Demons is a Horror Masterpiece of Hopeless Terror

While Dario Argento is known for his Giallo slasher films, I never thought in a million years that he focused on the supernatural. I found Demons on Shudder, and decided to give it a watch once I started hearing how many fans thoroughly enjoyed this film. 

It's pure survival horror that focuses on a group of people who are trapped in a theater with demons, with no way out. 

Doesn't that sound like a horrible situation?

And man, this simple plot brought to life one of the best 80s horror films I have seen. It shocks me how underrated this film is. Horror fans would love this one to death, it's like watching The Evil Dead, but in a movie theater!

We follow a young woman named Cheryl, a college student who is invited to a theater by a strange man in a silver mask.

Cheryl decides to check out the theater with her friend Kathy, after receiving two free tickets by a strange man. 

I don't know why Cheryl wasn't more hesitant with this creepy dude, but I think she thought it was all part of the theater show lol. 

The duo meets with two other college students, two young men named George and Ken. Other characters are introduced in the theater screening, already hinting at the future carnage and body count we are about to get. 

The film begins, and the audience find themselves watching a horror movie about a group of kids who want to dig up a coffin. They find a mask, one that looks quite identical to the one that a random woman discovers in the lobby of the theater. She accidentally scratches herself with the mask, and she runs to a bathroom. 

While the film is playing, one of the characters ends up getting a scratch from the mask, like the woman did in the theater. The character in the film transforms into a monster, attacking all of his friends. This also happens to the random woman in the bathroom, and she transforms into a hideous bloodthirsty demon. 

She attacks another woman, and she transforms right in front of everyone in the theater. 

What happens next is an awesome bloodbath of terror and gore. 

The main cast and the rest of the characters find themselves trapped inside of a movie theater with demons.

Throughout the entire second half, everyone is desperately trying to survive. What I didn't expect was the people to realize that all of the theater entrances were blocked up by bricks. Literal evil had entered this place, and it was going to make sure that no one would make it out alive. 

Many people are killed and transformed into demons, and one even escapes to the outside world to begin a worldwide infection. Cheryl and George lose their own friends to the infection as well, and they are the final survivors in this brutal bloodbath. 

George gets the idea to get on motorcycle with Cheryl, using a weapon to slice through the demon infested theater. The duo are eventually able to escape by pure luck when a helicopter suddenly crashes into the ceiling of the theater. The stranger in the mask appears to the duo, and they get into a fight with the masked man. 

It's revealed that he had something to do with the infection, and the duo kill him by impaling him with a rebar. Cheryl and George make it to the city, learning that the whole city was now filled with demons. They are saved by a group of people driving a jeep in their direction, and they are picked up. 

We then get a shocking ending I did not expect. 

Cheryl had gotten infected at some point during the chaos, and she is killed by the group of people.

I was in absolute shock when Cheryl turned her face to the screen to reveal she was now a full-on demon. The group of people that saved them don't hesitate to shoot her with a shotgun, and poor George is forced to watch her body fall to the ground, as he remains the sole survivor of the demon infection. 

I thought the film was going for the old school horror trope of final boy and girl survivors, but we only got the final boy as the lucky one. 

I felt so sorry for George, I could tell that they were forming a bond throughout the film as they both did their best to survive, only for him to lose her in the end. 

It felt like a punch to the face ending, and I appreciate Dario Argento for pulling a bleak ending like this off. He has always been known for killing a lot of characters off in his movies, and it makes for a realistic ending that not everyone can survive. 

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Thank you for reading!

Emy Quinn