{"id":37624,"date":"2022-08-01T11:43:56","date_gmt":"2022-08-01T15:43:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=37624"},"modified":"2023-01-03T11:23:10","modified_gmt":"2023-01-03T16:23:10","slug":"bad-movie-monday-demonoid-messenger-of-death-1981","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2022\/08\/01\/bad-movie-monday-demonoid-messenger-of-death-1981\/","title":{"rendered":"BAD MOVIE MONDAY: DEMONOID MESSENGER OF DEATH (1981)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nToday\u2019s review is for a movie called DEMONOID: MESSENGER OF DEATH starring Stuart Whitman and Samantha Eggar, both of whom are pros at making any movie look awesome just by virtue of them being in it. It\u2019s directed by the legendary Alfredo Zacar\u00edas who not only made this twisted gem but also made the utterly batshit insane \u201cThe Bees\u201d in 1978 with John Saxon and John Carradine, another one worth seeking out.<\/p>\n

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Quick Recap! When COVID shut down everything two years ago, I started an online bad movie night get-together with some friends that we eventually dubbed \u201cBad Movie Monday\u201d. The premise was simple: We\u2019d torture each other every Monday with the worst trash we could find, tell a few jokes, cheer each other up, and in the process maybe discover some weird obscure cinema that we might never have seen any other way. This series of reviews will feature highlights of those night, so you guys can share in the fun and maybe get some ideas for your own movie night.<\/em><\/p>\n

We watched Demonoid on Bad Movie Monday almost two years ago, on July 27, 2020 to be exact. It was in my memories on Facebook, which is why I decided to re-review it. I had picked it for BMM at the time because I felt it epitomized what a \u201cbad\u201d movie ought to be. It\u2019s bold, passionate, and isn\u2019t afraid to just throw wild ideas out there and make mistakes. It\u2019s glorious to behold to be honest. It fulfills all three qualities in a bad film that I feel make it worth watching.<\/p>\n

#1 Short Running Time. Ideally, under 90 minutes, two hours MAX. If there’s one thing that completely sucks the fun out of a bad movie it’s watching one that will not end. That’s why “Blood Feast” is fun to watch with its 67 minute running time but “Dreamcatcher” is kind of a dreary slog at over two hours and sixteen minutes. As much fun as it is to experience wacky dumb stuff, it can wear you down after a while.<\/p>\n

#2 Fast Pace\/Snappy Editing. If you can’t get something super short, then get something that moves at a fairly good clip. Normally, you’d want a movie that makes sense AND is fast paced, but if it’s a bad movie then who gives a shit about it making sense? Most bad movies wouldn’t improve by being more coherent anyway. If it’s an action movie I want to see lots of car chases and martial arts. If it’s a horror movie I want to see monsters or creative kills. If it\u2019s a drama or thriller I want see lots of overacting and chewing the scenery. Anything else is filler.<\/p>\n

#3 An interesting premise that can<\/em> be ridiculed but that isn\u2019t entirely ridiculous. The best bad movies are passion projects or vanity projects. Movies that someone really believed in but just didn’t have the skill or talent or money to pull off. Failure is always funny, but in order to fail you have to try. So it can’t be some cynical Hollywood cash grab. Those are never fun and rarely funny. No, it has to be something that someone put their heart and soul into. Only then can you lovingly, but mercilessly, mock it. You have to love the movie as much as the filmmakers did in order to truly appreciate it enough to bust its balls.<\/p>\n

Okay, onto the review. What\u2019s written on the back of the VHS box?<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a horrifying tale of Demonic possession.<\/strong><\/p>\n

While mining deep in the interior of their silver mine. Jennifer Baines (Samantha Eggar) and her husband Mark (Roy Cameron Jenson) discover an ancient temple of Satanic worship. They remove a silver coffer in the shape of a left hand to find it contains only dust.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Soon after their discovery, Mark and Jennifer’s lives change for the worse. Their marriage breaks up and Mark heads to Las Vegas to take up with the gambling crowd. He is possessed by the Demonoid.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jennifer turns to Father Cunningham (Stuart Whitman) for help and the two of them attempt to cast off the spell of the Demonoid hand as it continues to possess those who come into contact with it.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The way that the demonic possession in this movie seems to work is that you have a severed left hand crawling around and if it touches your left hand then your mind is taken over\u2026 maybe. The film is very very fuzzy about how much control this entity, which may or may not be Satan himself, has on people. Some people seem to be completely taken over and almost zombie-like, others seem in control except for when they try to murder you.<\/p>\n

In a movie like this you have to find ways to amuse yourself with some of the more bonkers moments. Like, for example, one of the things that gave me the biggest laugh was the fact that one of the characters, the mine foreman I believe, wears a hardhat everywhere. Even when he\u2019s not working in the mine. So I amused myself by creating a montage of his life in my head where he was on vacation, in fancy restaurants, at his children\u2019s birth, at his wedding, always wearing the hardhat. Was it the dumbest joke imaginable? Yes. Do I still giggle thinking about it? Also yes. I\u2019m a very simple childlike person at times.<\/p>\n

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I have a little bit of history with this movie. When I was ten years old I used to own the video store poster and had it up on my bedroom wall, although I was a bit too young to be allowed to watch the actual film. So I spent many hours idly speculating what \u201cDemonoid\u201d might be about and came up with some pretty nifty theories. Then, a few years later, I finally got to watch it one summer night when it played on a local Montreal TV station at 2am. At the time I thought I was confused by the plot because I was tired. Now I realize that I was confused by the plot because this film makes no goddamn sense. Everyone’s motivation is bonkers, the film very awkwardly jumps from scene to scene, and I still don’t know what the “Demonoid” is. The name is never mentioned in the film and the film’s portrayal of what this evil force is supposed to be is so vague that I still don’t know what it’s trying to do or why it’s doing it. I do know one thing though, everything on that poster is a bit of a lie. It’s a beautiful work of art but it writes an awful big check that it has no intention of cashing.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to my own PROMISES!<\/p>\n

#1 Legitimately haunting imagery of real mummies.<\/p>\n

#2 Gratuittities in the opening flashback courtesy of the same actress who will later play a nurse in the present time. I\u2019m not sure, but I think she may be one of a handful of people to play two completely different characters who both get killed in the same movie.<\/p>\n

#3 Samantha Eggar will be the most elegant woman you\u2019ll ever see in your damn life. She made me wish I was wearing a top hat so I could tip it to her. She\u2019s such a classy lady that they let her walk around in a filthy mine with high heels, because it would have been wrong for her to wear anything else.<\/p>\n

#4 Stuart Whitman looks as if they should have cast him in The Exorcist, and he plays this role with all the seriousness of The Exorcist. He made my list of great actors with this movie alone.<\/p>\n

#5 Ted White plays a mob guy in this film, and I honestly think he should have acted more. He really has a good screen presence and has some very decent acting skills.<\/p>\n

#6 \u201cYou either cut off my hand, or I’ll kill you!\u201d is one of the most unintentionally hilarious yet badass lines in all of cinematic history.<\/p>\n

#7 There is a car chase straight out of The Naked Gun. All that\u2019s missing is comedy music and Leslie Nielsen.<\/p>\n

#8 There\u2019s some really good location work in this film. If you see it in Blu-ray it\u2019s gorgeous to look at.<\/p>\n

#9 The final showdown between the hand and Father Cunningham NEVER would have worked had this been anyone other than Eggar and Whitman reading these lines. I actually had feelings watching this. They\u2019re treating the material like its theatre, and I was there for it.<\/p>\n

#10 Remember the ending in Carrie? Well, this is kind of like that except 97% stupider. I think I\u2019ve been very fair and kind, and accurate, in describing this film as \u201cMore mad than bad\u201d but this ending is bad. It\u2019s just bad. I mean, it\u2019s not too terrible. It doesn\u2019t ruin the movie. However, it could have been improved by reducing the ridiculous camera work. Again, this feels straight out of a comedy.<\/p>\n

Demonoid: Messenger of Death is available, for free, on Tubi<\/a>. You just need to register. Check it out!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s review is for a movie called DEMONOID: MESSENGER OF DEATH starring Stuart Whitman and Samantha Eggar, both of whom are pros at making any movie look awesome just by virtue of them being in it. It\u2019s directed by the legendary Alfredo Zacar\u00edas who not only made this twisted gem but also made the utterly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3070,12],"tags":[2951],"class_list":["post-37624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-badmoviemonday","category-movie-reviews","tag-bad-movie-monday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37624"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37629,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37624\/revisions\/37629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}