Demons 2 (1986)

A group of tenants and visitors are trapped in a 10-story high-rise apartment building infested with demons who proceed to hunt the dwindling humans down.

Director:

Lamberto Bava

Writers:

Dario Argento, Lamberto Bava

Stars:

David Edwin Knight, Nancy Brilli, Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
David Edwin Knight	...	George (as David Knight)
Nancy Brilli	...	Hannah
Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni	...	Sally Day (as Coralina Cataldi Tassoni)
Bobby Rhodes	...	Hank
Asia Argento	...	Ingrid Haller
Virginia Bryant	...	Mary the Prostitute
Anita Bartolucci	...	Woman with Dog
Antonio Cantafora	...	Ingrid's Father
Luisa Passega	...	Helga Haller
Davide Marotta	...	Demon Tommy
Marco Vivio	...	Tommy
Dario Casalini	...	Danny - Ulla's boyfriend
Michele Mirabella	...	Hooker's Client
Lorenzo Gioielli	...	Jake
Maria Chiara Sasso	...	Ulla, partygoer with camera

Storyline

A documentary is shown on TV of group of teens who investigate the legendary forbidden zone, in which a Demon infestation once took place (see Demoni I). When finding a lifeless corpse of a demon, one of the teens causes the resurrection of it, and the demon makes it's way into the nearby world by TV-broadcast... An unlucky girl, having her birthday-party at that time, gets possessed by the demon while watching the documentary and soon the entire building in which she lives turns into a living nightmare....

---

Plot Keywords:

grindhouse film | classic horror | child in jeopardy | psychotronic film | supernatural | 

---

Taglines:

The Nightmare Returns

---

Genres:

Horror

---

Certificate:

R

Did You Know?

Trivia

Asia Argento's film debut.

---

Goofs

TV studio looks different when Hannah and George enter and when she is giving birth. In fact, the look of the scene changes multiple times. It's most obvious by watching the position of rotating light which keeps changing.

---

Quotes

Joe: [to his friends, upon finding a hideous, lethal supernatural creature lying dormant in a dark spooky alley] There's no danger!

---

Alternate Versions

The Anchor Bay/Roan Group 'Dario Argento Collection' videocassette/DVD released in the U.S. features the unedited (unrated) version, 3 minutes longer than the edited R-rated version.

---

Connections

Referenced in 28 Weeks Later (2007)

---

Soundtracks

Blue Heart
Written by Peter Murphy and Stephen Betts
Performed by Peter Murphy

User Reviews

Not Quite The Original

Greenlighting sequels immediately after the first one was a hit and rushing them into production seems like such a Hollywood thing to do, but Italians clearly took a page from Hollywood's playbook for this one and I'm not so sure that's a good thing.

Demons 2 was released the year after the original hit theaters and it appears to have had about as much thought and care put into it as one would think. There are a few imaginative moments, but it's mostly a slow retread of the previous film down to even aping the aimless young people riding around the city in their car subplot while the theater/apartment complex is being infested with the titular demons.

This time, the demons emerge through a movie on the TV (via some admittedly excellent effects work) and infect a spoiled birthday girl named Sally who, in turn, ends up infecting her entire birthday party who, in turn, end up infected the whole floor who, in turn...well, you get the picture.

The special effects and makeup are great, but the whole film feels a lot more tame than the original (usually, sequels try to ratchet up the gore a bit) and it's too hard to care much when you can feel them repeating every beat of the original.

Details

Country:

Italy

Language:

English Italian

Release Date:

13 February 1987 (USA)

Also Known As:

Demons 2: The Nightmare Returns

Filming Locations:

Hamburg, Germany

Box Office

Budget:

$1,500,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

DACFILM Rome

Technical Specs

Runtime:

92 min 88 min (R-rated) 92 min (Unrated Edition) 78 min (cut)

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1