Arrow Films 

An archaeological team descends on the ruins of a medieval Sicilian monastery, awakening the spirit of three Satan-worshiping nuns. 

I’m a big fan of Italian horror director Lucio Fulci, his Zombie Flesh Eaters and The Beyond being masterpieces of the genre, but by 1990 his career was continuing its downward slide, his projects lacking decent budgets and showing little of the flair of his earlier work.

Demonia is a standard nunsploitation revenge chiller which relies on its outrageous death scenes to keep the interest, but the effects are so poor as to generate chuckles rather than shudders. One poor lady is attacked by her cats (unconvincing puppets) that claw her eyes out, while another victim is attacked by sides of beef before having his extraordinarily long tongue nailed to a block. And one fellow is even ripped down the middle, having been tied to two trees, but it’s shoddy mannequins all the way. Fulci himself turns up as a detective, but unless you fancy nuns vomiting up yellow goo, this is best avoided.

Arrow’s release is in crucifix-style packaging featuring original artwork by Graham Humphreys, with an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Kat Ellinger. The movie is a 4K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative, meaning that there’s nowhere to hide the lacking production values.

There’s a commentary by Fulci aficionado Stephen Thrower, as well a video interview with uncredited co-writer/assistant director Antonio Tentori, camera operator Sandro Grossi and an interview with Fulci from the set. Disc 2 is an interesting watch, being devoted to Fulci Talks, an 80-minute interview with the director in 1993.

Verdict: Buy it for the supporting documentary, not the shockingly bad main feature. 6/10

Nick Joy

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