Halloween: Day 9: Demons & Demons 2

Some of the most disgusting transformation sequences ever appear in Lamberto Bava’s Demons and Demons 2. I remember watching these on VHS around twenty years ago. Christ, I’m old.

For those who haven’t seen them, well…the trailers won’t do you much good in this case. The trailers are less trailers than they are random smatterings of footage from the film that probably confuse people who’ve actually seen the films more than they would the uninitiated. The setup for both films is pretty basic. First time around, some people find themselves trapped in a movie cinema for a sneak preview of a film, only to get transformed into hideous freaked out killers. Which is, incidentally, the reaction of the audience to the advance screening I saw of Deuce Bigalow. The second time around, the action is expanded to an entire apartment building.

Dario Argento co-wrote and produced these gems, so you know that they’re going to be rather nasty. But oh so satisfying. Even more satisfying is the fact that Starz/Anchor Bay has re-released them both in anamorphic widescreen. Each film has a commentary track as well, with Bava, Sergio Stivaletti who was responsible for the aforementioned gnarly transformations and journalist Loris Curci. Now I understand that the transfer is what’s new here (the features were on the last go-round of these titles, but I didn’t snag those last time) so if you already own these, you might want to consider just how badly you want them anamorphic. I think they look great for tasty Italian horror, so YMMV.

Now here come the trailers. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.