Demonia

Demonia Directed By Lucio Fulci, Starring Meg Register (1990).

There are certain Fulci movies, I've completely avoided seeing up until now, Demonia is one of them. Whenever I hear the title, I immediately think of that Misfits song "Demonomania", which I misinterpreted the lyrics as "Demonomania, my mother was a man". I've not read anything venturing into this one, but when I first heard of it in Deep Red Alert #1, Chas seemed impressed and remarked how Fulci is back in top form or something to that effect. So here we go,a mid 90's Italian horror flick involving Catholics, possession and bug-eyed nuns puking green stuff, all set, lets go!

I should've avoided Pee Soup Andersons!

I certainly recognize the theme music that the maggot maestro speaks over from my Fulci best of CD, so that's getting me amped up for some debauchery. You can't really call this a "Nunsploitation" film because it does have nuns, sure, but non of the usual things associated with that subgenre. The script is really half baked and could stand a few revisions--I mean when the lead actress transforms into one of the cloistered ghouls featured on the box cover, there's no real explanation, what gives?
   

In the opening scene, a gaggle of nuns are viciously crucified as a Lauren Hutton type blonde (Meg Register) passes out at a seance ala-Catriona Macoll (Gates of Hell style). When she comes to, she is met by her professor played by Bret Halsey, he warns her not to fuck around with black magic and that she'll be getting extra homework for disobeying his advice (well not quite, but you get the idea). 

There are some "Beyond" elements floating around the ether of this film, but this is in no way related to that superior film. Liza (recognize that name?) is on an expedition with her teacher Paul (Halsey) on an archeological dig. A rotund mayor type named Buscemi stirs up a little trouble, I wonder if he'll show up later, because that name is just too funny for me to not mention.

I'm thinking so hard right now

Al Cliver shows up (sans his dubbed voice, which seems almost as if he forgot his pants)! He mentions how the villagers will never let them continue with the dig and sees them as outsiders gutting their monastery and culture. One gaunt actor named Lino Salemme (who I've seen in Sweet House of Horrors, a film so stupid, that I'd like to forget it), tries to warn fake Lauren Hutton again, but its no use. She get her pickaxe out and starts cracking monastery walls. I like how the actors in the film are more freaked out and scared than the viewer is, this kind of illogical balance can only work in a Fulci flick.

I brought Herpes to Sicily!

Cliver's death is very strange, a ghost with a harpoon gun shoots him in the chest and he immediately goes down. Liza has some uneventful and silly dreams (Yawn, this movie is started to get boring). For this Pastaland effort, there's a serious lack of gore, what's the deal--I did notice in the beginning credits that a different effects guy than Giannetto De Rossi is handling them, so let's all blame him. To be fair, Franco Giannini (The Last Emperor, Ratman) was out of his element on this one.
Salemme looks as if Stallone and John Morghen mated, that character's death scene is hilarious, when his giant tongue gets nailed to the floor, he looks like an Italian Garbage Pail Kid! I've got to mention the jangly campfire/ pirate music, which is worse than any Jimmy Buffett song, BLECCCHH!

Oh yeah, that's totally going on a sandwich

Two winos fall onto a pit of spikes, so far, after some tedious bullshit that was thee highlight. Fulci looks very skinny in his cameo, its kind of sad because he died a few years later. A very homely villager explains to the blonde archeologist that the nuns made a pact with Satan (I'm guessing that's why they have what looks like the Blue Oyster Cult insignia on their foreheads). During a flashback, a nun throws a baby onto a barbecue and kills it. Fulci as the detective, kind of lingers around in his cameo, sort of like that tub of Ricotta cheese that you bought too much of for stuffed shells or lasagna and it stays at the back of the fridge for months. The best effect in the film shows maniacal cats pulling out a woman's eyeballs. Demonia has many flaws, but considering how shitty 90's Fulci flicks were (excluding Cat in the Brain of course), its more fun than you'd imagine.

SKIP IT UNLESS YOU LIKE TEPID SCARES AND HAVE A NUN FETISH, MORE LIKE DEMONO (demon plus mono)!

Those dudes from Labyrinth popped out my eyes

I baked these delicious macaroons with just a hint of seasalt

Heh, Oh man I'm so high

maybe the goofiest thing I've seen in a Fulci film

Oh Shit I forgot my voice in the car!