#Billy Miles’s head might actually explode which is deserved

[dark-elf-writes]

What I’m saying is whatever assassin training Desmond got before leaving the farm could be put to great use pole dancing and as an added bonus imagine Bill’s face when he learned his son was both a bartender and a dancer at the club he worked at.

[revchainsaw]

Demon Wind (1990)

Demon Wind (1990)

Greetings and blessings upon you my flock! Welcome to the Cult of Cult. I am your pastor and priest of pop culture, ordained minister of genre films, the good reverend Chainsaw McGraw. You may just call me Reverend Chainsaw. Come and accept our sacrament upon the altar of online internet reviews. Our first holy offering is an absolute treasure, 1990′s Demon Wind. An offering ripped from the blood inked pages of the Evil Dead’s Necronomicon Ex Mortis, Demon Wind is not quite an unofficial entry into the world of Ash and the Deadites, but if you have exhausted the Catalogue of Sam Raimi Horror flicks (and let’s be honest, if you’re reading a Tumblr review of Demon Wind, you probably have), then Demon Wind will scratch that itch for sure.

The Message

Our anointed offering opens upon a boarded up farm house owned by simple country occultists George and Regina Carter. There’s a Mean Girls reference to be made here. George and Regina are defending their homestead from an unseen force (A Demon Wind some might say) through a Christian/Witchcraft combination of gospel music, a set of holy daggers, and a diary full of Regina’s spells. Unfortunately it’s not very effective, and George is possessed. George kills Regina, drops a snow globe, and for some inexplicable reason the farmhouse explodes bringing the films epilogue to a close. 

With that we are brought to the year 1990 where our rag tag group of heroes converge upon the supernaturally supercharged Carter farm with one mission in mind, helping a homie sort out his shit. What a great group of friends; I can barely get the crew together for a game night but our protagonist Cory has a group of friends so tight they are willing to drop everything and drive untold miles to nowhere in particular just because he had a bad dream. Speaking of “tight” friends, of our doomed party, no friends are so tight as Chuck and Stacey, but we’ll get to that, in short order. Let us meet the fellowship of ding dongs who will battle the blustery bogeys of Demon Wind.

Cory is the star of the show. A fairly blasé everyman who’s so caught up in his chosen one journey that he can’t even bother to be slightly interesting. He is the grandchild of the oh so fetch (see I got to it) Regina/George pairing from earlier in the film. Cory is haunted by mysterious dreams, and a tragic reunion with his demented father, which draw him to the Carter farm. There is however more to meets the eye, you see Cory is from the planet Namek. Watch the movie, you’ll catch my drift. 

Elaine is Cory's girlfriend and wants nothing more than to pull her pants down in public to bring a smile to his face. 

Dell is Cory’s friend? Bully? Enemy? it’s not entirely clear. It seems Dells role in this story is to be an unabashed asshole and chauvinist to every character that interacts with him. He is also perhaps Elaine’s brother, or someone's brother. Listen, you’d have to pay wayyyy more attention than this movie warrants to parse out all the relationship dynamics in this flick. Let’s just say, Dell is here, and despite how he acts, the other characters seem to be ok with that fact.

Terri is Dell’s girlfriend and a good friend of Elaine. Despite being on the arm of a typical 80s teen flick bad guy, Terri seems to be the most eligible bachelorette on the Carter farm. Or so it may seem, but as I’ll explain later I think there is a truer love than can be expressed that really keeps Terri from leaving Dell.

Jack is a Big Ol’ Nerd. He speaks like the writers were convinced using a thesaurus was enough to convince us that the guy is existentially unfuckable. The guy is basically just Billy from Power Rangers, but instead of piloting a badass Triceratops Zord he just kids very mildly bummed when the love of his life is transformed into a very judgmental spontaneously combusting doll.

Speaking of spontaneously combusting dolls, the victim of that very unfair end is Bonnie. Bonnie clearly had way more confidence in the love of her bookish beaux than she should have. The betrayal is immense, not that Jack couldn’t save her, but just in the fact that when she meets her demise (despite the fact that he promised he’d protect her) he is not at all distraught. Poor Bonnie, she is by far the most human feeling of the cardboard cut out female protagonists in this film and she deserved better. Let’s be honest, Jack was looking for an out, and Bonnie was just too real for this movie.

And Now, without further ado, I’d like to introduce the greatest power couple in the history of B Movie Horror Cinema: Chuck and Stacy. If you think my introduction is a bit much, I promise that the film goes much further. Demon Wind begins it’s love affair with this bromance in delightfully extravagant style. There’s magic, explosions, opera, karate, beer and bunnies and a big ol middle finger to fucking Dell. Chuck had at once been romantically involved with Terri, but things went south somehow and he claims that he still holds a flame for her. Despite this continued insistence I think it’s plain to see that Chuck found comfort, magic, and a ride or die hunk in the arms of Stacey. Stacey is a suave, sharp, smooth talking guy, whose only desire in life seems to be whatever keeps Chuck around, and that seems to mean a lot of stage magic and martial arts! I could write about Chuck and Stacey all day, so I’ll move on from here.

The cast of this film is wild and honestly even the weak ones are fun to watch. There is no character on the roster who is easy to mistake for another. That is why it is so fun to watch them meet their demise and even more fun to see them return under the possession of the demon wind as oopy goopy caricatures of their human selves. And this does go on for quite awhile. Unfortunately even Chuck and Stacey are not enough to protect the surreal landscape in which they find themselves. At one point in the film a second set of friends drop by to add 2 more bodies to the massacre. Willy and Reena, a gangly set of clothing accessories who are given legs, but hey Ear Ring and Beret, I mean Willy and Reena are still fun to see torn to shreds.

The movie ultimately reveals that the madness was sparked by the fact that a cult worshipping a Demon God named Delos had actually built the homestead and the cursed ground they stand upon is the stage for the cult leader, a preacher named Anders to finally become the host of said Demon God. As interesting as that lore may sound on paper, it’s not particularly well executed, and Cory’s role to play in all of this is even more vague. All in all the 3rd act of this film feels a bit anti-climatic even if it does feature a demon superhero fight. 

All that said I’d like to move on to the next phase of our sacred liturgy. The sacred and profane, the highs and lows of this movie.

Benediction

Best Feature: What the What?

The best feature of Demon Wind has to be how bizarre it is. It throws everything it can think of at the audience. Burning Skeletons leap from Crosses, eggs that hatch into piles of worms, EXPLODING BABY DOLLS, Cow skulls with long sticky tongues made of human intestines! They certainly sacrificed logic in order to insure they provided the audience with something they haven’t seen before.

Best Kill/ effect: A Cowmen Album Cover!

The best effect in Demon Wind is also it’s best kill. while investigating a barn on the Carter property, which is full of occult symbols, animal remains, and fun Texas Chainsaw Massacre style crafts. One of the crafts catches the eye of Beret, I mean Reena. You know by her hat that she knows a thing or to about fine art. This particular piece of barn décor is a human skeleton with a cow’s skull. As she is inspecting this “beautiful” piece, what appears to be a human intestine, flies from the mouth of the cow skull and wraps around Reena like a chameleons tongue. The intestine begins to retreat into the jaw of the skull bringing Reena’s head along with it. The skull chomps down into Reena, we get a satisfyingly bloody show, and Reena’s body winds up hanging limp from its mouth. 

Second place belongs to Bonnie, but we’ve already spoken to that bizarre spectacle.

Best Scene: I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Stacey!

Chuck and Stacey enter the scene. I know I’m inconsistent in how I spell Stacey/Stacy. This scene was mentioned above and you just have to see it. Watch until Cory intervenes.

Best Character(s): Stacey Cassidy and the Sundance Chuck

Stacey is the best character in this film, but as I’m sure he wouldn’t accept this honor alone I have to make it a tie. Chuck and Stacey are just so good. Every moment they are on screen is a treasure. The introduction of these two just received the honor of best scene, but they shine as Demons and in an even longer sequence leading to their demise. They take the watch at the Carter home and from the fog emerges a t!ddy ghost, my congregants will be familiar with this sort of creature, who attempts to lure them outside. Stacey puffs up Chucks confidence calling him “John Wayne”, Chuck proposes they go on a Tahitian vacation, but Stacey wisely wary of voodoo suggests Vegas. And there you have it, these two pure good boys are surviving this flick and they are getting married in Vegas. Unfortunately, they decide to speed things up a bit, and decide that although they are not tempted by the t!ddy ghost, that they can use their karate magic to defeat the demonic hordes. They march out into the woods, but we can add the power of love to the list of things that are no use against the Demon Wind. Our best boys meet their fates together like two old west heroes, guns blazing! Oh, oh, but they come back as demons and they eat Dell, so thank God for that. 

Worst feature: I ordered these Deadites from Wish

 The villains are not particularly interesting. It’s boring, goopy, bad mouth piece demons that have appeared in hundreds of demon flicks already by this point, and it really makes you want to go back to the unexplained paranormal happenings from earlier in the movie rather than fighting these dollar store Deadites. The fact that the film leans into this in it’s third act really makes the film feel incredibly front loaded. 

Worst scene: Cory in the House

Pretty much any scene that focuses on Cory is a bit weak. He’s just not fun. He gets to transform into an anime character in the end of the film and he’s still melodramatic and boring. This is often a problem with main characters in films, the writers don’t want them to be unlikeable or too quirky so the fun parts are always the supporting cast. 

Worst Character: Dude, you’re NOT getting a Dell!

 Don’t get me wrong, I hate Dell. But Dell is a big dumb goon who is just so fun to watch suffer and act like an utter meathead, and being hateable is not the worst thing a character can be. For this reason I have to give the worst character award to Cory; for many of the reasons I spoke about above.

Summary:

How fitting that a B movie gets a B. But that’s really a great place for this movie to be. So many big Hollywood productions don’t deserve that spot. Though Demon Wind may drag in the middle, and the characters and effects may be quite corny, it is certainly not boring. Demon Wind is eye candy even though it looks so ugly. It has some of the most loveable murder lambs in the genre and one of my favorite bromances in all of cinema, If you are a fan of Gonzo Horror then Demon Wind is a must see. If you are not all that into that sort of thing I promise you’ll have a good time. I highly recommend it. 

Overall Grade: B