Giovanni Frezza, the in euro cult circles, famous child actor did his last part in Lamberto Bava’s Demons. It’s very fitting. This is a boy that graced us with his appearance in Lucio Fulci’s The House by the Cemetery, Lamberto Bava’s A Blade in the Dark, Enzo Castellari’s The New Barbarians and Lucio Fulci’s criminally underrated Manhattan Baby. That’s quite an impressive career of Italian genre cinema. In Demons he’s 13 years old and I guess it was time for him to focus on school and getting a real job.
And it’s a great farewell, on several levels. The last we see of Giovanni is in a jeep, going away from the hoards of Demons chasing him and his family (and the leads of Demons also, but that’s another story). This is not just a goodbye to us, the audience, this is a goodbye to Italian horror movies. The Italian movie industry couldn’t go any further after Demons was released. It’s extremely gory, it lovingly embraces the colorful neon-style of 80’s cinema, the dialogue is outrageous, the screenplay is batshit insane and stuff just happens. There’s no logic in it, helicopters falls through the roof when they’re needed and just when characters say something will happen it happens.
If Demons was mention in the Guinness Book of Records it would be under the headline “The Most Unsubtle Movie Ever Made”. But this also makes it such a good movie, because it dares to go where few others would stray. I’m not sure who was the driving force behind it, but considering Lamberto Bava’s dislike of gore it wouldn’t surprise me if Dario always was at hand, checking so the movie would deliver what he promised the distributors. And it’s very gory. I always forget how much until I watch it again, and there’s so any decapitations, ripped flesh, gouged eyes and chopped off limbs - it’s almost like a dream come true.
No, it’s IS a dream come true, a movie that only could have been released in 1985 and still be a classic today. It literally have everything you want from a movie like this, everything. Sometimes you see a poster or a cover and your imagination starts running amok. You see so much stuff in front of you, stuff you want to happen. And then you realize the filmmakers deep inside are pretentious assholes who think they’re doing a seminal, subtle future horror classic and brags about how genre cinema becomes more effective and scary without showing the money shots. Let me quote Roman Polanski:
“I don't really know what is shocking. When you tell the story of a man who is beheaded, you have to show how they cut off his head. If you don't, it's like telling a dirty joke and leaving out the punch line.”
And that’s something everyone involved in Demons understood. The actors are in on it, Lamberto obviously are also, almost like he’s trying to outdo what Argento probably asked him to do. The set up, inside a cinema with Italian genre posters on the walls sets the tone of it; this is a meta-movie, a celebration of all things Italian horror. It don’t even try to be serious or subtle, this is it. This is the definition of 80’s horror, gory splatter, a euro cult music video, a senseless video rental classic, drinking game brilliance, tongue-in-cheek madness, spiked hair fashion. A cocaine-fueled neon orgasm.
When Giovanni Frezza leaves us at the end of Demons it’s not only us, the audience, he’s leaving. He’s saying goodbye to Italian genre cinema, not only for his own sake, but in general. Sure, Demons 2 came and didn’t make the same kind of graphic blood splash - even if it’s a movie I’ve come to like more and more over the years. It just never became the same thing after Demons, like someone penetrated the Italian genre cinema balloon with a needle right through the eye… and all was gone.
Because what the hell should the filmmakers do after Demons? It’s impossible to beat.
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