully futureless ending all served up at a relatively breakneck speed with some occasional visual verve.” A Wasted Life
“Once the clever premise is neutered, Demons is really just another low-budget European bloodbath. It lacks the gleeful artistry of Dario Argento’s films, and it doesn’t come close to George Romero’s mythic transcendence of the genre. After all, when you get right down to it, the story of Demons makes it simply a zombie film, but with faster monsters that use claws as well as teeth. In zombie movies, the suspense comes from wondering when the characters will make fatal mistakes, but here death simply seems inevitable for most of them.” DVD Verdict
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