For Day 11, I decided to embrace the dark side of the horror industry: sequels!
A week or so ago, I wrote a review on Lamberto Bava’s Demons, and today I decided to watch Demons 2. I’ve been told by friends in the horror industry that the sequel is pretty much a remake of the first movie, swapping the movie theater setting with an apartment complex. However, I found that Demons 2 had plenty to offer that was absent from the first film.
For starters, let’s address the demons themselves. They’ve similar in almost every way to the demons in the first movie, and the sequel offers very little in regard to improvements on the makeup design. I believe this is one of the reasons the sequel gets a lot of hate from horror fans: sequels are only approvable in they manage to improve upon aspects of the first movie, particularly character designs. Although Demons 2 failed to offer anything new in terms of the demonic entities, I believe all the improvement went into the human characters and the stakes of their peril.
The first movie had a lot of seedy and unlikeable characters trapped in a movie theater, which was alright because I was mainly invested in the movie so that I could see them all be torn apart in various gruesome ways. The second movie, however, has a wider range of character types: gym freaks, douchebags, the hero types, and a pregnant woman simply doing her best. By hitting us with a scattershot of characters—which is pretty much truthful to life in an apartment complex, as I can attest—Demons 2 is more likely to connect with audiences is some way, since you’ll relate with at least one of these characters.
One of my favorite parts of the first movie was the outright B-movie cheesiness throughout, and Demons 2 doubles down on the cheese. For as gorgeous as the cinematography is, the sequel embraces the weirdness that granted the first movie cult status. Although none of the characters ride around on a motorcycle decapitating demons with a katana, there are plenty of super-gory and creative kills throughout this rollercoaster of a movie!
The ending of Demons 2 was also superior to its predecessor, and it offers more for your imagination to work from when you’re lying in bed later in the night. The first movie had demons in reality mirroring demons on the big screen, and the sequel seems to play on that same field in a much more satisfying way.
Have you seen Demons 2? If so, what did you think?
Next week, I’ll be watching five days of zombie movies in continuation of my 31 Days of Horror Reviews series! Stay tuned!
Comments