Demonoid (1981) Aquarius Releasing/Horror RT: 78 minutes Rated R (violence, gore, brief nudity, language) Director: Alfredo Zacarias Screenplay: David Lee Fein, Alfredo Zacarias and F. Amos Powell Music: Richard Gillis Cinematography: Alex Phillips Jr. Release date: June 1981 (US) Cast: Samantha Eggar, Stuart Whitman, Roy Jenson, Narciso Busquets, Erika Carlsson, Lew Saunders, Jose Chavez, Ted White, Haji (as “Hajo Catton”), George Soviak, Whitey Hughes, Al Jones. Box Office: N/A
Rating: ***
The Mexican supernatural fright flick Demonoid is pure grindhouse schlock! It’s the second movie in ’81 to feature a killer hand, the first being Oliver Stone’s underrated psychological thriller The Hand. I first heard of it on Sneak Previews; it was Gene Siskel’s “Dog of the Week”. It looked good to me, but I knew there was no way the parentals would let me see it. Such was the story of my life as a 13YO movie geek.
I finally saw Demonoid when I bought a cheap VHS copy at K-Mart in summer ’91. It was one of those $3.99 deals recorded on EP mode where you had to fiddle with the tracking on your VCR in order to be able to watch it. I wasn’t very impressed with the movie at the time. It definitely didn’t live up to the cool poster art. Consequently, I shelved it in my tape collection and there it stayed. In the 30 years that followed, I tried rewatching it one other time. About seven years ago (I think, don’t hold me to it), I came across a copy that turned out to be the alternate Mexican version which doesn’t include the prologue sequence. I tried to get into in, but I couldn’t. I ended up turning it off about 30 minutes in.
What made me want to rewatch the US cut of Demonoid? I suppose you could say fate had a hand in it.* I came across it while skimming the titles suggested for me by Amazon Prime after watching Superstition, a largely forgotten horror movie from the early 80s. I thought why not, it might be fun to review it for my website. It’ll either be terrible in which case, I get to write a scathing review or I might enjoy it meaning I get to sing its praises to my fans who I’m sure question my sanity every time I laud some trashy B-movie. The three-star rating above should tell you what kind of review I’ll be writing for Demonoid.
The aforementioned prologue, the movie’s best scene, shows a possessed woman (GRATUITOUS BOOBIE SHOT!) being cured of her affliction by fellow members of a Satanic cult who cut off her left hand and place it in a silver case. During this ritual, we see flashes of a Pazuzu-like demon statue holding a sword above its head. This takes place approximately 300 years before the present-day setting in Guanajuato, Mexico when the underground temple is unearthed by mine owner Mark Baines (Jenson, Chinatown) and his wife Jennifer (Eggar, The Brood). The superstitious locals refuse to enter the mine because it’s supposedly cursed. In order to prove to them it’s safe, Mark takes his wife inside. While exploring the temple (looking remarkably well-preserved after three centuries), they find the silver case containing the remains of the severed hand. The mine employees run away in fear when Mark shows it to them outside.
That night in their hotel room, a drunken Mark opens the case and finds only dust. After he passes out, the hand rematerializes and goes after Jennifer. Mark intervenes and becomes possessed by the hand. It’s a weird kind of possession. The evil hand takes over Mark’s own left hand and maintains a degree of control over Mark. Whatever, it makes him force the workers into the mine which he then blows up before fleeing the country. We catch up with him about a month later in Las Vegas where he’s a high roller thanks to his left hand. Unfortunately, his lucky streak catches the attention of a couple of unscrupulous sorts- one played by Ted White, better known as the actor behind the Jason mask in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter- who kidnap and threaten him to reveal the secret of his success. He manages to overpower and kill both assailants. The woman, played by Russ Meyer fox Haji (Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!), gets the worst of it when Mark mashes her face like an empty beer can. He tries unsuccessfully to cut off his own hand which turns on him and kills him by setting him on fire.
Jennifer finally catches up with her late hubby in L.A. where his body has been shipped for burial. She knows it’s far from over. That’s why she asks church priest Father Cunningham (Whitman, Night of the Lepus) to exhume the body for an autopsy. While they’re hashing it out, burnt-to-a-crisp Mark digs himself out of his grave and lops off the evil hand with the door of a police car before dying for real. The hand then takes over the cop (Saunders, CHiPs) investigating the disturbance at the cemetery. It goes on like that for the rest of the movie. The hand goes from host to host while Jennifer tries to stop it with the help of a priest in the midst of a crisis of faith. In horror movies, aren’t they all?
Directed by Alfredo Zacarias (The Bees), Demonoid is complete hokum. To his credit, he doesn’t mean for it to be taken seriously. He doesn’t address any deep theological or philosophical matters. On the downside, he never provides an adequate explanation for the demonic activity. The hand is possessed, but by whom? Is it Satan or some other demon? It’s never made clear. Nor is it clear why the hand is targeting Jennifer. Is it because she’s the one that found it? That would be the logical guess. I have another theory, one not even touched on in the movie. Maybe she’s the reincarnation of the girl from the opening scene. I have no evidence to back this up, but it makes as much sense as anything else that happens over the course of its 78 minutes.
By this point in her career, Eggar had a good thing going as a B-movie actress with roles in The Brood, The Exterminator, Curtains and Demonoid. She’s a classy lady who brings a small measure of dignity to the schlocky material. Whitman, who also played Rev. Jim Jones clone in the detestable Guyana: Cult of the Damned, hams it up to the highest level as a hybrid of Father Karras (Jason Miller, The Exorcist) and Father Lamont (Richard Burton, Exorcist II: The Heretic). His shameless overacting here is a true highlight as it adds a level of unintentional humor. The same goes for the goofy dialogue and the quasi-serious delivery of lines like “Cut off my hand or I’ll kill you!”
Demonoid can hardly be thought of as quality cinema. The acting is terrible. The plot is convoluted and meandering. The effects are cheesy. To its credit, it has a few decent gory scenes and a nutty car chase that ends with a possessed doctor (Busquets) laughing maniacally while hanging onto a freight train. His escape is thwarted in a manner reminiscent of Looney Toons. No two ways about it, Demonoid is totally bonkers. It’s loaded with crazy scenes and clichés. It’s the type of horror movie that demands to be seen as part of a triple feature at a crummy 42nd Street theater. It’s dumb, but fun.
*= See what I did there?
