DEMONIA – Ah, I couldn’t do this October thing without a bit of Fulci, could I? I’m sure there’ll be more to come when the mood takes me. Anyway, ‘Demonia’, I hadn’t seen it before and to be honest I was prepared to feel underwhelmed, despite my fondness for the films kicking around in the latter part of his oeuvre that few seem to rate very highly (I’ve never understood that attitude, by the way – how can anyone see the likes of ‘Conquest’ and not give up drugs forever?). I was very pleasantly surprised, for ‘Demonia’ has all the characteristics of what, for me, makes Fulci Fulci – nonsensical plot, overstylised ‘dream-like’ bits, rip-offs of parts of his own movies, that Fulci thing of lingering over bad gore fx…if it wasn’t loaded with close-ups of eyes, then it felt like it damn well should’ve been. It’s about nuns buried in a crypt beneath a temple, the secrets and paranoia of an island community stuck in the ritualistic past, and an archaeological dig helmed by shifty man Bret Halsey. It was contrived to harken back to Fucli’s ‘classic’ era in a belated bid to cash-in, but manages to build an authentically eerie atmosphere of its own, all windswept Greek island wilderness and trippy chimes on the soundtrack, when it’s not trying too hard one of those other, more beloved films. Don’t expect ‘The Beyond’ and you may have a good time with it.
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