Demonwarp (1988)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Its a dangerous business going into the woods in the US. First your got your standard slasher killers, be they scarred, deformed or just plain ticked off at people trespassing on their territory. Then you got hillbillies, inbred or otherwise, and they generally want to kill, eat or sexually violate you (sometimes all three and not necessarily in that order. Then there's Bigfoot. In the 70's Bigfoot movies by and large treated the beloved wood ape as a gentle creature who just wanted to get along. This is because said films were generally made by hippies, who identify with Bigfoot because like them he has long hair and smells foul. But by the 80's all the hippies had either died of too much hair or became investment bankers and Bigfoot started kicking some cinematic ass. Demonwarp is a good example and among the last breath of truly bonkers horror in the 80's, though certainly imperfect. For much of the first half it comes across a distant second to James Wasson's classic Night of the Demon (best film with that name?), there are a few tits and a couple of decent gruesome kills but its mostly set in daylight, sapping its atmosphere, and the pace is less relentless. Fortunately the writers seem to have hit the bong pretty hard before coming up with the final block as the whole thing goes mad. I won't say anything about what transpires because its best to approach with as little foreknowledge as possible. Lets just say its an everything and the kitchen sink approach , and if only the film were a bit less competent it could have been a full on classic of insane schlock cinema. Still, even in the slower first half there's stuff to appreciate. A rather dazed and confused looking George Kennedy does his best to muster up some gravitas as a dedicated hunter. The women are generally attractive and several go topless, including the always awesome Michelle Bauer. The Bigfoot suit is designed by John Carl Buechler and though a bit overexposed during the course of the film its a nicely shaggy and fierce looking creation, imposing enough to be a decent enemy. I wouldn't say any of the lead actors are terribly good but they give it a shot and their characters are just dumb enough to amuse but not dumb enough to infuriate, a happy medium. The general look of the thing is nice as well, not especially evocative like the true backwoods classics, but the locations come across nicely, and director Emmett Alston has a fairly sure hand when it comes to directing the exciting bits. And when the film really gets in gear you'll likely be forgetting most issues that have come up earlier. So all in all this is no great and inspiring work of art, but very much worthy of a watch if nutsoid trash is your kettle of piranhas. Strong 7/10 from me

Demonwarp is set in the ominously named Demonwoods where Bill Crafton (George Kennedy) has rented a cabin, while enjoying a game of trivial pursuit with his daughter Julie (Jill Marin) a huge Bigfoot type creature breaks in knocking Bill unconscious & killing Julie. A few weeks later & Jack Bergman (David Micael O'Neill) along with four of his friends arrive at the cabin, the cabin belongs to Jack's uncle Clem (Joe Praml) & he has gone missing & Jack intends to find him, warning his friends about the infamous Demonwoods which has a long history of people reporting sightings of monsters, murders & even UFO's they all agree to help find Clem. However the first night they are there the cabin is attacked by the Bigfoot creature which leaves two dead & takes a toaster. Jack is determined to get to the bottom of the terrifying events & eventually discovers an alien spaceship nearby in which the owner has been using zombified humans to repair his craft as well as eating naked young girls...Directed by Emmett Alston this crazy mix of horror & sci-fi is actually quite entertaining in a bad sort of way although I don't think I would go as far as to describe it as good it is fun, an oddball mix of gore, horror, sci-fi, monster film with a fair amount of nudity too at lest Demonwarp is rarely dull. Having said that Demonwarp is also rarely amazing, at about an hour & a half in length it moves along at a fair pace even though there's a slightly dull middle third which spends far too much showing people wander around Demonwood Forest. The character's are very thin, Jack gets a little back-story but otherwise the other character's are pretty empty cardboard cutouts. Where Demonwarp shines is it's various clichés & plot ideas that come together at the end in an ending that feels like it belongs to a different film than the hour or so that preceded it. There's Bigfoot creatures, zombies, aliens, human sacrifice, sex, nudity, gore, big George Kennedy & not one but three 'it was all a dream' twist endings which is maybe some sort of record. The script builds-up & with various strange aspects being thrown into the story there's just about enough here to make you want to know the answers to the questions posed & keep you watching.There's an interesting interview the writer of Demonwarp on the internet in which he says several things were changed like Crafton was apparently to had set up spike pit traps but they couldn't afford to dig the pits & used bear traps while the two girls were meant to go nude swimming but they couldn't afford the plastic to line the pond & that too was changed while the hiker was added after they discovered the film under-ran (75 minutes instead of 90) & needed to pad the time out a bit. The obvious low budget doesn't help matters but the main Bigfoot monster suit isn't too bad & is used sparingly with quick cuts, the alien at the end isn't that great while the gore is alright with a cut out heart, a ripped-off head, someone has a stick stuck in his stomach & there are some surprisingly good looking zombie make-up effects as well.With a supposed budget of about $225,000 this is still competently made & looks alright considering the impoverished production, filmed at the Brosnon Canyon & Topanga Canyon both in Los Angeles. The acting isn't great, it's not terrible but it's not great. George Kennedy looks a little disinterested although his daughter Shannon Kennedy turns up as one of the sunbathing babes & gets her head ripped-off.Demonwarp is a mad late 80's gore horror monster sci-fi film that is quite fun & entertaining if you just go with it, Demonwarp isn't a masterpiece but it's perfectly watchable & the final oddball twenty minutes is worth watching.

A group of teens in a cabin in a woods are attacked by a creepy-ass Bigfoot monster, which kills a couple of them. The monster disappears into the night and the next morning they go on a search into the woods to find and destroy it. The name of the forest the carnage takes place in is Demonwood, and it seems many strange events have occurred there over the years, according to some supporting characters. The teens meet up with George Kennedy who's daughter was carried off by the same monster. He's also looking for revenge. A few extras wandering around the woods get slaughtered by the Bigfoot. Some of the murders are gross. Some of the gorier special effects are good. The last 20 minutes comes out of left field and adds another spin on the story, a spin that involves aliens, zombies, and a cultish looking maniac. Not a bad horror movie, it should prove to be a good view by any un-demanding horror fan. The twists at the end are kinda fun, and there are some good grisly moments strewn through out the story. Gratuitous nudity helps keep things interesting and the cast is not all that bad. George Kennedy is fun to watch hamming it up as the vengeance-minded father. Worth a look. Two And A Half Stars.

In the eyes of the majority of splatter fans across the globe, John Carl Buechler has always played second fiddle as a serious contender for king of the horror crown. Despite Roger Corman crediting him as 'the best in the business' and being the only make up effects guy to work on all three of the giant franchises (Freddy/Jason/Michael Myers), he never quite attracted the cult appeal that Tom Savini held throughout horror's heyday. As a director he showed potential with kids favourite Troll; but Paramount's stringent censoring of his Friday the 13th sequel (part VII) left the movie ranking among the series' worst. His directorial career pretty much faded following The New Blood's dismal reception and his recent slasher – Miner's Massacre – underlined the fact that he would never share a stall with the likes of Wes Craven and John Carpenter. Demonwarp was my first taste of Buechler as an author and in all honesty I felt quite optimistic. There's no denying that he possesses extreme talent, it's just unfortunate that a few of his greatest moments have suffered under the hands of the MPAA.Demonwarp chucks everything but the kitchen sink into a horror cocktail that sounds extraordinary on paper. Zombies, aliens, UFOs and a murderous big foot all play a part in a plot that's riddled with gore and mayhem. But it can really only be categorised as a slasher movie, because the majority of the runtime plays almost identically to cult favourite and former video-nasty Night of the Demon.The opening scene is actually supposed to be set in the 1880s, but we're not told that until much later in the feature. A priest is wandering leisurely along the top of a cliff reciting bible psalms and giving his horse a personnel sermon. (I know that sounds strange, but there was no one else anywhere near him!) As he reaches the peak of the mountain, out of the corner of his eye he spots an unidentified flying object hurtling directly into his path. It crashes down to create a huge crater just a yard from his feet. Despite leaving a chasm the size of a football pitch, the impact doesn't even unbalance the churchman and his trusty mule! Don't forget that this guy is so religious that he even preaches to his horse, so it's understandable that he believes it's the second coming. I'm less convinced.Transport forward a century to the glorious eighties and things are already looking hackneyed as we enter a remote cabin in the woods. That old hamster George Kennedy must have been in desperate need of a bit of extra 'beer money'; because here he is further degrading his one-time Academy Award garnished status. You can tell that he did this just BEFORE the first Naked Gun job was offered, because that pretty much lifted his career beyond the realms of B movie plop for a few years or so. Anyway here he plays Bill Crafton, an old coot that's just trying to spend a little quality time with his bubble-permed daughter. We can tell that this reunion isn't going to last much longer as soon as we see those classic growling POV shots creeping up the road in front of the cabin. Before you can say 'Friday the 13th', the door flies off the hinges and Julie Crafton is victim numero uno. She gets brutally smothered to death by what looks to be a huge Big Foot creature, whilst her dad's left fighting for consciousness on the floor.Next up a van full of clichés pull up outside the cabin, presumably for a woodland break, although Jack (a creditable Kurt Russell look-alike) has his own reasons for visiting that particular spot. Apparently his uncle Clem disappeared around that area and so he's brought along some psycho-fodder to help track him down. As if you hadn't guessed Big Foot is still out roaming and he continues his rampage upon the group of eighties space fillers. Will George Kennedy's numerous explosive traps save them? Or will they have to stop the beast by themselves?Demonwarp traipses through the trappings like a programmed robot for the first hour or so, with nothing to separate it from any other killer in the woods flick from around that time. As soon as scream queen extraordinaire Michelle Bauer turns up only to rip off her top, I knew that this was going to be cheese by the bucket full. But then on the hour-mark things get even sillier as we're given zombies, aliens, satanic rituals and even spacecrafts all in the space of about thirty-five minutes. I won't ruin the plot by telling you how Buechler's story tried to incorporate every known horror icon in one movie; but let's just say that by the end it wouldn't have looked out of place if we had seen cameos from Frankenstein, Dracula and Jekyll and Hyde.The acting is as below par as you might expect and Kennedy just looks to be waiting for that paycheck to be written. There's a couple of OK-ish gore scenes that brighten things up, which include a gooey head ripping and a disembowelment by stick. Unfortunately there's nothing here that we haven't seen somewhere else before. Emmett Alston fails to lift the shocks above passable, but what do you expect from the guy that directed New Years Evil? So all in all a run of the mill eighties hack and slasher, despite the promise of everything rolled into one. The ending leaves you wondering just what drugs Buechler was snorting when he dreamt up this little beauty? Average