"Demonoid: Messenger of Death" is a moderately flawed and entertaining effort.
**SPOILERS**
In a newly-discovered mine in Mexico, Jennifer Baines, (Samantha Eggar) discovers a long-sealed burial chamber that the locals are fearful of. Eventually finding the main room inside, her husband Mark Baines, (Roy Jenson) suddenly takes an interest in the site, which reveals the secret of the site as being a sacrificial altar that required human parts to a statue that resembled an ancient demon. Soon thereafter, a bunch of murders committed around the site draw Sergent Leo Matson, (Lew Saunders) and they find that it's all a disembodied hand from one of the former victims in the chamber and killing off anyone around the group. Finally seeking help from Father Cunningham, (Stuart Whitman) on help with dealing with the situation, they try to put an end to the reign of terror.
The Good News: There's some really fun stuff here when it tries to. That's due to the film's actual action scenes in here being actually fun and enjoyable when it really lets loose. One of the greatest is the sequence in the doctor's office, where a cop forces a doctor at gunpoint to surgically remove his left hand, and is shown in full detail, which is quite bloody and messy in and of itself, then it shows the resulting chaos which really gets the best out of the scene. The offending member jumps from tray to table, brandishes a firearm, and guns-down a fleeing nurse as she makes for the door. It's all got the rather fun ending as well with the really brutal face-reconstruction with the disembodied hand to provide a great close to it. There's also a semi-decent car chase in here, which ends with a hokey stunt that ends in a mild laugh and another rather brutal hand-lopping which looks pretty good as well. The main action scene, when the hand goes crazy in the shack with other victims getting wiped out before an errant spark causes the whole thing to go up in flames, is perhaps the best one. The ending of it, with one guy totally engulfed in flames stumbling along for a few steps before falling to the ground while managing to have the severed hand buried in the sand by dislocating itself. The opening, down in the mines after the cave-in where they're all trapped inside with all the unusual sort of amulets, statues and trinkets that are used for the ancient ceremony make the location pretty creepy and eerie, and the back-story given to it is even better. There's also some nice creepy scenes in here at the end, when the disembodied hand chases them around the church, and at one point even cutting both the phone and power, making for some really nice atmosphere at times. These here are what the film has going for it.
The Bad News: There wasn't a whole lot of problems for this one. One of the biggest examples is that there's a lot of scenes early on which don't really do much here except pad out time in a film that didn't really need it. There's no point in showing the scenes in the casino, since it's all quite unneeded to show him wandering around the different parts looking for him. It's not exactly fun to watch, serve no purpose and just makes them all pretty boring to sit through. That also includes the numerous discussions of the two in the church, since it's always the exact same conversations that are carried out every time. This also applies to the film's middle segment, which contains those scenes but also, just in general, doesn't really have a whole lot that works beyond just getting boring, not featuring any action but just simply all different kinds of conversation that isn't all that interesting or exciting to feature. There's also the film's inherently weird and lame way of showing the demon, mainly by throwing the silhouette of the creature out of nowhere and for completely weird areas and reasons. It's pretty hard to understand the reasoning behind it. The last flaw in here is the inherent cheese, as the premise is a little wacky, there's some hokey effects and some of the sequences do give off that cheesy look. These here are the film's few bad points.
The Final Verdict: With some stuff that's actually pretty good and a couple of flaws to drag it down, this one is actually somewhat watchable. Give it a shot if you're into these kinds of creature features or have some kind of interest in it, while those who aren't into it should heed caution.
Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and Nudity
**SPOILERS**
In a newly-discovered mine in Mexico, Jennifer Baines, (Samantha Eggar) discovers a long-sealed burial chamber that the locals are fearful of. Eventually finding the main room inside, her husband Mark Baines, (Roy Jenson) suddenly takes an interest in the site, which reveals the secret of the site as being a sacrificial altar that required human parts to a statue that resembled an ancient demon. Soon thereafter, a bunch of murders committed around the site draw Sergent Leo Matson, (Lew Saunders) and they find that it's all a disembodied hand from one of the former victims in the chamber and killing off anyone around the group. Finally seeking help from Father Cunningham, (Stuart Whitman) on help with dealing with the situation, they try to put an end to the reign of terror.
The Good News: There's some really fun stuff here when it tries to. That's due to the film's actual action scenes in here being actually fun and enjoyable when it really lets loose. One of the greatest is the sequence in the doctor's office, where a cop forces a doctor at gunpoint to surgically remove his left hand, and is shown in full detail, which is quite bloody and messy in and of itself, then it shows the resulting chaos which really gets the best out of the scene. The offending member jumps from tray to table, brandishes a firearm, and guns-down a fleeing nurse as she makes for the door. It's all got the rather fun ending as well with the really brutal face-reconstruction with the disembodied hand to provide a great close to it. There's also a semi-decent car chase in here, which ends with a hokey stunt that ends in a mild laugh and another rather brutal hand-lopping which looks pretty good as well. The main action scene, when the hand goes crazy in the shack with other victims getting wiped out before an errant spark causes the whole thing to go up in flames, is perhaps the best one. The ending of it, with one guy totally engulfed in flames stumbling along for a few steps before falling to the ground while managing to have the severed hand buried in the sand by dislocating itself. The opening, down in the mines after the cave-in where they're all trapped inside with all the unusual sort of amulets, statues and trinkets that are used for the ancient ceremony make the location pretty creepy and eerie, and the back-story given to it is even better. There's also some nice creepy scenes in here at the end, when the disembodied hand chases them around the church, and at one point even cutting both the phone and power, making for some really nice atmosphere at times. These here are what the film has going for it.
The Bad News: There wasn't a whole lot of problems for this one. One of the biggest examples is that there's a lot of scenes early on which don't really do much here except pad out time in a film that didn't really need it. There's no point in showing the scenes in the casino, since it's all quite unneeded to show him wandering around the different parts looking for him. It's not exactly fun to watch, serve no purpose and just makes them all pretty boring to sit through. That also includes the numerous discussions of the two in the church, since it's always the exact same conversations that are carried out every time. This also applies to the film's middle segment, which contains those scenes but also, just in general, doesn't really have a whole lot that works beyond just getting boring, not featuring any action but just simply all different kinds of conversation that isn't all that interesting or exciting to feature. There's also the film's inherently weird and lame way of showing the demon, mainly by throwing the silhouette of the creature out of nowhere and for completely weird areas and reasons. It's pretty hard to understand the reasoning behind it. The last flaw in here is the inherent cheese, as the premise is a little wacky, there's some hokey effects and some of the sequences do give off that cheesy look. These here are the film's few bad points.
The Final Verdict: With some stuff that's actually pretty good and a couple of flaws to drag it down, this one is actually somewhat watchable. Give it a shot if you're into these kinds of creature features or have some kind of interest in it, while those who aren't into it should heed caution.
Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and Nudity