Night of the Demon (1980)

 

Director: James C. Wasson

Screenplay: Mike Williams and Jim L. Ball

Cast: Michael Cutt as Professor Bill Nugent; Melanie Graham as Wanda McGinty; Shannon Cooper as Carla Thomas; Bob Collings as Roy; Jodi Lazarus as Linda; Michael Lang as Pete; Ray Jarris as Gary; William F. Nugent as Lou Carlson; Barrett Cooper as Reverend Emmet McGinty

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

Let your seeds of evil grow within her!

Among the Video Nasties of the 1984 Video Recordings Act, all of them present their own fascinating history and with Night of the Demon, we find ourselves following the trends of "cryptid" culture, including the legendary 1967 Patterson–Gimlin film footage which was said to capture onscreen images of an ape-like humanoid and feed interest in this legendary figure in cinema. With Night of the Demon, there is obviously the dichotomy that this is also a splatter film in tone, where films which helped pave an interest in making them were more family friendly; films like The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972), a huge independent success, and when Monsters! Mysteries or Myths? (1974), a TV documentary with Rod Serling as the narrator, was expanded into a feature film with new footage (and actor Peter Graves taking over narration) for The Mysterious Monsters (1975) for another hit. This is not even the first gorier Bigfoot film as, whilst its plot involves a fake one, Shriek of the Mutilated (1974) exists, but Night of the Demon among some pretty strong competition in the Video Nasties list still stands toe-to-toe with a level of extremity.

With Night of the Demon, the explanation for how it came to be explains everything about the tone and content - originally this was a suspense film, in which Professor Nugent (Michael Cutt), in a bookend disfigured and recovering in a hospital bed, recounts to doctors and the police about his trip with students to a forest region which is said to be terrorised by a bigfoot creature, only for the production to struggle to be sold and producer Jim L. Ball to film additional gore footage which gained its infamy. This is immediately established when a man has his arm ripped off, both the gore intercut to and showing this is not a friendly Bigfoot. Even without this initial context, where after a first version played off mood and tension from director James C. Wasson, you had the gore added which gained a lot of notoriety for those who had seen the film, Night of the Demon from the first time I saw it, and did not appreciate it, to a growing one for it now, is curious in its pacing and tone. Immediately after that arm is pulled off a man like a doll's, it cuts to seventies flute music over an ordinary school, a reminder the early eighties in horror reflects the previous decade in style until the hairspray came in during the mid-eighties. With the daughter of one of the male victims of this creature in tow, what this becomes is a mystery as the team of Bigfoot finders go to the woods in Northern California, where the sightings are, and first ask around before going further into the woodlands.

The gore scenes are mostly linked to flashbacks from tales recounted by Nugent, filtered throughout, be it a man swung in a sleeping bag by Bigfoot and impaled, to the infamous scene of a motor biker having his penis ripped off, which is more for the sake of spectacle splatter than cohesive in their presentation, more a series of scenes to get reaction from than a cohesive series of attacks by a cryptid. It becomes more of a series of exposition scenes, getting to the culprit, until the later half where "Crazy" Wanda (Melanie Graham), a woman living in the deepest woods, is introduced, someone traumatised by a religious zealot father and a significant encounter with Bigfoot. Alongside its tangents, like the moment involving the Bigfoot cult in the woods, there is material with Night of the Demon with hindsight which is out-there even among the Nasties, particularly as this has as a key plot point a child conceived between cryptid and human being. It is a transgressive and uncomfortable scene in presentation, and meant to be to its credit, and it is another story if one of a few of a cryptid creature in a scenario like this, if one here which attempts to be much more serious and a disturbing take on the matter than, say, The Geek (1971), a porn film which exists and was released by Something Weird Video. It is strange how many films, even as far back as Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) with the Gill Man obsessed with Julie Adams, fixate on the monstrous having desires with human women, and in mind that there is a world of cryptid erotic novels, many actually written by women¹, this is a concept for an entirely different piece but is important to keep in mind with human beings fascinated by the monstrous as something to fear but also having a physicality to them that can even be sexual. In some cases it is erotic, but as Wanda's story becomes central to this film, whilst it can be viewed as tasteless in this context, one of the stronger (credibly) aspects to the production as a drama is that it is meant to be a horrifying story. Of religious zealotry distorting and hurting a young girl, and especially with what happened to the conceived child, which can be lost in the film's tone and included splatter scenes, but should be pointed to as the real attempt at a narrative within this.

There is an absurdity that cannot be denied due to how the film was put together, where you are watching in one scene Bigfoot literally forcing two Girl Scouts to stab each other, which is as ridiculous as that sounds, and the languid tone of what was supposed to be a suspense picture from director James C. Wasson is felt and does make it a slower paced experience. It is to be admired nonetheless for a regional production, knowing how hard film production is, and the figures behind this are fascinating, making this an even weirder and rewarding Video Nasty in its context. Producer Jim L. Ball, coming to this business from an obsession with Maria Montez and films she starred in like Cobra Woman (1944) as a kid², even working at American International Pictures alongside Roger Corman in the sound department. He would end up creating a trilogy of these horror films with Night of the Demon sandwiched between Fraternity of Horror (1964), a 16mm production never released until the 2022 Severin Films/88 Films Blu Ray release, and Prophecy of Blood, a video shoot mummy film that is insanely obscure. Director James C. Wasson's career is even more idiosyncratic as he was a singer before this production, a writer of songs and a musical manager, even writing the musical composition for a song written by one of the men behind the legendary Patterson–Gimlin film, which was an influence on him taking this film as a director³. Night of the Demon on screen and off-screen does gain a lot from this. As much as the production onscreen is a lurid and bizarre bigfoot film which is idiosyncratic to witness, this background context adds to the cherry on the cake for appreciating the work behind it, and its infamy as a Video Nasty has more meaning knowing the first proper release this had in distribution was in the British VHS market², and we know how that went.

Only the knowledge of Tab Hunter being offered a role, and declining, suggests an alternative version of the film I admit I wish I could have seen².

=====

1) Figures like author Virginia Wade, who even became controversial that Amazon was clamping down on their ebook "cryptid erotica", are a fascinating reminder that unconventional (and eyebrow raising) depictions of sexuality have no gender bias, as is documented in MONSTER PORN: Amazon Cracks Down On America’s Latest Sex Fantasy, written by Eric Spitznagel for Business Insider.

2) Just a Little Green Kid Outta Waco, Texas, a Blu Ray interview short with Ball included for the 2022 USA Severin Films Blu-Ray release, and transferred over to the 88 Films 2022 release in the United Kingdom.

3) The Demon Made Me Do It, the Blu Ray interview short with Wasson included for the 2022 USA Severin Films Blu-Ray release, and transferred over to the 88 Films 2022 release in the United Kingdom.