After a couple of critically-acclaimed and fairly successful gialli in the early seventies (Lizard in a Woman’s Skin and Don’t Torture a Duckling), Lucio Fulci rose to prominence with the release of Zombi 2 (simply titled “Zombie” in America).  He quickly released several very popular, very gory, and highly controversial films in the early eighties such as The Gates of Hell, The Beyond, House by the Cemetery, and The New York Ripper.  Even though his films were censored all around the world, Fulci nevertheless became a cult film director and gained both popularity and notoriety for about seven or eight years.  But by the mid-to-late eighties, his popularity started to fade and he found it increasingly difficult to secure financing for his films.  By the late eighties, he had been relegated to directing TV movies in his native Italy, many of them never actually shown due to the violent content.  But he did manage to complete a couple of more gore films in 1990, including A Cat in the Brain (AKA Nightmare Concert) and this film, Demonia.  Alas, this film shows the declining quality (always questionable anyhow) of Fulci’s films. 

In Medieval Sicily, a convent is attacked by the villagers because the nuns are conducting black masses and orgies.  The nuns (all five of them!) are crucified for their sins, but their spirits plague the small village even into the present.  Enter a group of archaeologists, led by Professor Paul Evans (common Fulci contributor Brett Halsey) and his star pupil Liza (the awful Meg Register).  While Liza is a rising star in the archaeology circle, she is also drawn to the spiritual world, participating in seances and the like.  Professor Evans is trying to convince Liza that she needs to keep both feet planted firmly in reality, but Liza is strangely drawn to the convent ruins.

Several mysterious murders occur in typical gory Fulci fashion and Liza eventually disappears.  Finally the villagers can take no more.  They descend upon the convent ruins to burn the 500-year-old remains of the crucified nuns only to reveal that Liza had been possessed by one of the spirits.  The burning of the remains releases her soul , although her body is dead.  Or maybe she was a reincarnation of one of the nuns.  The ending really isn’t all that clear.

This is a fairly routine potboiler from Fulci.  I don’t think Fulci could make up his mind whether he wanted this to be a police procedural/giallo or a supernatural tale; consequently what we get is a mixture of several genres, none of which is fully developed.  Fucli himself plays an Interpol inspector, which is good because the local police inspector conducts his investigation by what he’s learned from reading detective novels (which is what he continually tells his suspects).

Meg Register could at least be decent eye candy, but she is dressed in clothes that are two sizes too big for her, plus a coat that is way too big, so we can’t even ogle her.  Her character is reduced to either glaring angrily or staring mysteriously off in space.  I couldn’t tell whether she could act or not because she was allowed to show only two emotions, both of which were used at inappropriate times.

Fulci overuses the zoom to the point of irritation.  In fact, this film would have reminded me of a Jess Franco film if the gore had been replaced with sleazy sex instead.  Every time an important reaction needs to be shown, we get an excessive zoom into that character’s face, with the majority of zooms used for the character of Liza.

The photography is also pretty bad.  Fulci went on record to complain that the photography ruined the film, and indeed it is terrible.  There are times the picture is too murky, other times when the picture is out of focus or too soft, and then others where it is crisp and clear.  One could almost excuse this as an artistic choice except that it occurs randomly and with no discernable reason.

But the real reason we watch Fulci flicks is for the gory set pieces.  There are really only three or four of these in the film, so the gore scenes are already few and far between, making this a very pedestrian production.  But when we do get gore, it is outrageous if more than a little unrealistic.  Unfortunately, by this time in his career, Fulci couldn’t afford the likes of Gianetto de Rossi for his effects, so the effects in this film are amateurish at best.  Granted, we get outrageous stuff like two cats ripping the eyeballs (in loving close-up) out of one lady, a butcher who gets a meathook in the neck only to have his tongue nailed to a table, and one of the archaeologists gets drawn and quartered.  But the effects are so amateurish that it ruins the intended affect for the viewer.  Some people may be turned off by the extreme violence, but for those properly schooled in gore, this film doesn’t hold up.

I do have a soft spot for Fulci, and I won’t say this is his worst film, but it certainly doesn’t rank with his five or six most popular films, either.  This one falls somewhere inbetween.  If you are a Fulci fan or a fan of Eurotrash cinema, this may be worth a rental, but probably not worth multiple viewings.