User Reviews

This extremely cheap "sequel" to Lamberto Bava's two well crafted 'Demoni' movies (even though only the first one really rocked) has absolutely nothing to do with them. Umberto Lenzi tries to do the best out of a rather old fashioned story about voodoo rituals that - yes - wake the dead. So the demons are rather zombies, but they don't eat their victims - they just split their skulls with axes and/or gouge out their eyes with hooks (ah yeah, and once they also use a pitchfork).

Very similar (concerning production values and gore scenes; and in a way also concerning the story) to Lenzi's made for cable cheapo 'Le Porte dell'Inferno' two years earlier. Horror fans might like this one, but everybody else won't have a good time with this, I suppose.

I'm pleased to add this little Cubic Zirconia to my collection of gems. The plot is almost non-existent, the characters incredibly one-dimensional, but despite that, it was a good effort. It was obvious that at least some research on Candomble was done, and the ritual scene was amazingly well-crafted. The "Black Demons" themselves had great make-up, and the few gory scenes there were left little to be desired. Now, we come to the meat of it all: the acting. In a word, terrible. This isn't a film to be taken seriously anyway, but the unintentional comedy is everywhere. From accents that randomly disappear, accents too thick to understand, and the eye-bulging freak-outs of the maid, this is one film that's worth seeing in spite of itself. Get some friends together,pop this in, and have some laughs.

A bad movie almost bad enough to be good, but not quite bad enough to be worth recommending.

Sonia is missing. Her boyfriend Jose thinks that maybe she went to town, but when she doesn't come back, he's pretty sure something bad happened.

But then Jose finds... one of Sonia's shoes! Now he knows something has happened to her.

"Maybe she changed her shoes," suggests Kevin, a cooler head.

They go to her room, and find another pair of her shoes.

"You see!" Jose exclaims. "These are the only other shoes she had! Are you convinced now?"

"Yeah," Kevin says. "She wouldn't have gone to the village barefooted."

These utterly ridiculous, idiotic scenes are meant to be taken seriously. That's the sort of movie you're in for -- accidental comedy. If you can appreciate a film on that level, this is the film for you.

Worse than the dialogue is the pacing. The movie is as slow as the stumbling zombies of the film -- and these zombies have chains around their ankles. Everything is very predictable, and we're left waiting around for the next moment of gore to show up.

The actors are constantly flubbing their lines -- but not in a particularly interesting way. Just stuttering slightly as they deliver ridiculous, stilted dialogue.

For a horror movie, there isn't much blood. Or fear. Or tension. Or horror. Or movie.

Here is a movie that could have been a lot more. Released in 1991 under the title Demoni 3 (has nothing to do with the Demons series) and directed by the infamous Umberto Lenzi, the story takes off with a brother and sister and her boyfriend. Her brother becomes possessed by some black magic during a voodoo ritual and later on brings back to life 6 "Black Demons" to kill 6 white people to get revenge for their enslavement when they were alive. This movie moves very slow (as do a lot of Lenzi's films) and is acted quite badly. But then again, the actors didn't have much of a script to go off of. Unlike Lenzi's other classics like Cannibal Ferox or Nightmare City, this movie really doesn't hold your interest at all. With Nightmare City the gore was silly and the acting stupid but it was entertaining because the movie didn't stop, and the same goes for Cannibal Ferox. This movie, on the other hand, had may be 3 decent scenes of gore (most of which had someone getting an eye poked out) and the rest of the film is talking filled with bad background music. The only thing that kept my interest at all was the costuming for the demons/zombies. They looked genuinely kind of creepy. Besides that, the movie is to slow and that is really my main issue. 5\10 stars

This film is supposedly the second sequel to Lamberto Bava's fun eighties trash flick 'Demons', although I'd say it's more like a lacklustre version of Lucio Fulci's zombie masterpiece 'Zombie Flesh-Eaters'. Umberto Lenzi is undoubtedly one of Italy's most diverse and interesting directors, but like many of the best; his career took a downfall towards the end of the eighties, and it's hard to believe that the same man who directed such cult classics as Seven Blood-Stained Orchids and Almost Human also directed this film. The fact that this film is touted to be the third entry in the series started by Lamberto Bava is forgotten about when it comes to the plot, as the film really has nothing to do with the earlier series entries; and this is shown again by the fact that Lambero Bava's own 'The Ogre' is also known as Demons 3! The story here follows three kids who travel to Brazil. One of them is into voodoo, and uses his knowledge of the art to raise a load of dead black slaves. It's not long before the three kids and some other people in the vicinity have a big, flesh eating, problem on their hands!

The problem with this film is that it doesn't have anything in the way of surprises, and while there's some nice gore (including some good gory Fulci style eye gouging), the film is seriously lacking. If you're tuning in for gore only (as you probably should be), you're also likely to be disappointed as the gore isn't relentless, and there are only really a couple of memorable scenes. Bad acting is something you have to expect from a film like this, but with Black Demons; Umberto Lenzi has taken that expectation to a whole new level, with some truly diabolical performances from all concerned. The film starts off slowly, which puts itself on the back foot; as I was already starting to get bored of it before the gore even showed up. One thing that the film does do well, however, is hark back to the classic style of filming. The production values are a little better than Fulci's 1979 classic, but the basics of the film are the same. I can't say many good things about the zombie make-up, and they're nothing like the demons in Lamberto Bava's film. Overall, this movie isn't very good; but it's fairly fun at times, and I preferred it to Demons 2 at least.

Two Americans and an English man brake down while driving in Brazil. They meet a couple & stay at a cursed house. Then the "Black Demons" (or to the politically correct "African-American living-challenged), who are dead former slaves stick it to the Man by killing Whitey (how's THAT for reparations??!!?). But not before one of the guys gets a necklace from a voodoo tribe for no reason. The acting is putrid at best and some ok death scenes can't liven up this jumbled mess.

My Grade: D

Shriekshow DVD Extras: Interviews with Umberto Lenzi (where he denies making any Zombie movies, prompting anyone who saw this or "Nightmare City" to exclaim "Whatever Umberto") and Olga Pehar; Theatrical Trailer; Trailers for "Killing Birds", "Zombie 2", "Zombie 3", and "zombie 4"

Although, even if it had been made in 1980, I would still consider it a very good movie. Lenzi manages perfectly to capture the feeling of the worst of the b-movies (which in my world means the best); a sense of the director being completely uninterested in the script; just making the movie because he has to, or working off an idea which he thought was interesting for one day and then just continuing for the sake of it.

The acting and the plot are uninteresting and unimportant. What is interesting is the zombies and the special effects. I don't think I've ever seen real afro-american zombies before, so this was a new exciting thing. They look really frightening and extreme, especially one of them. The deaths in the movie are quite gruesome. I give the movie 9 out of 10 points, for being such a nostalgic shot from the hip. The thing that prevents me from giving it a 10 is that the scenes of dialogue have no charm - and that's because it's from 1991...so no funny men in funny moustaches who say hilarious things.

Why not bring director Umberto Lenzi in to direct a DEMONS movie? Sure, why not? Just remember this is not a DEMONS movie. It was just named that to try and cash in on the success of the earlier films.

Here two American siblings Dick (Joe Balogh) and Jessica (Sonia Curtis) along with her English boyfriend Kevin (Keith Van Hoven) are on a vacation in Brazil. Along the way Dick witnesses a black magic ritual. He records it on his tape recorder. The three of them are stranded, but luckily two strangers named Jose (Philip Murray) and Sonia (Juliana Teixeira) take them back to their house. It is here Dick replays the tape and revives the dead. Oopsy daisy.

Big problem I had with this movie was it became a little too dialogue happy. Too much yakkin' and not enough action. For gorehounds the death scenes are graphic and gory. Not worth it really.

After a strange amulet is stolen during a voodoo ceremony, the mouldering corpses of dead slaves arise in the Brazilian coffee fields. This almost reminds me of some of the high profile Italian gore films of the late '70's or early '80's. Director Lenzi shows that, after 30 years of film-making, he hasn't lost his touch for creating memorable horror films. A very good film which will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Ah, Umberto...what happened here? This man gave us Ghosthouse and House of Lost Souls and to a lesser extent House of Witchcraft, all fairly enjoyable late eighties Italian horror films, so what happened here? Is it because he didn't put the word 'house' in the titles? What we have is three folks,a girl and her boyfriend and her weird brother out on holiday in Brazil. Soon enough her brother picks up a copy of Now That's What I Call Voodoo Rituals VOL8 and before you know it six black demons are all up looking for The Fog type revenge on the white guy.

Sounds good, right? Well, it takes a long time before anything good starts happening, as these zombie/demon/slave types just seem to like standing around brandishing stuff. About fifty minutes in roughly things pick up a bit as the zombies make themselves known and there a bit of this and that with the killing and what not.

By no means a lost Lenzi classic, this is a poor low budget mess that somehow still makes a lot more sense than anything Fulci was producing at the time. I would have paid money for this in the past, but I'm glad that it's there on YouTube to watch. The Lenzi-man (after whom the Scottish town of Lenzie is named) did much better.

Demons part three?!? How many parts three are there in this series? I thought "The Ogre" was supposed to be part three? Ah hell, who cares! And come to think of it, this one is a much more reminiscent successor for the series, as "The Ogre" revolved on … well … an ogre! The demons in "Demons 3" technically aren't demons, neither, but at least more demonic than ogres. Is anyone still following the logic here? No, didn't think so. "Demons", ladies and gentlemen, is the franchise infamous for NOT featuring anything even remotely resembling a storyline or tension-building, just buckets and buckets of gore! For this third venture into the universe of horribly nauseating demon-terror, Umberto Lenzi (taking over the director's seat from his pal Lamberto Bava) admirably attempted to come up with a slightly more ambitious screenplay. It's of little use, however, because the incoherence and senselessness begins to show within the first twenty minutes already. Five young persons (tourists? Scientists? Anthropology students?) become involved in South American voodoo practices, and without much further ado the mansion where they're staying is overrun by hideous black zombies craving for flesh and blood. You can say a lot about Italian horror directors, but not that they're discriminating anyone. The zombies in part three are resurrected black slaves with their minds set on vengeance, even if this means extracting it nearly a whole century overdue. Enough about the absent intellectual values and deeper morals of "Demons", let's just talk about what really matters: Gore! The make-up effects are awesome, plentiful and nauseating enough to make even the strongest stomachs churn. The first mentionable gory scene shows a girl (thankfully the worst actress of them all) who's eyeball is ripped out of the socket nice and not-so-clean! The image is so sickening that it would even make Lucio "The Eyeball Master" Fulci himself proud and emotional. The great gore also serves another purpose, namely to distract you from the painfully awful acting performances, the amateurish dialogs and the horrid cliché-sayings like "We're on the threshold of the 21st Century. Do you really expect us to believe in Voodoo". Yuck! The make-up on the zombies is particularly terrific. Please note how I keep talking about zombies instead of about demons, because that's what they are! Dead folks emerging from their graves and decomposing further as they slowly and aimlessly totter along. Actual demons, like the ones in Bava's previous two films, are hyperactive and unstoppable creatures from hell itself. Not intending to give a lecture here, just pointing out fairly important and relevant details. Now that we're splitting hairs anyway, the script repeatedly speaks of six cursed black slaves but the DVD cover depicts seven friendly fellas! And did you know you can only be 100% sure that a girl went missing if at least two pairs of shoes remained behind?

Black Demons tells the story, or at least tries to, of an ancient curse which brings back six slaves from the dead to kill those pesky white folks we are stuck with throughout the movie. Black Demons is also known as Demons 3 just to cash in on the earlier films' success. They don't have anything to do with each other though. Whatever you want to call it this is still a movie about zombies and not demons. Interestingly it remains Umberto Lenzi's only contribution to the proud tradition of Italian zombie films. Most people would argue that Nightmare City is a zombie film as well, but Lenzi has stated it's about infected people. I'm inclined to agree.

There really isn't anything particularly memorable about Black Demons. The zombies look pretty darn cool, chains and all. We are also treated to a couple of entertaining eye trauma scenes and a bloody stabbing to the throat. They are the highlights of the movie, which really is a shame since the story actually has a lot of potential. I mean black zombies coming back and killing white people just screams fun. It would have been great to see Lenzi option for a politically incorrect movie to shake the establishment. Perhaps the zombies could have utilized some of the oppressive tools used on them once upon a time? Unfortunately, he doesn't and we're left with a rather mediocre effort. That means a terrible film to non-horror aficionados. The most remarkable thing about Black Demons is that it's from 1991, when the look all the way only suggests the 80s. I know remnants from previous decades always linger, but this one takes the prize. You could do worse, but wouldn't you rather watch a better Italian zombie flick? Bruno Mattei's excellent Hell of the Living Dead or even Zombie 4: After Death are both better choices.

Shriek Show provides us with a Lenzi interview where he mostly dismisses the movie and criticizes the actors. Good stuff.

I bought the Demons Triple Feature not expecting much, and that's exactly what I got. At the very least I was hoping for demons, but unfortunately I gave Media Blasters too much credit this time. Black Demons was the last movie I watched after wasting a couple of hours on The Orge and The Other Hell and it managed to be even worse. I am a fan of Italian horror films, bad and good. I don't mind low-budget movies that ask nothing of the viewer. There is simply nothing good about this movie. It doesn't even have the charm that some rather terrible movies manage to pull off, such as Burial Ground - The Nights of Terror. If you're thinking about watching this movie, think again. If you're thinking about BUYING this movie, please don't make the same mistake I did.

If I could give this movie -5, I would!

Watched this film expecting something along the lines of "Hell of the Living Dead", you know a zombie movie that is not very good, but kind of fun to watch. Something with some good gore, stupid characters and a lot of zombies. This only met the stupid person criteria, as they had those aplenty. For the most part though this film moved slowly and was boring. There were a couple of kills, but nothing spectacular as they did one eyeball gouging twice and there was not much gore beyond that. The film has a man appropriately named Dick. You will never know what the heck Dick was trying to accomplish in this film as he is just what his name says. He wants to attend a ceremony for reasons that are known of our business, or they may have been and I just could not hear them because at times you could not understand anything anyone was saying. Well he sees the ceremony and the next day heads out with his sister and her boyfriend and they end up stranded at a house where Dick promptly raises the dead for obscure reasons. You know what happens then right? Hordes of zombies come crashing the house devouring the occupants! No, not quite, as these zombies are the most tepid, slow and boring zombies ever brought upon the silver screen! At one point it looks as if the zombie is going to stab some guy and he backs off twice when it hears something. What zombie backs off from an attack? The boring zombies of Black Demons, that is who! Seriously, all the people could have escaped with the exception of a girl who seemed to think that the best defense against zombies is to back oneself into a corner screaming "no!" rather than running. They also almost drove away till the driver drives the car off the road and into a ditch and it sure looked like he planned that one let me tell you! So a very slow moving zombie film, with slow moving zombies and very slow characters. Very little gore and no nudity worth speaking of, an utter disappointment to say the least. I expect more cheese in an Italian zombie film.

Three tourists, an American girl (Sonia Curtis, "The Monster Squad"), her British boyfriend (Keith Van Hoven, 'The House of Clocks'), and her brother (Joe Balogh, "Monstrosity") are enjoying the sights & sounds of Brazil. Trouble brews when the brother, who takes all of the local superstitions & rituals seriously, is invited along to an occult ceremony. Soon thereafter, the resurrected corpses of revenge-minded former slaves start stalking the wilderness, and threatening the lives of our protagonists as well as another couple (Philip Murray (in his only credit) and Brazilian actress Juliana Teixeira ('Story of O, the Series')).

As you can see, this movie is about zombies, not demons, but the film was christened "Demoni 3" in order to make it part of Italy's "Demoni" horror series. While there's very little about it that's particularly interesting, the zombies themselves are pretty cool. The makeup effects are good, but these zombies have no blank expressions on their faces. They understandably look far more angry than your garden-variety zombies. (They don't even do any flesh-munching, really, they're just determined to make their chump victims *suffer*.) There's some memorable, appreciable eye trauma, the kind that would make Lucio Fulci proud, and in fact, "Demoni 3" does end up resembling "Zombi 2" a fair bit.

Most of the acting, as you can expect, is not exactly inspired; these characters that they're playing are pretty standard for the genre. The one performer who really takes this enterprise seriously is the striking Maria Alves as the housekeeper Maria, who realizes the danger and is always frantically trying to deal with the situation. The dialogue can be pretty insipid, but that's par for the course. Best of all is the plentiful atmosphere and the music score by Franco Micalizzi.

Scripted by Olga Pehar, based on a story by director Umberto Lenzi.

Five out of 10.

Like most Italian horror flicks, this Lenzi gem from 1991 is subliminally terrifying.

Yes, the acting is bad. Yes, the dialog is cheesy. Yes, the make-up is pretty laughable. But "Black Demons," given the right set of eyes and an open mind, it about as close to a nightmare on film as you want to see.

Upon my initial viewing, it was hard to get my mind off of the negative aspects of the film. After a couple more viewings, I noticed some things that stood out to be scary. For example: nothing is explained about Dick's decent into the black magic; it just kind of happens. All of a sudden his sister is a target. I know, it doesn't make much sense, but it's still scary the way Lenzi put it together. Also, how do these kids end up in the jungle in the first place? The setting is damn good. That house definitely has the creepy factor going for it. In fact, lots of the imagery in this movie is creepy as hell.

I guess what I'm saying is: for fans of Italian horror, give this one a chance. I don't think it was intended to be seen as a realistic film. It is more like a nightmare captured on film. If you've ever woken, terrified from a nightmare in your sleep and thought, 'dude, I should write that down...' you know what I mean. Kudos to Lenzi for having the guts to film it. I liked it more than anyone else on here I guess.

8 out of 10, kids.

This is such a huge step down from the other movies and it totally doesn't feel like it's being part of the series.

If you already thought that the first sequel had very little to do with the movie "Dèmoni", wait till you see this one. This isn't even a movie about demons but one about old fashioned voodoo zombies instead. So why is this movie even part of the series? Its concept, characters and settings have absolutely nothing to do with any of the previous two movies.

This movie is taking place in Brazil. Why? Just because they could I guess. As opposed to the previous two movies, this one is set in the open, which is already taking away a lot of the tension from the movie. There is never truly a sense of danger and despair in this movie and it never gets any good horror-wise.

There is some gore in the movie but not nearly as much as in any of the previous two movies and it also most certainly isn't as great looking. This movie really could had done with some more killings or at least some more zombie action. Now the movie instead is being for most part very lackluster and you just constantly keep waiting for something good to happen. It seems to take forever for the movie, making this an at times quite boring one.

The acting is also absolutely horrible. Not that any of the previous two movies featured some impressive performances in them but the acting in this movie is so bad that it becomes an annoying aspect about the movie.

You could admire the movie for trying something different this time around but it feels more as if the movie its script got written for a totally different movie and this never was supposed to be a part of the 'Dèmoni' series in the first place. Besides, also when you see this movie as a standalone, it's simply a very lacking genre movie, that will even disappoint the most hardened fans of zombie flicks.

Not entertaining, not scary, not very involving...just not a very good movie to watch.

4/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

This was one of those typical Italian zombie flicks and I saw it at TV with the title of "Black Demons" not "Demons 3" a movie which(unfortunately) doesn´t exist. As far as I remember about this movie directed by Umberto Lenzi, it was gory, although not so much as my favorite "Nights of terror" and it was quite entertaining, watch it if you are a zombie fan, my only question is Why don´t Italian movie makers recover this zombie genre? They are just doing nothing now,and it is a pity, really, because they were great at horror genre.

Pretty awful.

With the exception of Joe Balogh who plays the disturbed character, the acting is below average.

The special effects are passable. The music is also passable. The location is quite good. It's probably the highlight here. However, the director fails to generate any real atmosphere or suspense.

You should skip this one.