Cheryl (Natasha Hovey) is on the way to meet her friend Kathy (Paola Cozzo) when she is given a ticket to the screening of a film at a recently renovated theater called the Metropol. The man (Michele Soavi) is creepy looking and is wearing a metal mask over part of his face. Although he is sinister looking, Cheryl asks him for another ticket for Kathy. She asks him if the mask is dressed strangely to promote the film. The man says nothing and walks away. Later, the two girls decide to go to the see the film.
At the theater they meet two guys, George (Urbano Barberini) and Ken (Karl Zinny). Attracted to the girls, the young men sit next to Cheryl and Kathy. Other patrons are a blind man (Alex Serra) and his daughter (Sally Day), a pimp, Tony (Bobby Rhodes) with two of his girls, a married couple (Stelio Candelli and Nicole Tessier), a dating couple (Fiore Argento and Guido Baldi) and various other people. In the lobby of the theater is a display with a dummy on a motorcycle. The dummy is holding a saber and a silver mask. One of Tony’s girls, Rosemary (Geretta Gereta), jokingly puts the mask on. She ends up scratching her face.
Everyone takes a seat in the theater and the movie starts. It turns out to be a horror movie. The movie within a movie is about two couples that are in a cemetery. They discover a tomb that they think belongs to Nostradamus. Inside the tomb are a book and a mask. When one of the characters tries on the mask, he cuts his face. He then turns into a demon.
Meanwhile, back in the theater, Rosemary’s cut begins to bleed again. She goes to the ladies' room to take care of it. Rosemary turns into a demon. When Rosemary’s friend, Carmen (Fabiola Toledo), goes to check on her she is attacked. Carmen gets away but ends up turning into a demon on the theater stage. Everyone in the theater sees her change. All hell breaks loose.
“Demons” AKA “Demoni” was released in 1985 and was directed by Lamberto Bava and produced by Dario Argento. It is and Italian horror movie and a zombie movie. Lamberto Bava is the son of famed cinematographer and director, Mario Bava. The special effects were done by Sergio Stivaletti.
The story was supposed to be part of an anthology of three stories written by Dardano Sacchetti, however, Bava liked one of the stories so much that it was expanded into a full-length feature. The exterior shots of the theater are of the Metropol cinema in Berlin. The cinema later became a club called Goya. Due to the film the club has since been host to several horror conventions.
You could watch this just for the music. The music score was done by Claudio Simonetti. Included are soundtracks from other artists such as, Mötley Crüe, Bruce Springfield, The Scorpions and Billy Idol.
There are a lot of standard horror movie tropes sprinkled among the mayhem. Included are a lot of gore and blood as well as some campy scenes and plot holes. There isn’t much plot, so the plot holes are just plot devises to add more chaos to the already maniacal happenings. All of this added together makes a really gross yet fun movie. Once the action gets going, it’s all zombies all the time. Inserted in the middle of things are some cokeheads (snorting coke out of a coke can) that seem a little out of place, but they eventually join in on the fun. Even with the strange addition of the cokeheads it is a wickedly enjoyable film. Extremely gross, but still wildly entertaining.