A BBB-Movie

When I saw 1988's Night of the Demons when I was a kid, I could tell even then that it was on the lower end of production quality. My family rented a lot of horror movies, and this one was a dud with my family, and my mom even coined a term for it. But, for even as cheap as I thought it was, there was something about it that stuck with me -- more than just the scares or good looking ladies (Jill Terashita spent years etched into my memory) or gore, it had an energy to it. When I went back and watched it when I growded up, I appreciated the movie even more.

The movie's just fun. It's an entertaining funhouse ride, but what's great is that it does manage to still have scary moments and take memorable, surprising turns. It's a Halloween party or haunted house attraction or spooky carnival ride in movie form. The premise of high school kids having a Halloween party at an abandoned funeral parlor always seemed to me like such a cool, fun idea. They tease each other with stories, the town folklore, of the place being haunted, but little do they know what they're in for. Further adding to the fun atmosphere of the movie is the way the cast seems to be having fun -- it's one of those movies that just looked like it was a blast to make.

One of the things I find interesting about the characters is the way that most of them are pretty antagonistic towards one another, but when hell's breaking loose, they do try to help one another. A hooligan like Sal would probably be about saving himself in another movie, but he does stick around to help out here. I remember being shocked by Sal's death when I was a kid -- I thought he was cool, and he seemed like he would have made it out alive. You also have Roger, who's initially depicted as being a bit cowardly -- he's the first to run, and in the middle of the movie, he breaks down in tears at the hopelessness of the situation, needing consoled by the heroine -- but he ends up stepping up and putting himself in danger for others in the end.

The real star of the movie, though, is Amelia Kinkade as Angela. The creepy, loner goth girl who's behind this Halloween shindig, she's the first to realize there's something evil and sinister targeting them, and that her innocent Halloween games are becoming serious, but she's just dismissed as being the kooky one who's into the occult. When she ends up possessed, she becomes the movie's biggest villain, and is rightfully made the star and face of the franchise. Even though the sequels don't live up to the original (and should be ignored), Kinkade makes Angela a memorable horror monster, at once having fun in the role but also still managing to actually be scary. (Steve Johnson's make-up effects are great; he worked on Fright Night, and you can kind of see Evil Ed's disfigured vampire form in a lot of the possessed character make-up in this movie.) Kinkade deserved better sequels and Angela might have been up there with the likes of Freddy, Jason and the gang.

(I have to take this time to mention the awesome VHS cover art. It's Kinkade in demon make-up, creepy and in demonic joy, holding an invitation to her party. The classic tagline is "Angela is having a party. Jason and Freddy are too scared to come, but you'll have a hell of a time." How awesome is that? I actually had no idea for the longest time that it was Kinkade's Angela on the cover, I thought it was just a random demonic monster not even in the movie. That's how cool the make-up is, how much Kinkade transforms herself.)

As a kid who always heard horror stories about the perils of Trick-or-Treating -- the warnings, like about checking your candy -- the end of this movie gave me the willies when I was a kid. It's meant to be comedic and over-the-top, but, still...that grumpy old bastard who wanted to give the razor-filled apples to kids getting a dose of his own medicine was a gory shock. That the razor apples are used by the guy's wife to make apple pie is pretty ridiculous; we know the wife wants the guy dead, so that explains how the razors survived the transition from apple to pie, but how'd he eat any of the pie without noticing the crisp, just-peeled razor deliciousness!?! Ah, whatever. It's still a funny and shocking "trick" to end this big old Halloween party...

"Halloween Party." It's what the movie was meant to be called before the producers of Mikey Myers' movies shot it down. But that's the perfect title for this movie -- it's a Halloween party in film form. That term my mom once coined for this movie, which she hated? I clearly remember when we returned this movie to the video store. As my mom handed our rentals over to Heidi, the video store clerk who I had a bit of a crush on, Heidi asked what we thought of the movies we rented. My mom was quick to start trashing Night of the Demons. "That wasn't just a B-Movie, it was a BBB-Movie; filled with butts, boobs and bad-acting." Well, to her it might have been a BBB-Movie. To me it's the perfect Halloween movie.