Night of the Demons 2 was a modest success on home video- enough of one, at least, to warrant yet another installment, which was meant as the final entry in a trilogy, or, at the very least, the wrapping up of the ongoing story of Angela. Star Amelia Kinkade, the only actor to appear in all three films, was recruited back for one final go-round, which would sadly prove her last acting role to date, as she retired shortly thereafter from the business altogether.
An attempt was made to bring back the writer of the two previous installments, Joe Augustyn, but he opted to sit this one out. Instead, Kevin Tenney, the director of the original film, was brought back to do the screenplay honors. He would also end up doing some second-unit shooting for good measure, when the producers wanted some more action-oriented footage (aka more violence- think John Carpenter shooting additional scenes for Rick Rosenthal's Halloween II), as well as serving as editor of the final product.
A theatrical release for Night of the Demons 3 was never really considered- this was a direct-to-video release all the way. On the plus side, this enabled the filmmakers to really go for it, as the film would be released unrated, though an R-Rated cut was prepared with less gore and nudity nonetheless, just to be on the safe side. (Some businesses wouldn't allow unrated videos to be stocked in their stores.) For the purposes of this review, I went with the unrated cut, but of course.
By the time of the final release, though, the film received a revised edit by Daniel Duncan, as the producers weren't entirely thrilled with Tenney's initial cut of the film. This would not go over well with Tenney, who would later express dissatisfaction with the final cut, noting that some of the best character beats were left out of the film, in order to "move things along." For example, this deleted scene would be a good instance of that sort of thing.
In addition, yet another version was prepared for UK release, entitled Demon House. (Note the Eagles-biting tagline- it's a wonder they weren't sued, to say nothing of it not making any sense- it's a house, not a hotel.) This version was more akin to the cut version, for fear of the film being classified as a "video nasty" (for more on that, see here). It also featured different music played over the opening and closing credits to boot.
This meant that the amusing "Demon Boogie" track, which plays over the closing credits- featuring samples of Amelia Kinkade as Angela and James W. Quinn, as Demon Angela- was not used in this version. Therefore, if you're one of my UK readers- if I have any- you might want to invest in an imported version, as the song is one of the highlights of the film, IMHO.
Also, some of the music, as with the first film, was written by Kevin Tenney's brother, Dennis Michael Tenney. To date, only the first film received an official soundtrack release, to the best of my knowledge, and that was fairly recently- you can buy it here. The rest of the score was by Raymond C. Fabi, best-known for his work on Nick's much-loved spooky kids' series Are You Afraid of the Dark? The film also features rock music from bands like 6 Was 9, The Outskirts, Indiannation and Beautiful People, who I'm fairly certain were all Canadian acts, as the film was made there, featuring mostly Canadian actors.
This may account for the different feel of the film, as they clearly used a different house and surrounding grounds for the shoot, which unfortunately can be a bit disconcerting for fans of the previous films. The filmmakers try to offset a bit of this by, as with the prior sequel, inserting some footage from the original film, i.e. the shots of Angela floating through the halls of the house & the demon emerging from the crematorium in the basement, Evil Dead-style, but, alas, this only draws more attention to the fact that it's obviously not the same house as the original.
Somewhat ironically, though the film cost around $5 million to make- more than both the previous films combined- it actually looks the cheapest of the three. While cinematographer Walter Bal (Out of Control, Say Nothing) gets off some good shots here and there- i.e., the lights pouring out of the van and the house are well-lit and cool-looking- most of the film is dimly lit and kind of bland. The colors just don't pop the way they did in previous entries.
Not helping matters is the script. It's painfully clear that the film was written post-Tarantino, as the script is obviously trying to emulate the famed screenwriter and director's style. If the first film's spirit influence was the Evil Dead movies and the second was Dead/Alive (aka Braindead), then this one is clearly aiming for From Dusk till Dawn territory, which was released the same year this film went into production. As I think I've noted before, the Tarantino-ization of Hollywood in the years following his Reservoir Dogs and especially Pulp Fiction was not great in many ways, as many of the people trying to emulate him clearly missed the point of his style, substituting an inordinate amount of swearing for the genuinely clever writing of the filmmaker.
The cursing is only part of what made Tarantino Tarantino. It was the artfulness of the dialogue and the fact that he was drawing upon decades of previous filmmakers to create his own unique style. The faux Tarantino by other writers and directors that followed his breakthrough was often hamstrung by the fact that the filmmakers making such work didn't really have a style of their own, and even worse, often substituted vulgarity for actual talent, which is precisely why a lot of horror and action films that came along post-Tarantino are so hard to get through without cringing.
Tarantino's characters, even the ones that just appear briefly in his films, are so well-conceived and memorable that they can't help but make an impact. The ones in the knock-offs are not: it's just a lot of cussing disguised as a fully-realized character. Not that I'm a prude, mind you- I curse plenty myself- but it can be a crutch for some awfully lazy writing, and such is the case here.
Obviously, it was at this point that horror in particular started to slip into forgoing fully realized characters for "types" and it's been a black mark on the genre ever since. I'm not saying that all horror films are guilty of it, and I'm certainly not blaming Tarantino for it, as, like I said, a lot of these would-be QTs missed the point entirely of what makes his characters work, but it damn sure got a lot worse in his wake.
Ironically, one of the main so-called "flaws" of horror films that critics were always pointing out was that the characters were little more than archetypes, i.e. the "Bad Girl," the "Jock," the "Virgin," the "Comedian," etc. But if you go back and watch the horror films of the 70's, 80's and early 90's, you'll see that the filmmakers got one universal truth consistently right: half of the success of a film is it being well-cast.
Before Tarantino, characters- and by extension, the actors playing them- had personality, but after QT, a lot of that went out the window, and it seemed like everyone was just plain dislikeable and obnoxiously foul-mouthed for no good reason. Once again, not blaming QT for it- but damn, it is noticeable, and not at all in a good way. Only fairly recently has horror started to rebound somewhat from all this nihilistic nonsense, with some notable exceptions along the way, obviously.
NOTD3 begins about three years after the massacre involving St. Rita's Academy from the prior film. Learning from the experience, local authorities have posted a cop outside Hull House since then, and things have been relatively quiet over the last few years. But Angela is getting restless, so she turns on some lights, which gets said cop to investigate, which naturally, ends with his death at her hands.
Meanwhile, a group of local "teens" are out cruising, when they come across a broken-down car. They stop to pick up the girls in the car in question, head cheerleader Holly (Stephanie Bauder) and her shy best friend Abbie (Patricia Rodriguez), who were on their way to the annual Halloween Dance.
The van is populated by a motley crew of people that would likely never hang out IRL, as is often the way in these movies. There's obnoxious horndog driver Orson (Christian Tessier); his bestie, the ill-tempered, foul-mouthed Vince (Kristen Holden-Ried); Vince's ever-horny girlfriend, Lois (Tara Slone) and hangers-on Nick (Gregory Calpakis) and Reggie (Joel Gordon).
None of them seem to like each other, save Vince and Lois, who are eternally going at it. This is not helped by the addition of the new girls, who are instantly wary of all concerned, almost to the point that they don't get in the van in the first place. Honestly, they shouldn't have, and a lot might have been avoided. But they do, and after stopping at a convenience store for party supplies, the clerk thinks that one of them- the black Reggie, naturally- is going to rob him, so he pulls a gun on him.
Vince is able to snatch the gun from him and avoid trouble for the time being, but then two cops come in and chaos ensues. The clerk grabs at Vince, causing him to accidentally shoot one of the cops, then a full-on shoot-out happens, with Reggie shot in the process. It's unfortunate that Kenney falls back on the trope of the black guy getting it first, especially after bucking stereotype in the original by letting the black character live, and even be the hero. To be fair, Reggie doesn't die right away, but he does eventually, naturally.
The crew manage to get away by the skin of their teeth, but they're all justifiably freaked out, and Vince refuses to drop Reggie off at a hospital in the area, wanting to put some distance between him and the cops. Finally, they come upon Hull House and opt to hide out there, thinking the cops would never think to look there, it being abandoned for years.
Abbie, who knows what happened there in the past, warns Vince against going there, but he doesn't take no for an answer, forcing them inside. Of course, once inside, Angela is present and accounted for, and wastes no time in terrorizing the teens, killing some outright and tormenting others.
Meanwhile, a cop on the edge of retirement- but of course- Lieutenant Dewhurst (Vlasta Vrána), arrives on the scene of the crime and reviews the security footage. He realizes that the teens weren't crazed robbers, but kids who got caught up in a bad situation. It helps that the cop Vince shot was wearing a bulletproof vest and is relatively unharmed, and that Dewhurst spots the clerk's actions and realizes that he is using the mayhem to cover up the fact that he was the one who actually robbed the register, not the kids, as he claimed.
Armed with this new info, he goes in pursuit of the teens, hoping to bring them in unharmed, which would decidedly not have been the case, had they been branded as cop-killers. When the cop that was guarding Hull House doesn't check in for an inordinate amount of time, Dewhurst speculates that the teens might be there, hiding out, so he heads there accordingly.
Of course, by then the shit has hit the fan, so by the time he arrives, it's way too late to save most of them, but he does his best to corral the survivors. Some, like Vince, don't want to be corralled, even after Dewhurst informs him the cop is still alive, which, naturally, Vince doesn't believe.
Eventually, there's a showdown between Vince and the rest, as well as Angela and the rest, with Angela playing all sides against one another, as well as getting assists from those she's killed, who, as in the previous films, return as her demonic minions. By the end of the night, few are left standing... including, it seems, Angela. Of course, had this film done really well on home video, I've no doubt Angela would have been back for yet another go-round, but, as it stands, that was not the case, so this was indeed the final film in the original series, until the inevitable remake in 2009.
Let's take a look at the cast. One of the most familiar faces is that of longtime Canadian actor Kristen Holden-Reid, here billed as "Kris Holdenreid," as the hot-headed Vince. Reid made his debut in the TV-movie Young Ivanhoe, in the title role, back in 1995. His big break came with a role in the historical TV-movie The Crossing in 2000, which featured Jeff Daniels as George Washington and won multiple awards, including a Peabody for excellence in film.
The same year, he landed a role in the provocative drama Gossip, featuring a who's-who of young Hollywood at the time, including James Marsden, Kate Hudson, Lena Headey, Norman Reedus, Joshua Jackson and Marisa Coughlan. He also played Noel Redding, of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, in the TV-movie Hendrix, also in 2000. While none of these films were "hits," per se, they certainly got him noticed and other gigs soon followed, including recurring gigs on the Canadian TV favorites Paradise Falls and Degrassi High: The Next Generation, which also featured Nina Dobrev (The Vampire Diaries) and Aubrey Graham, who you probably know better as rapper Drake.
He followed these gigs up with roles in movies like K-19: The Widowmaker (with Harrison Ford), Touch of Pink (with Kyle MacLachlan), Niagara Motel, Emotional Arithmetic and a turn as the legendary hockey player Wayne Gretsky in the TV-movie Waking Up Wally, the ultimate Canadian role. He landed a recurring gig on the racy historical drama The Tudors, but left the show after one season. His best-known roles to American viewers are probably cop Dyson Thornwood on Syfy's cult fave Lost Girl, Inspector Kierken on Dark Matter, Eyvind, aka Dom on Vikings, or as Quint Lane in Underworld: Awakening. Most recently, he's had recurring gigs on The Expanse and Umbrella Academy.
As Vince's sexy girlfriend Lois, there's rock singer Tara Slone, formerly of the Canadian band Joydrop, who got a little heat on MTV in 2001, thanks to a collaboration with drummer Tommy Lee on the song "Sometimes Wanna Die." You might also remember her as one of the contestants on the Reality-TV series Rockstar: INXS, in which the band in question sought out a new lead singer after the untimely death of former singer Michael Hutchence. She didn't win, obviously, but was one of the better singers featured. (Check her out on the show here.) She's since gone solo after the break-up of Joydrop in the early 2000's and continues to record music to this day.
Night of the Demons 3 was her feature film debut, after a few TV acting gigs on Kung Fu: The Legend Continues and Hart to Hart. Other movies include Twist of Fate (not the Travolta/ONJ one- this one has Twin Peaks vets Mädchen Amick and Chris Mulkey) and Foolproof, with Ryan Reynolds. Her best-known role is probably as Gail on the TV version of La Femme Nikita.
More recently, Slone has taken to hosting shows, mostly in Canada, but she also hosted both 2020's Top of Her Game, a Sportsnet docuseries about female leaders in sports, business and so on, and Budweiser Stage at Home, an intimate concert series I've seen during the pandemic, featuring such performers as fellow Canadian Alanis Morissette, John Legend, Leon Bridges, The Black Crowes, Barenaked Ladies and others performing in a more stripped-down fashion.
As leading lady Holly, there's Stephanie Bauder, perhaps best-known for her stint on the Nickelodeon Canadian-import cult favorite kids' comedy sketch show You Can't Do That on Television (which, incidentally, also featured a young Alanis Morissette), on which she was a regular for one season. She also appeared in an episode of the aforementioned Are You Afraid of the Dark? and in Big Wolf on Campus.
After a bit part in the TV-movie remake of the cult classic Pretty Poison- also as a cheerleader- NOTD3 was her feature film debut. Smaller roles followed in movies like Suspicious Minds, Random Encounter, The Witness, Juiced, The Girl Next Door, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Decoys, but her main bread and butter has been TV-movies, mostly of the Lifetime variety, such as Mind Over Murder, The House Sitter, The Stepson, No Surrender, The Best Laid Plans, A Deadly Vendetta and my personal favorite, Killing Daddy, with Elizabeth Gillies, of Victorious and the rebooted Dynasty fame.
As the wise-cracking, devil-mask-sporting van driver Orson, there's Christian Tessier, another vet of Nick's You Can't Do That on Television and Are You Afraid of the Dark? After a fair amount of TV, he graduated to the silver screen in Eli's Lesson, featuring the legendary Jack Palance. A leading role in the popular children's fantasy series The Tomorrow People followed, alongside a young Naomie Harris (aka Moneypenny in the Craig-era Bond films), which ran for over four years.
He was also in the movies Natural Enemy, Habitat, A Call to Remember, Battlefield Earth, The Score, Shattered Glass, Taking Lives, The Day After Tomorrow, The A-Team, Underworld: Awakening and the more recent Godzilla remake, as well as the TV shows All Souls, Battlestar Galactica (he was Lt. Tucker, aka "Duck"), Caprica, Supernatural, Fringe, Psych, The 100, Fear the Walking Dead, Bates Motel and Wayward Pines (he was the Bartender).
As the determined Lieutenant Dewhurst, there's the illustrious Canadian-by-way-of-Norway actor Vlasta Vrána, who gets a special "Guest Appearance by" in the opening credits, even though I hadn't heard of him at the time. Turns out I should have, as he's been in quite a few movies I loved, in particular, David Cronenberg's Shivers and Rabid- his first two films, incidentally- both of which I watched and reviewed recently. He also crops up as the Bartender in the slasher fave Happy Birthday to Me.
That's just the tip of the iceberg, though, as the actor has over 250 credits to his name! Other notable movies include: The Surrogate, Eternal Evil, Nowhere to Hide, The Kiss, Eddie & The Cruisers II, two episodes of Friday the 13th: The Series, Whispers, Scanners II: The New Order, Brainscan, Stalked, Highlander: The Final Dimension, Relative Fear, Mother Night, Stranger in the House, The Peacekeeper, The Girl Next Door (also with Stephanie Bauder), Eye of the Beholder, 1999's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Revenge, Reaper, Timeline, The Day After Tomorrow (also with Tessier), Secret Window, Wicker Park, RED 2, Upside Down, The Glass Castle and The Zone.
Rounding out the cast are Gregory Calpakis (Night of the Dribbler, iZombie) as Nick, Holly's love interest; Joel Gordon (Max Payne, also in a few episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark?) as Reggie, the ill-fated gunshot and literal drive-by victim; voiceover actress Patricia Rodriguez (The Country Mouse & City Mouse Adventures, Arthur- the cartoon aardvark, not the Dudley Moore/Russell Brand vehicle) as Abbie, Holly's envious BFF; and Larry Day (Arrival, The Covenant) as the cop in the opening sequence that runs afoul of Angela and the wrong side of his badge and crops up as a demon later.
In the director's chair is Jim "Jimmy" Kaufman, who- all roads in Canada lead back to Cronenberg, it seems- was the second unit director on Scanners, before making the leap to directing with the then-popular Shades of Love romantic drama series in the late 80's- he directed four in all. He made the jump to suspense with the TV-movie The Thriller before landing his first big-screen gig with the murder mystery Back Stab in 1990.
A Star for Two, with the legendary Lauren Bacall and Anthony Quinn followed, as did more TV, including the silly-sounding Whiskers, about a kid who prays to a "cat goddess" for help with his feline- made the same year as this film, believe it or not- that must have been quite a jump, stylistically. He mostly does TV, though, including episodes of The Hunger, Poltergeist: The Legacy, The New Addams Family, Big Wolf on Campus, The Outer Limits and Vampire High.
I remembered even less about this film than I did the first sequel, and seeing it again didn't really change that opinion. It's just not a very good movie, frankly, and I expect to full forget it again within a few weeks. About the only thing I enjoyed was seeing Holden-Reid as a semi-youngster and some of the special effects, which weren't nearly as impressive as the first two, with Steve Johnson and his company opting to sit this one out. It shows. Still, the notion of some of the characters becoming evil versions of their costumes is a pretty neat idea, i.e., Abbie becoming a demon cat, Lois' hand-puppet taking on a life of its own, Orson becoming a devil. I wish they'd done more with that conceit.
Screenwriter Tenney doesn't speak kindly of this one, as well he shouldn't, as most of the worst offenses here are his doing. Kaufman, judging by his resume, was a gun-for-hire, and does a perfectly competent job, but Tenney really drops the ball here, seemingly learning the absolute worst lessons from the prior entries in the series, and emphasizing all the wrong things. The characters are mostly unlikable and remain flat throughout the film, with no real growth.
The nudity continues to be gratuitous- literally every female character gets naked, save Angela- but Kenney has Kinkade fellate a gun (!) and "suck" out the bullets, which I can't decide if I'm impressed by or upset by- either way, it's sort of demeaning to the actress. She probably would have preferred to get naked, all things considered. No wonder she quit the business after this.
Not that I'm complaining about the nudity, per se- the girls in question are all attractive, but it's all fairly unwarranted. At least it's not a peeper-type situation, a la the last entry- the nudity here is more akin to the first film, down to the whole girls getting dressed while one of the girl's pervy brothers burst in to sneak a peek.
I don't know, though- it all just left a bad aftertaste, even if it wasn't as iffy as the previous entries. Honestly, I think it was just the whole thing as a whole- it's basically everything I hate in what horror movies became post-Tarantino, wrapped up in one unappealing ball of nasty. It's just not as fun as the other ones.
As such, I can't really recommend this one, except to the most die-hard fans of the series. I suppose completists should see it at least once, but trust me, if you skipped it, you wouldn't be missing much, beyond the implied vanquishing of Angela, and even that is debatable, as the effects, like I said, are kind of shoddy this time around. It was not a good one to end on. Fortunately, it would ultimately not prove to be the final entry after all, at least if you count the remake.
The film is readily available on DVD and Blu-Ray, and as part of a Box Set featuring all three films. To the best of my knowledge, there aren't any bonus features for this one, even so much as a trailer. Frankly, I'm not sure it deserves any. However, some deleted scenes do crop up in the documentary about the series, The Party's Just Begun: The Legacy of Night of the Demons. They do show that Kenney at least attempted some deeper characterization, so it's possible that his stuff to that end was simply edited out, so maybe I'm being a little hard on him.
Still, he's definitely to blame for all that pointlessly vulgar dialogue, so yeah, he doesn't get a pass, even if he's basically disowned the film himself, showing that even he recognizes it wasn't his finest hour. I honestly can't think of much more to say about the movie.
The opening credits are sort of cool, I guess, and some of the music is okay. Like I said, that end credits song, entitled "Demon Boogie," is a hoot, and almost worth the price of admission. Almost. (You could just cut to the chase and listen to it here.) The song title is amusingly tongue-in-cheek, as fans will recall that that was one of the alternate titles that the producer came up with after their original title, Halloween Party, was jettisoned.
That's about it, beyond some of the cast being decent, I guess. I did like the chemistry between Holly and Abbie, especially early on, and the way it informed what happened to Abbie later on. I wish there were more of that sort of thing. It feels like Kinney had some decent ideas, but didn't quite follow through on them.
The same thing could be said about a lot of the wanna-be QT-style movies that came out in the wake of his success, honestly. But this is not one of the better examples of that. I'd say check out some of Eli Roth's and Rob Zombie's stuff for a better version of a QT-informed horror flick- emphasis on SOME- and save yourself the headache.
Join me next time, as I look at the remake of Night of the Demons. I remember enjoying it for the most part, but we'll see how it holds up in retrospect. Anything is up from this film, honestly. See you then, and to quote this film: "Happy Halloween, bitches!" 🎃
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