Director: Lamberto Bava Run Time: 88 min. Format: 35mm Rating: NR Release Year: 1985

Starring: Urbano Barberini, Natasha Hovey, Karl Zinny

Usually taking in a late night horror movie at the local theater is a bit of harmless (if gross) fun. You see some folks get mauled, squirm in your seat a bit and then head home for a night of uneasy sleep. Things aren’t so easy for the moviegoers in Lamberto Bava’s DEMONS. Given a free ticket from a masked stranger, a group of night owls head off to a West Berlin movie house to take in a bit of ultra-violent Italian horror. Lulled into a sense of safety by the flickering light of the projector, the real horror begins when an honest-to-God demon rips its way out of the screen and starts slashing its way through the crowd. With their only exits bricked off, as if by magic, the surviving members of the audience must take up arms and fight off the growing demon horde.

Demons is a a grotesque bit of meta-horror from Bava and producer Dario Argento, filled with ruthless baddies, cheeseball heavy metal, and every color of blood, bile and pus you can imagine. Don’t be frightened, though: it’s only a movie.