Strap in, kids!  It’s time to go back to Italy for some good ol’ fashioned, bonkers, what-the-fuck-did-I-just-watch horror.  Back in October, I covered Demons from 1985.  Turns out that movie became a little hit and got fans of its own all across the world.  So, just one year later, a sequel had to happen.

And, so…  It’s time to take a look at Demons 2!

Generally, I’d be a little concerned about a quick turnaround for a sequel.  Shit.  The second movie was literally released one year later in the same week as the first.  I’ve mentioned it before with Zombie how quickly that was shot and released – the film was released within 3 calendar months of production beginning.  So I know the Italians have it in them to just crank this shit out like it’s a goddamn factory owned by Henry Ford.  Also, I kind of can’t totally throw this movie into the garbage pile straight away because Dario Argento is still producing and Lamberto Bava is directing.

I’m not saying they are perfect filmmakers, but it’s better than, say, oh…  Claudio Fragasso making a movie within a tight, six-week film shoot and trying to pass it off as quality.  My point is that the pedigree is there, so hopefully the movie is a fair sequel and not trash bin garbage fuck.

Also, why not make sure you stick tried and true to the original?  Instead of a movie theater, you have an apartment building.  Everyone inside are glued to the TV watching a scary movie.  Soon, DEMONS!  I mean…  What more is there to say about this movie than this quote from the back of the box in the little synopsis paragraph – “Acid blood, demonic dogs, possessed children, and rampaging zombies wreak havoc for the trapped tenants!”

Pure magic.  Pure, unadulterated magic.

So the movie begins with a narration explaining that, yeah, that crazy end of the world shit that started in the movie theater in the first movie DID happen and the world now knows that demons can exist.  I mean…  Bummer, right?

Okay, maybe this is just an opening salvo stinger like thing where we get that info upfront and it’s somehow tied into the TV show everyone in this building is watching or something.  Maybe the demon problem was, like, I dunno, in another region of the world and it got handled quickly before it spread.  Hell, maybe it did spread and we’re all demons now and because of that, WE look like regular people and the non-demon human people all look like gross monsters.  I dunno.  This shit is Italian, so I have already probably put more goddamn thought into it than anyone else.

Alright, after seeing someone decorating a birthday cake, we meet these two assholes at a building.  They are ready to go up the elevator to… somewhere.  Probably to that birthday party if I had to guess.  Anyway, look at this beefcake and this very modern, hot, blonde babe.  I mean…  Yum.  Nothing but chemistry and shoulder pads.  They are dripping with sexual charisma…

Nah, just kidding.  Steve Guttenberg and Olivia D’Abo here are probably just meeting for the first time, and like whenever I stand ready to get on an elevator with a pretty girl, it’s usually very quiet and awkward and soon to be both of our worst experiences ever.  She does tell us she’s terrified of elevators.    So there’s that.

Meanwhile, a group of kids fuck about with the elevator controls before being caught by security.  Then, we see Steve Not-So-Guttenberg’s hot pregnant wife doing some sexy workouts in their apartment.  We then cut to the building’s gym where the black pimp guy from the first movie is training some people to lift weights and get big, broham!

So like the first movie, we’re meeting all our people to be affected by demon shit.  Sally, who is having that birthday cake we saw getting decorated in the first scene, has a whole apartment of nerds dancing and partying.  She gets curious in something playing on the TV that appears to be a docudrama with all the shenanigans that ultimately took place in between the end of Demons and the beginning of Demons 2.  Apparently, everyone in this building can’t get enough of this shit because everyone is watching this show.  It seems to be narrating things that seem to connect it to the happenings of the first movie, but the action on the screen seem to be somewhat similar to the movie everyone was watching at the theater that unleashed the demons in the first movie.  Either way, kids, families, party people, and even that hot babe that was getting on the elevator with Steeb Goofenbergers is watching it – and I think she is watching it with a john (I think we’re supposed to think she’s a hooker based on the interaction with the dude she’s with) while she is getting plowsville.

Alright…  In the show that everyone is watching, instead of finding a mask in a grave, the two guys and two gals find what appears to be a claw in the mud.   I like what we have going on here.  Like the first movie, there’s this meta element that is somehow powering some nasty business in the real world.  There seems to be some general agreement that the demon shit happened previously.  Also, much like the theater patrons, we have several different types of people who will be eaten by demon peoples.  It’s just a nice collection of various types of people.  The younger people at Sally’s birthday party are easily on my list of people I wouldn’t mind loading up as demon fodder.  Strevin’ Gortenborg is seemingly happily married and appears to be nervous about some test he has to take in the morning.  There are some interesting characters being built.

In the show, one of the girls cuts her finger and the blood drips into the mouth of a demon corpse which reanimates it.  In the first movie, a combination of the mask cutting a lady’s face, and it being found and activated in the movie caused demons to happen.  Here, there’s not really so much an artifact that ties to the outbreak.  Instead, Sally is watching intently while hiding out from her ex-boyfriend possibly showing up at her party.  The movie builds to its big conclusion with the narrator stating that the demons are now free into the world, yada yada yada.  Anyway, Sally is kind of hypnotized by the demon guy on screen and he comes through the TV all Videodrome style and enters into the world to infect Sally.

But if you thought this shit would happen in a non-Italian way, well, dear readers, you don’t know nuthin’ about nuthin’ when it comes to Italian shit.  First of all, the movie did the same thing everywhere.  What I mean is the movie ended the same way – narrator saying the world is boned in the butt because of demons, the demon guy walks toward the screen, etc.  However, when it tried to birth itself through Sally’s TV, it caused it to get all disrupted by static and loss of antenna signal, etc.  However, monster man only was trying to come through Sally’s TV.  Which freaks her the fuck out, but when she turns back around after realizing she’s somehow locked inside her own bedroom, she doesn’t see the guy coming out of her TV anymore.  Sooooooooo, what does she do?  Gets upset that the TV reception sucks and goes over to the TV to abuse it for 1) losing antenna reception and 2) trying to birth a monster through its tube.  Why?  Because this shit is Italian.

This also allows for monster man to sneak up behind her and eat her to turn her into a monster chick.  However, that doesn’t happen right away, oh no.  When she comes out to get her birthday cake and get “Happy Birthday” sung to her (I promise you no one on this Italian production paid for the rights to that song), she looks normal.  So, question – was monster man coming out of the TV real?  Was it metaphysical?  Was that whole scene just for us to see her get possessed or attacked or whatever?  She comes out of the room acting weird, sure, but she doesn’t look like you’d think if a demon goes for her neck faster than a 12 year old boy goes for his date’s neck during their first make-out sesh at his buddy’s party.  Oh, whatever, she comes out, blows out her candles and transforms and starts slicing through the guests at her party like they are made of buttery paper.

So the building now has a demon issue because all Sally’s friends are turning into demons too now.  But we’re not done with the utterly insane Italian shit yet, though, no sirree Bob.  In a move that I can only describe as “European as all fuckin’ get out”, homeboy’s pregnant wife, and neighbor to Sally and her parents, decides to go over to ask if they have any cake left because she’s having a craving.  Who, and I mean this sincerely, in the holy mother fuck, pregnant or not, goes over to their neighbors’ during a party they were NOT invited to, and asks for a fucking piece of goddamn cake?  You, ma’am, are an asshole.

Okay, anyway, things are really cooking with gas now because as everyone turns into demons, they are breaking through skin and bleeding and slobbering all over the place, right?  Well, remember, their blood is acidic.  It’s cutting through the apartments through the floors and ceilings.  It drips on a dude in the steamer in the gym and turns him into a demon and he sizzles the fuck out of a naked chick in the tanning bed.  It starts shorting out the power in the building leaving everyone in the dark.

Just like with Demons, this movie has a carload of punks led by Jacob.  They are headed to Sally’s party.  I think Jacob was her ex, but I don’t know and I’m not sure I care because I wanna see demons and shit.  Back at the apartment, the acidic blood is causing all sorts of havoc.  It’s dripped on people, a lady’s dog is turned into a monster thing and attacks his lady, power’s out, the phone doesn’t work, and no one can get in or out of the building for… reasons.

Because pregnant Hannah couldn’t get none of that birthday cake, Sturbed Goobersville was sent out to get cake.  He again runs into the hot babe in the elevator and, in case we didn’t realize this would happen when she talked about being afraid of them, they get stuck in the elevator.  They see the demons through a small slit in the elevator doors, and he realizes that his wife is all alone in her apartment so they need to get the hell out of that elevator and save her.

Soon, the demons run wild through the building.  They first attack the gym and start eating some of those jerks.  If I’ve said it before, I’ve said it a thousand times – working out only does harm to you and your body.  Instructor Hank (awesome pimp from the first one played by Bobby Rhodes) figures out a way to barricade themselves into the parking garage to stand their ground against the demons.  He also, on multiple occasions, helps get people to safety as he holds off the demons single-handed.  Dude’s a badass.

We are now at the point in the movie, at just past the halfway point, that I signed up to cover this for this blog – there’s a little kid left home alone by her parents who is gonna get attacked by demons.  He’s gonna become a demon kid.  It’s gonna be awesome.  The kid gives it the ol’ college try with the survival and stuff, by mostly avoiding Sally’s rampaging horde of monster friends, but gets infected by the acid blood while hiding from Sally we’ll just have to wait to see what becomes of him.

Back in the parking garage, Hank and his gang has built a bonfire and armed themselves as the demons continue to try to bust in and eat them.  Don’t ask me where they got those fuckin’ guns and shit, but they are fucking ready for war.

So literal dozens of uninfected people have joined the group in the garage.  Hank tells them to go through the garage and find anything that could possibly be used as a weapon.  They do ultimately move cars around to be used as fortification.  They also try to bust their way out of the garage door that will not open.

While the garage gang do what they can to bust out while also holding back the demons, Jacob and his cronies literally crash their way to the apartment building and accidentally kill(?) the parents of that demon boy.  Oh!  Speaking of the demon boy…  Yeah, he’s full on rage monster now and he wants to attack Hannah.

Holy balls, look at that little monster kid.  But wait!  There’s more!  Hannah is pretty good at avoiding the little kid demon only for a smaller, flying demon to bust out of his body.  Now ain’t that some shit?  I literally do not care what you say about Italian horror movies.  I mean it.  Talk all the shit you want, but they will abandon a child character, kill him, and turn him into a monster…  Only for him to birth a flying demon, leaving his ravaged carcass dead in a pregnant woman’s kitchen.

Fuck off if you hate Italian horror movies.

Okay, now that 90% of the readers have left after my little outburst there, let’s get back to the people in the garage, shall we?  I have neglected to mention that this was the first on screen appearance of Asia Argento who was probably like 10 or something when this came out.  She and her mom are in the garage and sadly, mama has been infected and has to be put down by Hank right in front of young Asia’s eyes.

Hannah continues to evade the flying demon kid.  Officer Mahoney gets out of the elevator through the service hatch, but Hotstuff McCuddleswillcostyaextra has been infected and is now a demon.  She gives chase up the elevator shaft but Newton Crosby kicks her sexy demon ass back down to the elevator.  He gets back home in time to save Hannah from the flying demon by stabbing the fuck out of it with an umbrella.

Back at the garage, it’s a total shit storm of monsters.  Yeah, the normies outnumber the monsters, but the monsters are pretty tough.  Just ask Hank, who got his nuts squeezed off by a monster guy.

This shit in the garage is an utter massacre.  All the while, Asia Argento is just watching it from the relative safety of a locked car, but, yeah, I can’t imagine that’s all that safe.  This is a fairly brutal scene.  People are literally being torn to bits, Asia is watching these people get slaughtered – her father included.  When she cries for her papa, the demons see her and surround the car.  For some reason, and I’m not entirely sure why other than she is the producer’s daughter, Sally decides Asia isn’t worthy of their time or monster infection, and calls off her demons.  Everyone is dead or turned, and Asia is in her car having to look at her dead dad’s corpse, but I guess she’s safe.

Whatever…  Jack Bonner tells Hannah that he’s gotta get these motherfucking demons out of his motherfucking building.  He starts molotov cocktailing them while Hannah gets overcome with that craving for cake and goes for Sally’s cake.  Thankfully, this is only sort of stupid because instead of something terrible happening to her, she finds a couple of Sally’s friends who have been hiding out ever since this shit went down.  They make their way to the roof only to discover that these two were delayed-reaction demons and need to be dispatched.

Woody Goodman and Hannah repel down the side of the building, followed by Sally.  He does run Sally through with a pipe or something.  Hannah reveals, though, that she’s maybe going into labor or something?  They find a television studio because… sure.  There, he helps deliver the baby.  Morning comes and they now have a son.  If you are hoping for a monster baby, I hate to break it to you.  I will say that Sally is back and stumbles around the studio because she’s blind for reasons I cannot say and the movie opts not to say either.

Anyway, the newly formed family just… leaves the apartment building.  Okay.  I guess Sally’s ex-boyfriend was just a useless plotline.  I don’t know what the hell happened to the dork sent outside to intercept Jacob.  I guess he’s okay.  Also, I think there were a whole lot more demons than we saw get dispatched, but I’m sure that’s okay too.  I suspect Asia Argento is going to starve to death locked in that car like she is.  So that’s a bummer.  But what can I say?  It’s Italian horror, baby!

I kid.  This movie has lots to pick on like that, but damn if it isn’t a fun watch.  Seriously.  This is a fun movie much like the original.  I still do not know if this is truly another instance of demons on earth like the first movie or if that was just part of that movie and that’s it.  Either way, there is some decent continuity here, though.  The makeup for the demons match nicely and likely much better than the future faux-sequels that followed this.  Someday I’m sure I will cover some of those.

That puts a wrap on this week’s B-Movie Enema.  In two weeks, I’ll be back in Italy, and with another Lucio Fulci to boot.  However, this one won’t be a horror flick.  Oh no, I wanna get nasty.  I’m gonna check out The Devil’s Honey so be sure to be back here in two weeks to check out my ramblings about this “extreme erotic shocker”!

But before I can get there…  I have to finally put to rest a quadrilogy that has been hanging over me for about 7 months now without a conclusion.  Next week, things have to get ANGELic one last time.