The movie starts with a young girl riding a subway somewhere in Italy, at least I think its Italy.  It’s an Italian horror movie so I assume that it’s probably set there, but it doesn’t really matter.  Anyways, as she rides the train and they pass through a tunnel a figure of a man appears in the window.  When she looks again the image has disappeared and the train pulls into the station.  As she departs the train and heads towards the exit and spots a mysterious looking man with a silver half-mask (he kind of looks like The Phantom of the Opera).  She first thinks he’s going to attack her but all he does is give her a free movie ticket without saying a word.  He then leaves and that is the last we see of him, or so we think (muahaha!).

The girl exits the station and meets her friend.  After some arm-twisting she convinces her friend to go to the theatre with her.  Once they arrive they give their ticket to a creepy looking usher lady and enter the theatre.  Several people have already arrived and they linger in the lobby before the show begins.  For some reason there is a dirt bike with a rider on it on display in the lobby.  There is also a strange looking silver mask that looks somewhat like the face of a Demon.  One of the women there puts the mask on as a joke and in the process cuts her face.  It’s just a minor cut and she goes about her business.  From here the people enter the theatre and the show begins.

As the movie (within the movie) progresses we see a group of 4 teens who are investigating the tomb of Nostradamus (don’t ask me, I’m just reviewing the movie).  The eventually find the tomb and while digging around find a mask.  In fact it is the SAME mask as the one in the lobby.  A guy in the movie puts on the mask and cuts his face, JUST like the girl in the lobby.  How is this possible?  How is what is happening in real life happening in the movie as well?  Needless to say from this point on the ‘Demons’ begin to cross over from the movie into the real world and the theatre gets blocked off from the inside so that no one can escape.  That’s right, where there once was a door to the outside is now blocked by a brick wall (again, don’t ask me, I’m just the reviewer).

Anyways, once we get past all that introductory stuff we come to the real heart of the movie, which is the gore and the demon transformations.  The special FX in this movie are out of this world.  From the very first demon transformation to the last, your expression is permanently locked in a state of shock.  The gore is absolutely unbelievable.  There are throats being ripped out, eyes being gouged, hangings, decapitations, clawings…literally anything you can imagine.  My favorite part is when the hot girl transforms into a demon while on the stage.  They show a behind the scenes clip on how the managed to do this and it’s quite interesting actually.

Now, although this movie is filled with delicious gore and violence, it does suffer from one thing: it doesn’t make any sense.  I mean, it really doesn’t make any sense…at all.  First of all we’re never told how the demon infection starts or where it came from.  Second, in the middle of the movie it cuts to these cokeheads that spend 20 minutes just driving around the town snorting coke out of a Coke can (nice touch).  They eventually stumble across the theatre but get killed by the demons shortly thereafter.  Ok…so what was the point of those characters?  Another thing, why were these particular people given tickets to come to this so-called ‘movie’?  Was there a reason or was it just random?  In the beginning of the movie the man in the mask seemed to almost chase this girl down to give her the ticket.  Wouldn’t be easier to just stand somewhere and hand out tickets to just anyone?  Oh yea, and one of the moviegoers?  HE’S BLIND!  What the heck does a blind man need to go to a movie for?  Sure, he’s got his daughter there to ‘describe’ the movie to him but what’s the point?

Anyways, there are a few things about this movie that bother me but those who love Italian cinema are used to overlooking such things, as am I.  I read somewhere where someone had said ‘Demons isn’t a deep movie, but it sure is RED!’.  Well, one can’t argue with that.  If your looking for an all out attack on the senses in respect to violence, gore and blood-thirsty demons, then Demons is for you!  It’s one of my all time favorite Italian horror flicks!