Night of the Demons

‘Autopsy’ director Adam Gierasch’s affectionate remake of Kevin Tenney’s 1988 straight-to-video movie is less campy and more coherent than the cult original. Tenney’s movie was mainly notable for the scene in which ‘Scream Queen’ Linnea Quigley inserted a lipstick into her nipple – a moment tastefully reprised here. After the police shut down a Halloween night party, only the hostess, Angela (Shannon Elizabeth) and six guests remain at the mansion where, 85 years before, six guests vanished and the owner hanged herself after summoning demons. Now Angela has been possessed, and unless the other half-dozen can survive until dawn, these demons will escape into the world. Majoring on blood, breasts and rock ’n’ roll, this is fanboy horror featuring demons that are sexy as well as scary. In the original, the action took place in an abandoned funeral parlour, where the owner used to ‘touch up’ the corpses to make them look good for their loved ones; this feels similar.