Halloween Massacre

A little while ago we looked at the 1988 Night of the Demons, a film clearly inspired by Sam Raimi’s Evil DeadStarted as a horror cheapie to get the foot in the door for three aspiring filmmakers -- Raimi, Tappert, and Campbell -- Evil Dead grew to have a life of its own, as well as launching the "splatstick" genre of horror-comedy. films (especially the first two). Teens go into a haunted house, one of them gets possessed by a demon, gruesome things happen, most of them die. It’s a formula that, honestly, I hadn’t expected would actually be a formula, but Night of the Demons not only proved Evil Dead was something that could be copied, it could actually be copied decently well. It wasn’t a perfect film, and it felt a little sloggy in places, but it got enough right that it was fun to watch.

Streaming services being what they are, it’s hard to find the rest of the series to watch, but I was able to find the 2009 remake. While this wasn’t exactly a film I felt needed a remake – you can have demons go anywhere, and possess anyone, so why bother remaking it when you can just loosely continue it, as the Evil Dead franchise has done – but since it existed I figured I may as well watch it. And, yeah, it’s a Night of the Demons film. If you’ve seen the first one you basically know what to expect from the sequel: coeds, demons, gore, death. You can mix these ingredients up multiple ways and get the same result multiple times.

The thing is, though, that while this film does feel like it fits into the Night of the Demons franchise, it doesn’t really feel like it does much to push that series out and beyond its roots. If you compare this remake to Evil Dead ‘13 or Evil Dead Rise you’ll actually find something that feels safer and less interested in pushing boundaries. It’s a tame, mild remake / sequel when, because of how the horror genre has evolved since 1988, we really needed something new, fresh, and interesting. This remake doesn’t bring that, and it feels less interesting because of it.

It’s Halloween night, and a group of friends – Monica Keena as Maddie Curtis, Diora Baird as Lily Thompson, Michael Copon as Dex Thrilby, Bobbi Sue Luther as Suzanne Reed, and John F. Beach as Jason Rogers – all plan to go to a party held at the old Broussard Mansion. Back in 1925, Evangeline Broussard hosted a seance for a group of six friends. No one knows what happened, but the next morning Evangeline was found dead, hanging from a balcony, while her six friends were never seen again. It gave the mansion an air of evil and mystery, perfect for a Halloween party.

The party is held by Angela Feld (Shannon Elizabeth), and is quite the rager. Drinking, sex, and also drugs, the latter of which are proved by Colin Levy (Edward Furlong), the latter of which shouldn’t be there but manages to sneak in anyway. It’s so loud and noisy that the cops show up and shut the party down. But Maddie and her friends stay hidden in the mansion so they don’t get arrested, and once they try to leave they find that the mansion’s gates are locked up tight with no way to escape until morning. Now this group of party goers have to wait it out until the sun comes up, but they’ll find that the mansion has more in store for them than they could have ever imagined.

To be fair to the film, Night of the Demon ‘09 isn’t necessarily a bad horror movie. It has plenty going on that works, from decent (if not exceptional) performances from its cast, an appropriately creepy setting, and fairly solid makeup effects. Everyone working on the film, in front of and behind the camera, seems game to make a fun horror film, and it’s pretty clear they all had a good time doing it. There’s even the occasional moment on screen that, while not scary, is at least creepy enough to hold attention. It does its job well enough to pass the time.

The problem is that while it’s competent enough to at least be watchable, it doesn’t really have anything new or interesting to say. Most of its runtime is a restread of the beats of the first film, just watered down. The characters get introduced and all end up at the party because that’s just what you do. Most of them are forgettable party-going coeds with little in the way of character development or personality. They’re hot, they’re young, and they want to drink and fuck. They’re the usual slasher fodder, which is fine, but they aren’t even as developed as the cast of characters from the 1988 film.

Additionally, the best of the scenes are simply ripoffs of scenes from the original Night of the Demons or the first couple of Evil Dead films. There’s the girl shoving a lipstick tube into her breast, a girl getting possessed by demons (like in the original) and shaking violently to reveal her demonic side (as Ash did in Raimi’s films), plus plenty of generic blood dripping and limbs flying, none of which feels especially new or wild. Everything on screen can be traced back to other, better films, leaving this movie feeling like it’s devoid of ideas.

Worse, the few ideas it does try to start it never finishes. Angela has a business partner that runs off with the cash when the party gets busted. This is never followed up on, nor is a plotline about Colin needing to pay off a debt to a drug lord. You could argue there’s no reason to see these plotlines through because (spoiler for a 16 year old movie) Angela and Colin die, so their storylines die with them, but a better film wouldn’t introduce these plot threads unless it planned to do something with them. This film doesn’t do anything with the ideas at all.

It also has a lackluster ending that fails to carry forth its basic setup. If Evangeline started this whole mess with a seance, then it would only make sense that to dispel the demons a different kind of ceremony (not necessarily another seance, but something) should be held. This isn’t thought of at all, though, as the characters decide (for reasons) that the best way to live is just to hole up in a room and survive until dawn. It keeps the characters sitting in place instead of being proactive, and it means that there’s more plot development that goes nowhere because creativity wasn’t required for this film.

All of this adds up to a film that really feels hollow. It’s fine as a basic slasher film, but it’s also nothing more than that. The original Night of the Demons built up a cult following for being gruesome and over-the-top, but this film feels like a copy-of-a-copy that’s just playing it safe. As game as the production team seemed to be, the end result feels like far less than the sum of its parts. The original might be a cult classic, but this follow up is nothing more than a pale imitation getting by on name recognition alone.