16) NIGHT OF THE DEMONS

Director: Adam Gierasch
Stars: Shannon Elizabeth, Edward Furlong, Monica Keena, John F. Beach, Michael Copon, Diora Baird, Bobby Sue Luther
Year: 2009
Rating: R

Being a huge fan of the creepy (yet, somehow, also occasionally funny - in a good way) 1988 original, I was wondering just how bad this 2009 remake of one of my favorite cult horror films, Night of the Demons, would be. As it starred Elizabeth Shannon and Edward Furlong, plus personal-favorite actor of mine Michael Copon, I actually had some hope ... and am halfway-pleased to say the remake wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I guess, if anything, my question would be, why was it remade at all?

In the original, the plot was minor; a group of teenagers go to an old, unused funeral home on Halloween night for a party, hosted by resident high school weirdo Angela, and while there accidentally unleash a really nasty demon that turns each of them, one by one, into demons ... the question being, who can survive before morning, when the demons have to retreat back to their world after Halloween?

Cheesy (yet also very effective, especially the "lipstick scene") special effects added to the campy fun, and the film was actually a treat to watch. For the update, everything is more streamlined/updated; Angela (Shannon Elizabeth) is, like, the most popular girl on campus - a real rebel who rents out this Gothic mansion in New Orleans to host her annual blowout Halloween bash. The mansion is packed to the rafters with college kids, as well as liquor and sex and drugs ... the drugs supplied by one uninvited guest named Colin (Edward Furlong), Angela's ex and a desperate dealer who has only tonight to make enough money to repay a heavy debt owed to his supplier.

The party is barely underway before the cops arrive to break it up, leaving only Angela and six of her friends as stragglers. Determined to party alone and not waste the evening (or the liquor), the group hangs out and even plays spin the bottle ... before Angela reminds them of the truly sinister happenings in the Broussard mansion so many years ago. It seems that, decades early, Evangeline Broussard invited five guests to her house for a party. Five guests, plus the man she loved. And before the end of the evening, all of her guests were dead - had been murdered - and Evangeline herself hung herself over the edge of the second-story balcony at the front of the mansion.

Further, the group discovers the skeletal remains of Evangeline's six guests in a hidden room down in the basement - and when Angela accidentally suffers a cut on her finger from one of the skeletons, that infection grows into something truly ugly ... starting a chain of events that, eventually, those in the household realize has them trapped in the house for the night, with demons trying to take over their bodies before dawn; only in this one, if the demons can inhabit all seven of them by morning, a portal will open that will unleash them on the world.

Like everything else in remakes, things are supposed to be ratcheted up a notch or two here from the original; the special effects and makeup more realistic, the gore more explicit, the good guys' fight more difficult and with bigger consequences if they fail.

And here, certainly, all those things pretty much apply (although the acting is just as weak, in spots, as the original - except in the original, the weak acting fit; it was part of the fun). Good Lord, even the "lipstick scene" is repeated here, but goes to a level I would have thought the filmmakers wouldn't have dared!

Yet with all that, the remake of Night of the Demons is just okay. A valiant effort, but all gloss and no real substance. Not that you expect substance here, but somehow in the original - for all its flaws - the characters grew to become ones you care about. Not so much here, though John F. Beach, Michael Copon, and Diora Baird as Lily are standouts. Monica Keena is okay as the virginal Maddie, but if you've seen Freddy vs. Jason you've seen her pretty much play this character before.

Even an opening cameo from Linnea Quigley, who starred in the original, is nice - but again, nothing special. While I didn't hate - or even dislike - this version of Night of the Demons, after watching it a part of me is still asking: was making it really necessary? *** - Reel Cool