Hot off the presses from Synapse Films comes a groovy new transfer of a pair of delightfully demented Italian horror fantasias. Pick up your samurai sword, hop on your motorcycle and join me in the theater for a disarmingly demonic good time.
The Plot: Directed by Lamberto Bava, the son of a gothic horror legend (and a kind of splatterpunk horror legend in his own right) and produced & co-written by Italian horror maestro Dario Argento, Demons is a rollicking tale of a group of folks trapped in a theatrical hellscape when the horror movie they’ve gathered to watch begins to seep into reality, causing people to transform into oozy, gooey demons and wreak havoc upon all those unfortunate enough to have accepted a fancy invitation from a mysterious dude with a half metal face.
With Bava and Argento returning to the fray, Demons 2 finds the denizens of an apartment building besieged by demons leaping out of their television sets and running amok. This time we even get a demonic pooch. You know stuff’s gettin’ serious.
The Opinion: Demons is a stone-cold classic and a hell of a good time. Demons 2, while not as amazing as the first movie, is still pretty fun even though it dials down the insanity just a tad. Other than behind-the-scenes involvement from Bava and Argento, the two films don’t really have a ton in common beyond the basic premise of demons set loose in a somewhat limited location seemingly tied to a movie-within-the-movie being shown. Do I even need to talk about Demons? Fans of Italian horror have probably witnessed this gory romp multiple times with its wonderfully over-the-top practical effects and ludicrous set pieces like the motorcycle scene. You and I both know it’s awesome. Let’s move on. Demons 2 is a little harder to straight up love. The gore is dialed down (an intentional move from Bava and Argento to get a VM 14 rating) but it still has loads of fun practical effects like the demon dog despite the terrible dialogue and acting. It’s still a fun watch if you can adjust your expectations.
The Specs: For those of you out there who already own Demons 1 & 2 in Synapse’s previous releases of them, this is the section you are probably most curious about given this release sports a new 4K transfer and DTS 5.1 audio. Is it worth it? Well, I did a spot check between the previous release and this one (I happen to own both because I have problems). This new release definitely has a cleaner look with less noise in the image and is a definite step up from the previous release. I didn’t review the UHD version of the release but I would imagine it is about as good as these films will ever look. As big a selling point to me as the new transfer, the DTS 5.1 HD-MA sound is a welcome upgrade because of something I didn’t mention previously: the soundtracks. Both Demons 1 & 2 have freakin’ sweet music pulsing throughout the films with the metal and punk of the first film being supplanted with more new wave in the second. This DTS track does justice to the score and is worth checking out for fans of the music in the films for sure.
The Extras: On Demons 1, in addition to the extras ported from the previous release, we are treated to an audio commentary from Kat Ellinger and Heather Drain, hosts of the Hell’s Belles podcast and a new video essay “Produced by Argento” that gives an overview of Dario Argento’s producer career. The standout extra is definitely the new commentary. Kat & Heather are full of useful information and gives lots of good context into not just the making of the film itself but its place in Italian horror history. They have a great rapport with one another as well. This is definitely one I suggest checking out. The new video essay on Argento isn’t quite as essential. It’s a little dry and feels like the narrator is just reading from IMDB at times but is still a nice extra for those interested in learning more about Argento beyond his directing.
Demons 2 also brings us a couple of new extras on top of the already pretty stacked previous release in the form of a commentary by Travis Crawford and a new video essay “Together and Apart” from Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. The new extras here are a bit more of a mixed bag. Crawford’s commentary seesaws between informative and dull. While he goes into interesting nuggets like the weird history of the Demons sequels, at times it also feels like he’s just dryly reading off credits from IMDB. The new video essay is similar in the way that it just comes across a little dry. Content-wise it’s pretty interesting though.
The Verdict: Basically if you do not already own these movies in high definition, this should be a no brainer (unless you’ve got a UHD setup and go for the even higher resolution option). I highly doubt these movies will ever look or sound better. Plus they are stacked with extras. If you already have the previous Synapse releases of them, then the decision is a little tougher. But at the end of the day, they do definitely look better and the new commentary on Demons 1 is very good. All in all, this one is highly recommended!