Demon of Paradise (1987) User Reviews

Creature from the Black Lagoon it ain't.

[capkronos · 3/10 · 25 September 2008]

In Kihono, Hawaii, some scaly, clawed hands emerge from the waters and start shaking the boat of a bunch of dynamite fisherman, causing one of the guys to drop a stick of lit dynamite that blows up the boat. Those scaly hands naturally belong to a silly-looking man-in-a-rubber-suit creature that starts causing the usual problems in and around a tropical resort. Well, it's supposed to be a tropical resort, but they must have been filming during the off season because the scenery isn't even all that great in this one. Don't expect to see bikini-clad babes frolicking in the waves, long sandy beaches stretching for miles or sunlight glistening off of crystal blue water. Here, the clouds are dark, the sky is overcast and the water is murky and muddy. Now while the "filming locations" section here at IMDb claims this movie WAS actually shot in Hawaii, I have my doubts. Not only is it a Filipino/US co-production, but the director is from the Philippines and normally films his movies over there, so I wouldn't be a bit surprised if this one was filmed there, too. The native vegetation, the waterways, the buildings and much of the supporting cast certainly don't look Hawaiian to me, though I could be mistaken.

Superstitious local villagers do a hilarious ceremonial hula/fire dance, chant and throw leis into the ocean to try to appease the beast, but it kills their tribal leader anyway, so they begin to flee the area. Not so easily scared off is herpetologist Annie Essex (Kathryn Witt), who is on the island researching "the legend of the Akua." She teams up with skeptical new-sheriff-in-town Keefer (William Steis) to investigate. There's a bare minimum of character development between these two; she's ambitious and wants to discover a new species, while he is a widower who has come to the area to escape "the psychotic bulls**t" he encountered at his previous job in Reno. There's also a half-baked romance that starts to develop between them, but it's not really followed through with. Also sticking around are pushy, bearded, unbelievably obnoxious news reporter Ike (played by screenwriter Frederick Bailey), drug-addicted skin mag model Gobby (Lesley Huntly), British photographer Ted (Paul Holmes) and a slew of criminals who specialize in making illegal explosives. Also there is Ms. Cahill (Laura Banks), bitchy owner of the Paradise Resort, who uses the legend of the sea beast to bring in more tourists, against the wishes of the sheriff and lady scientist. The actors (who are mediocre, but not too bad) get to hurl around lame insults such as "You incompetent slouch!" and "Take a hike spaz ass!" The rest of the dialogue, as well as the plot, characters and horror/action scenes, are hopelessly clichéd and fail to save this from becoming a complete bore.

As far as the monster is concerned, it's a standard issue rubber suit with some seaweed glued on it, and we barely get to see much of until the very end. The doctor refers to it as a "carniverous lizard man of the Triassic age" and says it's a nocturnal eater and light sensitive, which doesn't really explain why the first two attacks take place in broad daylight. The creature does manage to cause around half a dozen explosions in the film, though. It even manages to make a little water front dynamite factory blow up. The National Guard are finally called in and show their professionalism by igniting sticks of dynamite with a lit cigarette to hurl down at the beast from a helicopter above. From a stationary position in the water, the beast manages to leap upward about fifteen feet, grabs the copter and pulls it down into the water. The almost entirely submerged aircraft then manages to explode. So much for realism...

There's also a monster egg hunt at the resort (don't ask), a police shoot out, one topless scene (from Ms. Huntly during a topless photo shoot) and overuse of a fog machine during all of the night scenes. The violence is very mild, most of the kills take place off screen and the gore is minimal. Not much else to say about this one, other than you've probably seen it all before. There are both better and worse films out there with nearly the same exact plot line, which doesn't make this any less monotonous to sit through for anyone who has ever seen a monster movie before.

Lets wave back.

[lost-in-limbo · 3/10 · 21 November 2008]

Mmm… the poster artwork looked alright; too bad the feature didn't draw out the same excitement. 'Demon of Paradise' isn't the complete pits, but for most part is quite an flatfooted cheapjack co-American/Philippines monster feature, which treads water for too long and then amusingly erupts in the unimaginative final quarter. Philippine exploitation director/producer Cirio H. Santiago ('Cover Girl Models', 'T.N.T. Jackson' and 'Naked Vengeance') manages to keep you fascinated, but I don't know how. Maybe it's those cheap looking explosions. Yeah it could be. Caused by no other than the creature? No really it's plain stupidity. I don't know why they want to destroy it. I could've sworn when it's bobbing out of the water it likes to wave (not clawing), asking to jump in so it can hug you to death. But wherever it is about, for some reason there's dynamite and then explosions seem to follow. Maybe the director was adding those bangs to wake-up the viewer from the miserable dialogue exchanges and mainly limp acting. One scene involving a helicopter and the creature efforts to get up close for a ride is embarrassingly shonky. No wonder why he went all out in the final twenty minutes, but this creature could've been mistaken for a machine since all of the punishment it encounters and still it doesn't bleed. Where's Arnold Schwarzenegger when you need him. But more than one grenade thrown at the same time will get you a result. BOOM!

Really there wasn't enough buzz. Everything here is a cut and paste job with the story lazily mixing 'Jaws (1975)' and 'Creature from the Black lagoon (1954)' together. The prehistoric underwater monster (formed by some superstitious groundwork) is a lousy looking rubber suit, and the rest of the make-up FX is quite tatty. Performances come across rather drab, but Laura Banks, Frederick Bailey and especially Leslie Scarborough kick up plenty of spruce. The music score was painful.

Pointless trite, but watchable.

BORR-RING

[Steve_Nyland · 3/10 · 11 April 2004]

Someone wakes me up when something starts happening. Other

than Kathryn Witt's form fitting 80's jeans I see no reason to bother

with this stinker. Seems to have been fashioned as an excuse to

shoot a bunch of footage with one of those helicopter engine

pontoon swamp boats & discussion scenes at a Hawaiian tourist

resort during an off-season winter lull. I also love how the

hero/heroine are thrown out of the resort one scene & the next

they go back to have a drink. THEN they get thrown out again, and

are back four scenes later since that was the best set they had.

I love low budget horror trash as much as anyone else, but

something ought to happen every once in a while, and if you are

going to have an attractive woman play a herpatologist in a horror

film she had better be seen at least topless & getting far more out

of her career than she bargained on, or you have blown it.

As for the monster suit, heh, I thought it was kind of fun to see

someone not even bother to make something that looked "realistic" -- Kind of like Lamberto Bava's MONSTER SHARK, but

without any point to it & lacking that movie's ridiculous

entertainment value.

Best line: "It takes two to mate." [Flushing sound]

This one stunk up the pier.

[willywants · 7 December 2003]

Hunters become the hunted when illegal dynamite disturbs the age-old slumber of a carnivorous lizard-man. Resort owner Angela, joins forces with Sheriff Keefer to save tourists from the beast's path of death. This doesn't sound to bad, right? wrong. I am guilty of a crime many science fiction fans are guilty of. I call it "cool-box-syndrom". It's a common thing that happens, renting a movie because of a cool cover art. In this case, the cover showed a fanged reptile dragging a bathing beauty into the water.I was fooled. The monster looked nothing like the one on the cover. The plot was bad. The acting was ho-hum. The creature suit was mediocre. Some nice photography & locations, but that's not enough to make this sinker worth a renting. I now know to check with the Internet movie data base before I rent a film with good cover art.

Oh Think Twice. You honestly don't want to see "Demon of Paradise".

[Coventry · 2/10 · 7 November 2010]

One of my many personal defaults is that, for some incomprehensible reason, I desperately desire to see all the cheesy mutant sea/swamp monster movies ever made. Knowing that approximately 95% of those are incompetent and amateurish Z-grade trash productions, my obsession is actually the equivalent of cinematic self-torture! "Demon of Paradise" is another piece of rock-bottom, pretty much on par with notorious titles such as "Zaat", "Octaman", "Spawn of the Slithis", "Hydra", "Rana: Legend of Shadow Lake", "Monstroid" and "Up from the Depths". If none of these titles rings a bell, that means there still hope for you! Stay away from them as far as possible! "Demon of Paradise" takes place in a small Hawaiian fishing community, where the obnoxious villagers have been using so much illegal dynamite in their profession that it has awakened an ancient and very upset lizard monster. What follows is an incredibly boring and clichéd film with immeasurably long sequences where nothing happens and pseudo-intellectual dialogs that are irrelevant and senseless. The monster itself is reasonably good-looking, although it's another umpteenth attempt to imitate the appearance of the "Creature of the Black Lagoon", but it nearly doesn't receive enough screen time. Cirio H. Santiago produced and directed approximately 80 exploitation films in his life, all of them shamelessly cashing in on some trend that was popular and money-earning at some point. I've only seen a handful of his titles, but more than enough to declare him to be one of the worst directors who ever lived.

Rubber Hawaiian monster.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 4/10 · 8 January 2010]

When I was a teenager I used to watch a lot of Cirio Santiago's war/action flicks like "Equalizer 2000","Nam Angels" or "Last Stand at Lang Mei".His cheaply made but highly energetic movies were popular during VHS revolution in Poland."Demon of Paradise" tells the story of Hawaiian fishing community terrorized by a man sized amphibious monster.I consider myself very tolerant when it comes to rating and reviewing Z-grade trash,unfortunately "Demon of Paradise" is simply dull.There is no gore and the bloodless killings are mostly off-screen.Admittedly Hawaiian landscapes are beautiful and the music is fine,but "Demon of Paradise" is a misfire.4 out of 10 for this low-budget monster dud.

Really terrible, really boring.

[FieCrier · 2/10 · 13 August 2005]

Some fishermen using dynamite manage to blow themselves up and an undersea lizard man starts attacking people. Stuff blows up every once in a while.

A woman decides to promote her resort in the area of the monster sightings to people into the Loch Ness Monster, the abominable snowman, and the yeti. She hires an obnoxious reporter as her PR man. A bunch of people do show up. She has a monster egg hunt, and there's no payoff for this: we see the hunt begin, but do not see them find either the egg she hid, or a real monster egg (if there were any). The hunt starts, and then all of a sudden it's nighttime.

One woman takes her top off and goes swimming. She has a nice figure. Nothing happens to her, which is OK, but there's not even any suspense in the scene.

At one point the monster somehow jumps up out of the water, grabs onto a helicopter, and pulls it down into the water. This was pretty hilarious. Then the copter predictably explodes.

Inexplicably, the monster is bulletproof. Grenades, however, are capable of decapitating it. Is there more than one? You'd think so, but I don't know.

Not worth watching at all. You're much better off with the Creature from the Black Lagoon series, and Humanoids from the Deep. The back of the video box states "Come along on this tour and get it all., plus an unadvertised bonus: 84 minutes of monstrous terror." If the movie is 84 minutes long, how is its running time a bonus? If it is advertised by that blurb, how is it unadvertised?

Really bad mutant-fish-man-lizard film.

[poolandrews · 2/10 · 22 September 2006]

Demon of Paradise is set on 'Kihono, Hawaii' where a group of four men are setting dynamite off in a local lake, I have no idea why but they're all villains & up to no good. Then, out of nowhere, a fish-lizard mutant thing turns up. A herpetologist named Dr. Annie Essex (Kathryn Witt) is doing some research in the hope of finding a new species, she becomes involved with Sheriff Keefer (William Steis) so when the dead, mutilated body of a fisherman (Ramon D'Salva) turns up she goes along, I have no idea why Keefer would involve her but what does that matter? After examining the corpse for all of 5 minutes Annie finds a claw & confidently announces to Keefer that there is a fish-lizard creature in the area killing people. At first Keefer is somewhat sceptical as is his right as the local law enforcement officer but soon has to change his doubting mind when the bodies continue to pile up & he sees the 'terrifying' creature with his own eyes, it's up to Keefer & Annie to save the local residents from becoming fish-lizard creature food!

This Pilippines American co-production was co-produced & directed by Cirio H. Santiago &, quite frankly, is crap & stinks worse than a 2 week old kipper left in the sun to rot. The script by Frederick Bailey obviously steals it's best ideas, themes & situations from other, much better films such as Jaws (1975), Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954, 2006 remake if it ever happens) & Humaniods From the Deep (1980) for example. Nothing is explained with any degree of satisfaction, the plot is as thin as my plot synopsis makes it sound & it's incredibly slow & dull. I suppose it's a cliché but in the case of Demon of Paradise it's true, it would be more exciting watching grass grow. The character's are poor & unlikable, the dialogue had no effort put into it & the final nail in Demon of Paradise's coffin is that there are very few attacks, the monster sucks & there is no gore whatsoever, I have to ask the question what's the point? It has a snail's pace & takes itself far too seriously & provides little, if any, entertainment value. The ending hints at a sequel which thankfully has never been made, I shudder at the very thought.

Economy conscious director Santiago does nothing to liven things up, the attack scenes are rubbish, there's no gore or violence at all & he seems more interested in cheap action with a few boats exploding & a lame shoot-out. The monster looks pretty bad, it's obviously a guy in a rubber suit with a mask that looks more like a Wolf than anything else. To save on special effects there's no blood, violence or gore either, sorry I've already mentioned that haven't I? I mean I'm not bitter or anything but I want the 90 odd minutes I spent watching this crap back. However, if you can stay awake long enough there is a scene when a fashion model takes a quick swim topless.

The budget on Demon of Paradise must have been low, there is simply no other explanation as why the whole thing is so cheap & tacky. Actually shot in Hawaii the locations are the best thing about the film which just about says it all. The acting was brilliant & the whole cast deserve Oscars, only joking they were all awful.

Demon of Paradise is a terrible film, it's dull, boring, badly made & just painful to sit through (I still have the emotional scars to prove it). Don't even consider it, there are much, much better water & fish life based horror out there. Picked up for distribution by Roger Corman.

Slow and boring

[Tikkin · 3/10 · 5 November 2006]

This is another boring low budget horror/monster movie. The video box art is quite cool (as usual) but the film itself is far too dull. The monster is a guy in a rubber suit, which usually would give you laughs due to the cheese factor, but sadly the monster isn't shown nearly enough to be entertaining. There's no gore nor suspense to be had either. The acting ranges from OK to terrible.

Demon of Paradise reminds me of another horror flick in a similar vein called The Evil Below, which is equally as boring. All horror fans will want to avoid both of these films - all they're good for are the VHS covers.

The floater of the Jaws rip-offs

[fcm434 · 2/10 · 14 May 2014]

Even films that are blatant rip-offs of far superior films have some good merits of their own and the Jaws rip-offs are no exceptions. Films like Joe Dante's excellent "Piranha" (1978); Charles B. Griffith's campy "Up from the Depths" (1979); and the MST3K-target "Devil Fish" (1984) are basically Jaws rip-offs, but each film makes up for this by doing at least one thing right to make it their own. Whether the merits include: decent acting, likable characters, decent writing, decent characters, good creature effects, et cetera. Whatever the case may be at least one of these are present in each film (or all like in "Piranha"). Unfortunately no such merits are found in "Demon of Paradise" whatsoever.

*SPOILERS* Not only is it a "Jaws" rip-off, but a its a "Creature from the Black Lagoon" rip-off that's stitched together to create a Frankenstein-esque mess. The basic plot is that it takes place in "Hawaii" (the Philippines) where hunters' illegal dynamite fishing awaken a prehistoric fish- monster-man (which looks like the secret love child of the Beast from "Krull" and the tree monster from the 1957 film, "From Hell it Came") that the locals believe to be a mythical creature. Once awake the monster begins to terrorize the locals (those dumb enough not to leave after finding the first body) and guests at a tropical resort. Now its up to Sheriff Keefer (played by Steis who looks like a failed clone of David Carradine) and the herpetologist, Annie (Witt), to track down the lethal living fossil before it kills anymore people.

Throughout the course of the film there is the standard skepticism followed by a greedy moron (Cahill, the resort owner) wanting to profit on the local lore and finally an all-out hunt for the creature. In addition there's a pointless side-story involving criminals illegally making explosives which adds nothing to the main story save for colliding with the creature story at the end of a shoot-out with the cops. Once the creature's existence is confirmed the National Guard are called in only to leave save for a few troops the commander leaves with them. The movie ends with the real heroes, the National Guard, using grenades to blow the creature suit into green chunks as the two leads look on doing nothing.

Yes, the creature is killed by nameless extras and not the main character. Anyway Keefer reasonably assumes it's over, but Annie "ominously" asks "have you ever cut the tail off a lizard" implying the creature might have the ability to regenerate it's entire body cut to one of the creature's arms floating down into the stream before abruptly ending. Although it sounds serviceable on a B-movie level it still fails.

The main reason "Demon of Paradise" fails is because it commits the worst B-movie sin a movie like it can commit: it's boring. Why is it boring? Where to start? The two leads act as if they're on tranquilizers and the side-characters are cookie-cutter generic, annoying, or both. Even on the level of a Jaws knock-off it's exceptionally awful because it does not even make an attempt on the most basic level other films in its class made. What it results in is a rip-off that does nothing with the source material and chooses the lazy way by creating an inferior carbon copy of elements from two classics for the price of one in every way possible.

In addition it makes the mistake of taking itself too seriously which one might think would make it unintentionally funny, but it doesn't go overboard and suffers for said misstep. You can find the film on a Double Feature DVD of Roger Corman's Cult Classics series alongside "Up from the Depths" which is the far superior film in the Double Feature.

Simply put "Up from the Depths" succeeded by having decent acting; at least one likable character; intentionally over-the-top performances; self-awareness. Unfortunately for "Demon of Paradise" no such thing is present here leaving the boring story to trudge along as the boring set- pieces and boring, inferior carbon copied characters make no effort to get anything moving. As a result viewers are left watching an unappealing mass of waste taken from great films and asked to stare at it for over 80 minutes floating face-down in the water.

A monster creates havoc at a 'Hawaiin' resort

[Aaron1375 · 3/10 · 10 April 2011]

I got this film in a pack of two films, the other being a film called, "Up From the Depths". Neither film is particularly good as neither takes the course of action that would of made both films cheesy fun which is good graphic kills and lots of nudity. Sure, there is blood featured in both and sure there is a topless scene in each, but both films would have benefited by taking the Italian horror movie approach which is excess! The two films feature aquatic monsters and the other thing they have in common is that they both take place in Hawaii and another thing they share is that neither film was actually shot in Hawaii. "Up From the Depths" did an okay job of recreating Hawaii; however, this film did not. In fact, it did quite a bad job of it as they did not even bother filming in a location with the ocean, instead electing to say that the resort featured in this film was on a Hawaiian lake which did not resemble a lake in Hawaii as it was rather dirty. I thought the people looked like they were from the Philippines and I was correct as that is where this one is shot. As I said, you just did not get a Hawaii vibe from this film at all.

The story has some dudes selling illegal dynamite and it is an explosion from one of this sticks that we have to deduce freed the monster. The boat setting off charges explodes and get used to that as there are more explosions featured in this film than there are on screen monster kills. The sheriff is skeptical that there is a monster while a scientist thinks there is something and the dudes selling dynamite may be going into business with the mob. A reporter decides to not report the story and instead hook up with the owner of the most depressing looking resort ever to try and lure people into the place by advertising the monster. Occasionally, the monster shows up and oftentimes the poor thing does not get to kill anyone as there is an explosion that kills everyone. At the end, the monster goes on a full on assault because it is probably tired of not getting to kill anyone.

The characters in this one are another weak point in said movie. They are all rather bad. You have sheriff with a secret past that is skeptical, but wants to stop the killings. You have the scientist who wants to take in the beast alive and who sees something in one of her underwater jaunts that is so upsetting, but I couldn't tell you what it was. You have irritating newspaper guy and resort owner who at least die, but not horrifically enough. Then, like in "Up From the Depths", there is supermodel who is staying at said resort who flashes her boobies. I guess it is not too surprising that this film is similar to, "Up From the Depths" as Roger Corman had a hand in both of them and he would literally remake a couple of his films nearly shot for shot.

So, this film is bad. It is hard to believe that this one was not more awesome considering that Roger also made the similarly themed, "Humanoids From the Deep" which had lots of good kills and nudity. It is like he did not even try here and instead nearly made a remake of the equally bad, "Up From the Depths" only replacing the shark monster with a humanoid monster which didn't look all that bad. Too bad they were too busy showing us illegal dynamite sellers and other pointless plot points when they could have shown more monster on the rampage scenes. Also, the ending line where the scientist says, "You ever cut the tail off a lizard" is rather lame because the monster was blown the up in this one. A lizard can grow its tail back, but said tail cannot grow a lizard and a lizard's body cannot regenerate at head!

Entertainingly cruddy creature feature clunker

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 23 January 2011]

A carnivorous reptilian humanoid brute of local legend (played by some poor zhlub in a laughably hokey and obvious rubbery suit) terrorizes a tropical resort after fishermen using dynamite awaken it from its many decades of slumber. It's up to fetching herpetologist Annie (an appealing turn by the fetching Kathyrn Witt) and skeptical no-nonsense sheriff Keefer (a likable performance by William Steis) to kill the bloodthirsty beastie. With fumbling (non)direction by Cirio H. Santiago, a plethora of dippy dialogue, a meandering narrative, poky pacing, infrequent and flatly staged monster attack set pieces, mild cheesy gore, zero tension or spooky atmosphere, loads of exotic local color tossed in as complete filler, and a priceless rousing conclusion with a commando unit of army guys opening up a king-sized barrel of raw hurtin' on the creature, this amusingly silly and schlocky piece of pure celluloid flotsam sure ain't remotely good, but still manages to be pretty enjoyable and occasionally quite sidesplitting in its hopelessly blatant ineptitude. The cast struggle gamely with the incredibly inane material, with especially admirable work by Laura Banks as bitchy and greedy resort owner Cahill, Frederick Bailey as obnoxious and opportunistic journalist Ike (Bailey also came up with the extremely asinine story), and striking blonde hottie Leslie Scarborough as vacuous pin-up model Gabby (the luscious Leslie removes her shirt and bares her beautifully bountiful breasts for the flick's yummy obligatory gratuitous topless scene). Ricardo Remias' bright cinematography gives this picture a slicker and more attractive look than it deserves (the effectively moody fog-shrouded nocturnal scenes are quite impressive). Ding Achacoso's shivery and syncopated score does the funky trick. A real tacky hoot.

Not that bad, but could've been better

[slayrrr666 · 7/10 · 19 September 2008]

"Demon of Paradise" isn't all that bad, and is just simply decent.

**SPOILERS**

After a spate of strange fishing accidents, Annie, (Kathryn Witt) Ike, (Frederick Bailey) and Sheriff Keefer, (William Steis) urge the locals off the waters, despite their refusal to do so and insisting a legendary creature is behind it all. Due to this, Cahill, (Laura Banks) decides the time is right to start up a tourist business to the place and using the legend to tie-in with the idea, which angers them all and causes them to threaten her due to the increasing number of creature attacks in the area. When they continue and finally force her to close down her tourism business, she decides to help in hunting down the creature, which they find is a carnivorous lizard-like creature that lives in the lake and has been disturbed from it's rest by illegal hunting in the area, causing them all to band together to end the deadly rampage.

The Good News: There was some good stuff at times to this one. One of the main good points is that there's some half-way decent action scenes to it. The opening, which is an assault on a fishing boat that blows up from dropped dynamite during the scuffling, to the first attack on the village and it's appearance during the festival all manage to be really enjoyable encounters that provide some decent thrills. The last half to this is really good, where the fight is taken to the creature and some really good action-scenes, including a rather fun idea where the creature is attacked from a helicopter dropping dynamite at it below, with the boats searching around for it and ending with a fun exploding helicopter sequence that ends the fun. That leads into the chaotic appearance at the military base, which is fun for the rain makes it a little more atmospheric than it should otherwise be, and there's a couple of fun encounters. The finale in the caves, where there's a super-fun confrontation within the darkened mines and there's gunfire, grenades and he sight of one victim literally blown to pieces, and these here are all pretty great. The fact that it has a lot right with the creature is a big plus, since they hardly ever show it which makes it's few appearances mean something as it's hidden off-camera for most of the early attacks, mainly signaled with just quick glimpses of it here and there. When it is shown, the sight of the demonic, lizard-like appearance that manages to look different and somewhat effective, being able to take a hail of bullets and more. The last plus in here is that there's a pretty nice body count, even if not a whole lot of it is shown. The fact that there's a lot that are killed off is pretty fun, and manages to be another good factor for the film.

The Bad News: There wasn't a whole lot of bad things to this one. The main there here is that the majority of the time, nothing much happens. There's a couple of attacks here and there, but they're a separate flaw and mainly serve to break up the unending monotony of what takes up the most amount of time in here, the dull talking in here. These scenes go on forever and usually consist of the same topic, everyone warning the others about the dangers of the area and them not believing it in for the same reason that's always used, the impending tourist trade. This is used way too often and as the reason why they keep engaging in the same conversations over and over again, it gets tiresome even more than it already is. There's also the fact that the creature in here isn't that convincing, looking rather obviously like a rubber suit in it's few incarnations on-screen and it manages to ruin the mystique it creates really well in the early parts with keeping the creature off-screen or barely there, which is a big shame. The last flaw here is the obscenely bloodless kills on display. Just about all of them are done at an angle that prevents what's being seen clearly, done off-screen or just aren't exciting, such as being dragged underwater or blown up being near something that explodes. The fact that it's the most commonly used death is something of a mark against what kind of film this is, and is really the most telling flaw in the whole film. These here are what's really wrong with the film.

The Final Verdict: While not being all that bad, there isn't a whole lot to it to really make it memorable, leaving it just decent. Really only give into this one if you can appreciate the lower end of the creature-feature spectrum of if it sounds interesting, otherwise then heed caution with this one.

Rated R: Violence, Language and Brief Nudity

Lizard-man on the loose in the Philippines, er, I mean Hawaii

[Wuchakk · 5/10 · 17 November 2019]

Dynamite used for illegal fishing awakens a man-like lizard creature on a Hawaiian island, which draws the attention of the local sheriff (William Steis) and a marine biologist (Kathryn Witt). A resort owner (Laura Banks) takes advantage of the region's mythological monster to attract business, but the situation turns horrific when bodies mount up.

"Demon of Paradise" (1987) is a creature feature that mixes the basic plot of "Jaws" (1975) with "The Great Alligator" (1979) and "Gargoyles" (1972). The helicopter scene from "Jaws 2" (1978) is ripped off, but is sophomoric by comparison. Some have called it an unacknowledged Filipino remake of "Up from the Depths" (1979) by the producer of that movie, Cirio H. Santiago, albeit with a different monster.

While the events purportedly take place in Hawaii, the scenery appears like the Philippines and the natives look like Filipinos, obviously because that's where it was shot. If you can get past that and the low-rent opening credits, this is a decent creature feature with a relatively unique-looking monster. I was expecting something more along the lines of the Gill-Man from "Creature of the Black Lagoon" (1954) or the creatures from "Humanoids of the Deep" (1980), and there's a little of that, of course, but it's different enough and effective enough.

The sheriff and marine biologist make for stalwart and likable protagonists, but they're offset by the shrill Banks (the resort owner) and the trying-too-hard to be "comedic" Frederick Bailey. Meanwhile the beauty department is limited to the too-thin tall blonde Leslie Scarborough.

The film runs 1 hour, 27 minutes.

GRADE: C

That Bad Its Bad

[mattysturgess · 2/10 · 23 December 2009]

A quick Summary of this film: A Green Fish like Monster takes a liking to eating people 0n the Paradise island of Hawaii.

With the low budget and poor acting the only watchable aspects about this film are the scenes showing the Wildlife and the Island. I managed to watch the whole film on my Film philosophy that it can only get better, Unfortuantly it Didn't!

Why i gave it 2/10 instead of 1/10 shows the quality of films i have seen in my life time.

I would say avoid but make your own mind up....

Next

Lacking in monster action

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 18 June 2016]

Cirio H. Santiago is a prolific Filipino director who churned out a string of exploitation movies throughout the '70s, '80s and '90s and is still going strong today. I'm sure his films always make money, for the simple reason that it costs about ten bucks to make them! DEMON OF PARADISE is a case in point, a cheesy re-run of the classic CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON with the absence of anything approaching a decent storyline, any notable actors or acting, and, most unforgivably, a serious shortage of creature action. Sure, in the last ten minutes the monster goes wild and on the rampage, but even then we don't get to see any gore or serious bloodshed. Fans of '80s monster movies will, I'm sure, know to expect and love some carnage from their rampaging beasties, but here there's nothing. Nada.

I'll say this for Santiago: he always knows how to shoot a good-looking film on a low budget. Here, there are plenty of lush Filipino locations, from lakes to forests and beaches and more. Now, the film is supposed to be set in Hawaii, and an overcast, cloudy Philippines sure as hell doesn't look like Hawaii, but the locations are still the best part of the movie. Well, those and the music, which is of the cheap synthesiser variety but still pretty damn decent for a film of this ilk.

As for the storyline, as I said before there isn't one; instead, it's like the writer took a load of elements from the JAWS movies and PIRANHA and other associated films and threw together a cheap monster flick as a result. Santiago shows his predilection for action with a few shoot-outs and plenty of cool explosions, which break up the monotony of the movie but are still few and far between. The high point of the film is a reprise of the 'helicopter attack' from JAWS 2; if you thought the scene in that film where the shark pulls a helicopter into the water couldn't get any cheesier, check out this film (let's just say a toy helicopter features heavily).

Acting is rubbish from the entire cast, with Kathryn Witt as the female scientist being particularly bad. Wooden William Steis isn't much cop as the sheriff, either, and it's down to sometime scream-queen Leslie Scarborough to raise the male pulse with a nude swim that goes nowhere. The monster suit for the 'demon' is laughably bad as you'd expect and the ending is absolutely hilarious. Was there a sequel? Nope, but "have you ever pulled a lizard's tail off?".

It waits underwater, to bore you to death.

[BA_Harrison · 3/10 · 1 August 2020]

This is the seventh film I've seen by Filipino director Cirio H. Santiago; of the previous six, I've only rated one higher than 4/10 (the gloriously daft Future Hunters). Demon of Paradise does nothing to raise my average rating for Santiago's movies.

Set in Hawaii, but most likely filmed in the Philippines, the film is an aquatic B-movie creature feature that features one of the worst man-in-a-rubber-suit monsters I've seen - not quite Zaat or Octaman bad, but still more likely to elicit laughs rather than screams of fear. Not that we get to see much of the 'demon', the majority of the film revolving around the human characters, with only the briefest glimpses of the monster as it pokes its ridiculous looking head out of the water looking for victims.

A carnivorous humanoid reptile from the Triassic period, Akua (as the locals call it) is woken from hibernation by hunters using dynamite to fish the waters of a lake. Herpetologist Annie (Kathryn Witt) hopes to catch the creature alive so that she can study it, but local cop Keefer (William Steis) wants it dead before it kills any more people, in particular the guests at the local resort owned by Cahill (Laura Banks), who has used the rumours of a legendary lizard monster to bring in more business.

With plenty of scope for exploitative fun, this should have been a corker - a Filipino Humanoids From The Deep - but Santiago's dull direction, the tedious talky script, the risible creature, and not nearly enough gore and nudity all go to make this film quite the snooze-fest for most of the time. We get a total of two mauled bodies (mediocre make-up), only one pair of breasts (courtesy of Leslie Scarborough as coke-snorting glamour model Gabby), and the hilarious sight of Akua leaping into the air to pull a helicopter into the water (just how much does that creature weigh?) - I expected more.

The awful ending sees the apparently bullet-proof monster finally being blown to pieces by hand-grenades, with Annie remarking ominously to Keefer, 'You ever pull the tail off a lizard?'. Sure, Annie, but I've never seen a lizard put itself back together after being reduced to bloody chunks by high explosives.

3/10.

Pretty terrible...

[paul_haakonsen · 3/10 · 18 January 2024]

Of course I had never even heard about this 1987 horror movie titled "Demon of Paradise" from director Cirio H. Santiago, prior to stumbling upon it by blind luck here in 2024. And with it being a horror movie that I hadn't seen, much less heard about, of course I had to check it out.

The storyline felt somewhat erratic and a bit incoherent. Sure, there was a plot to it, but it just felt like director Cirio H. Santiago was taking a lot of detours to show random things that really didn't do much to further the narrative of the movie. And for a movie about a creature terrorizing a tourist location, there wasn't actually a whole lot of creature footage in the movie.

Writers Frederick Bailey and C. J. Santiago just didn't manage to deliver a particularly impressive script or storyline here for director Cirio H. Santiago to bring to the screen.

Needless to say that I wasn't familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list.

The movie is supposed to be taking place on Hawaii, but it is filmed in the Philippines, and it just looks nothing like Hawaii. And that just made the entire movie feel sort of very staged and difficult to delve into, because you don't believe it to be Hawaii for even a split second.

I found the movie to not be worth spending 87 minutes on watching. The movie just doesn't have any particular entertainment value to it, not today and I doubt it even did so back in 1987.

My rating of "Demon of Paradise" lands on a generous three out of ten stars, given mostly because of the production value raising the score up a notch.

Somewhat lacking (slight understatement there)

[sarcasm_for_free · 2/10 · 8 February 2020]

Well, what to say about this woebegone schlock attempting to pass muster as a monster movie? Quite a lot, as it happens.

The first thing to say is: the title is highly misleading. The 'demon' is some lumbering oaf in a rubber suit, any dufus with a pair of eyes and a brain can see that. The fact the local so-called 'Reptile Expert' can't should result in her being permanently expelled from... whatever organisation 'Reptile Experts' belong to. Don't ask me, I'm new at this kind of thing.

Also, 'Paradise'? I understand holidaying experiences are subjective, but... this dive makes Butlin's look like a five star cruise around the Med. If you wanted to have the worst time ever in Hawaii, you'd head down here... with it's roster of activities which include hunt-the-fake-egg, dance spastically to atrocious music and wear the most hideous shirt in your suitcase. Remember where they are, people.

It is an inarguable fact that more people die of self-inflicted dynamite injuries here than 'monster' wounds. In fact for all we know, the rubber-costumed one could be completely innocent... not once do we see him inflict any harm on his alleged victims. Perhaps a side-effect of having such a cheap, static outfit? I dare say the unlucky person beneath all that material would've been better off dressed as Mickey Mouse getting assaulted by various ankle-biters outside Disney World. Life's decisions, and all that.

There is a random romance between two people who've only shared three scenes together, which is dropped almost as fast. The grating 80's background music is laughably inappropriate most of the time, and bafflingly comprises what sounds like a broken-down robot bleeping and a phone ringing(?) The obligatory topless scene arrives right near the end... and believe me, it ain't worth holding on that long. What are you, some kinda masochist?!

Finally, we get the 'gripping' climax, which consists not of a brave lone individual fighting off the 'monster', but a whole battalion of soldiers pelting him with bullets and hand grenades.

Needless to say, he gets blown to pieces. Any fair minded person would want him to win instead, against such overwhelming odds... but 'tis not to be.

Then FINALLY, the credits roll. Our purgatory is over, and we can return to the depressing grind of everyday life.

...But not without taking down a few names first, naturally. Like the director and writer. Just so I know what to avoid in the near future. Very useful. :) 2/10

Ugh!

[BandSAboutMovies · 2/10 · 6 June 2018]

Let me see if I can sum this one up: fire-twirling women take part in rituals to keep a fish god happy. Illegal dynamite fishing ends the hibernation of this fish god, Akua, who wakes up and starts eating human flesh. A sheriff and female herpetologist must join forces and stop the beast, which they do by blowing it up real good.

I'm trying to think of one good reason for you to watch this movie. Hmm. Kathryn Witt has on tight 80's jeans? The sheriff's name is Keefer? It feels more like a travelogue film than something gripping and filled with drama? This movie hurts to watch.

Yeesh

[adamclark-01767 · 3/10 · 14 February 2020]

This movie is the longest 87 minutes I've ever endured

A Modern Day Classic

[leo_crazydude · 9/10 · 7 April 2007]

Cirio H. Santiago's Demon of Paradise is a cold, gritty film which draws parallels with the then imminent cold war. At first glance this masterpiece may be seen as a simple monster flick, such as Jaws or Godzilla. However if studied closely the immersive story and fast pace make this film a modern classic.

Set in the idealic Kihono, Hawaii which gives a great locale for the gripping story. Along with the great location a great cast appear. One shining example of this is from the late William Steins who gives a chilling earthy realism to his acting. The special effects bring the carnivorous lizard-man to life, you can truly see the rage within him. Of course the carnivorous lizard-man connotes the soviet rule. Where communism is here to wreak havoc with capitalism. Not only is this film a monster flick, it is a political point of view.

Edward Achacoso's musical score adds to the suspense of the film with its synthesised instruments which give the film a sense of un-easiness. The score is up there with others such as Blade Runner and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Cirio H. Santiago's Direction gives this film a fast pace with an intelligent storyline, which makes great viewing.

I give this film 9 stars.

Lizard man don't like it when you mess with his goodies!

[lowlandermg · 6/10 · 27 July 2023]

A whiskey stream of consciousness review.

"Don't look at me, I'm going fishing!" Is the best line to start the film. If you don't like bad monster films, you better find something else to do. The dubbing is soooo bad. The movie says it's Hawaii, but looks more like Central America or the Philippines. Does the sheriff think the pangolin is a lizard lol.

"The beast? That's hokum!" More stellar writing. It turns out this might be an Environmental movie. "All the pan fried muck we throw at this planet awaken a centuries old beast." There is always a female Herpetologist. Kinda sexy though. Movie has some cool authentic hula dancing and wood percussion. The monster is exposed rather early in this one. The director and effects guys must be proud of it. Line of the film has to be: "Take a hike, spazz ass." Pretty good driving main score. Cheap, but nostalgic for those chill-wavers. Creature from the black lagoon meets Godzilla, Jaws, and Medusa. Why is there a man in a gorilla suit meeting gringo tourists? Gorillas in Hawaii? The dubbing of background conversations at the restaurant consists of one dude speaking nonsense! Making out in a Johnny boat certainly isn't very sexy. As bad as this movie is, I kinda enjoy the monster's shenanigans when taking out its victims. The monster "Ache-a" also likes to wave a lot before the kill. Also like the grizzly bear belchy noises it makes. All of a sudden the plot mimics Jaws and we are going to shut the resort down after the goofy journalist is killed! When there is a party on the island, they play music straight out of Breakin' 2. The end has to be one of the longest slow walks I've seen. They really like the scenery. Overall terrible technical effort and as absurd as the rubber costume is, it fits the film and is enjoyably bad. As rotten as it was. It really is so bad it's kinda good. Grab a dram of Elijah Craig BP and try to make out what the background dubs are saying. Cheers!