The Demons of Ludlow (Bill Rebane, 1983)

Ludlow, an unincorporated New England town with a population of 47, is celebrating its bicentennial. Mayor Sam Donaldson (no relation, played by C. Dave Davis) unveils a piano, a behest from the deceased Ephraim Ludlow III, the great-grandson of the town's founder. When the piano is first played, a young couple are killed by a demon. Intrepid reporter Debra Hall (Stephanie Cushna), who was born in Ludlow but whose parents left the town when she was nine, tells her photographer Winifred (James R. Robinson) she has discovered the piano was in Ludlow once before, and soon after the church burned down. Donaldson tells the Reverend Chris (Paul von Hausen) not to bring up what happened before, and tells him several people are leaving town. It is revealed the town is cursed, and every time the piano is played, someone dies in a horrific manner.

The Demons of Ludlow is the third Bill Rebane film I've seen, but the first I've seen without the expert riffing of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew. Monster A Go-Go, finished by none other than Herschell Gordon Lewis after Wisconsonites Rebane ran out of money for filming, was declared by the Best Brains to be officially the worst movie they ever riffed, and if it isn't it's certainly up there (or down there), and sports one of the most infuriating non-endings in film history. The Giant Spider Invasion is a little better, but not by much, with some of the most unappealing cheeseheads ever caught on film and truly abysmal jokes by Alan Hale, Jr., the very first line out of whose mouth is, "Hi, little buddy!" Perhaps I'm grading on a curve, but The Demons of Ludlow is without a doubt the best of the three Rebane flix I have viewed to date. It has some genuinely creepy moments, and some decent acting, with Paul von Hausen as the Reverend being a particular standout. There's a disturbing scene where the mentally ill Emily (Patricia J. Statz), who talks to her dolls (including Smurfette!) as if they were alive, comes across a group of 18th century aristocrats who are having a frenzied feast. The aristos attack and kill her, ripping her top off in the process.

As with The Giant Spider Invasion, this film is something of a family affair, with Rebane's wife Barbara acting as executive producer and first assistant director. Alan Rebane (whose relationship to Bill I'm unsure of) serves as second assistant director and gaffer. Amazingly, Cheri Caffaro, the star of the Ginger series of softcore private eye films, was associate producer! She also apparently filled the same duties two years earlier on Rebane's film Rana: The Legend of Shadow Lake. Those who only know Rebane from MST3K would do well to check this film out, as it shows that ol' Bill (who once ran for governor of Wisconsin, incidentally) had genuine potential as a filmmaker.

Angel of Vengeance (Ted V. Mikels and Ray Dennis Steckler, 1987)

Despite the pleading of Pierre (Pierre Agostino, credited as "Pierre D'Augustino"), who tells him the Major said to leave the local women alone, Manny Laconi (Macka Foley, who played the gym coach on two episodes of Parker Lewis Can't Lose) propositions newcomer Tina Davenport (Jannina Poynter), who has come to a small mountain town to write a book about her father, a Green Beret who died in Vietnam about 15 years ago. Taking to the rustic life like a fish to water, Tina nevertheless finds herself continually harassed by Manny, who eventually shows up at the cottage, only to be coldcocked and arrested. Major Hargrove (David O'Hara, whose credits include playing a cop in an episode of Santa Barbara and Ed Gein on Criminal Minds), the leader of the survivalist militia group in the mountains Manny and Pierre belong to, shows up to transport Manny back to their compound, Tina having chosen not to press charges. The Major and Manny, who once served six years for sexual assault, get into an altercation with some bikers, who follow them back to the compound. The Major and his merry band kill all of the bikers except for Linda (Linda Eden), whom the Major gives to Manny to do with as he pleases. Going into town to get supplies, Manny and Pierre run into Tina out jogging, and Manny decides to bring her with them. Meanwhile, two rednecks leave a gun store after robbing the place and shooting the owner. Tina gets thrown in the same cell as Linda, who she insists needs a doctor. The Major is not happy with Manny for bringing her to the compound. Tina is tied to a bed, and Manny rapes her (offscreen, thankfully). Meanwhile, the two random killers murder a farm family. Tina accuses the Major of cowardice and requests that his men hunt her, giving her a fair chance. The Major gives her two hours, believing an unarmed woman is easy prey, but he is very wrong...

Fans of cult cinema will appreciate the legendary names behind Angel of Vengeance. Ray Dennis Steckler was initially the director, but was sadly fired after three days by producer Jeffrey C. Hogue and replaced with Ted V. Mikels, the director of such infamous films as The Black Klansman (not to be confused with the upcoming Spike Lee movie of the same name), The Corpse Grinders (in which people being ground into violence-inducing cat food is simulated by placing the actors into cardboard boxes and pushing hamburger out the other end), and The Doll Squad, often cited as the likely inspiration for Charlie's Angels. Mikels lived in a California castle for many years with a bevy of beautiful women, so make of that what you will. Angel of Vengeance marks the sixth film I've seen by Mikels, and the most recent in terms of release date. It's probably the weakest of the six, but I would say it has a certain "guilty pleasure" quality to it if I believed in the idea of guilty pleasures. The plot is standard '80s action movie fare, although some of the performances are amusing. Jannina Poynter is certainly attractive, but not much to write home about as an actress. Her response to finding a dead body seems less to denote anger at the killer as annoyance. It's also hilarious how she comes into town wearing an incredibly demure dress, but once she settles in the cottage she switches to a headband, tank top, and short shorts. Macka Foley plays one of the hammiest psycho rapists ever caught on film. David O'Hara is pretty charismaless and unmemorable for a militia leader. Pierre Agostino is likely a holdover from when Steckler was still directing the film, as he played the title character of RDS' films The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher and Las Vegas Serial Killer. One wonders if the name on the bikers' jackets, "Thrill Killers, Inc.," is a in-joke nod to Steckler's film The Thrill Killers. The random killers, Zach (Jason Holt, who also directed six films, four of which he acted in) and his unnamed partner (Ed Walters) chew the scenery almost as much as Foley, and the ending will likely satisfy viewers who've come to hate these pieces of shit. Some of Tina's killings are memorable, as when she jabs two sharpened sticks through a guy's eyes, or when she catches another one in a snare and blows him up with a grenade, leaving only a leg. There's a mediocre country song over the end credits, "Take Me Home" by T. Craig Keller (also the associate producer), and Tina twice sings Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" (Because her methods are totally ones of which the erstwhile Robert Zimmerman would approve, right?) This isn't anywhere near the level of Mikels' '60s-'70s work, but it's worth at least one watch for completeness' sake. 

Demons (Lamberto Bava, 1985)

A young woman named Cheryl (Natasha Hovey) is walking through a train station in Berlin where a silent man in a metal half-mask (assistant director and future director of genre fare such as The Church and Cemetery Man Michele Soavi) is handing out free tickets to a film showing at the Metropol Theater. Cheryl asks this Man in Black for an extra ticket for her friend Kathy (A Cat in the Brain's Paola Cozzo). Neither girl has heard of the Metropol, but they go to the film anyway. Other viewers include George (Urbano Barberini, Tarl Cabot in the film versions of John Norman's Gor books) and Ken (Karl Zinny of Bava's Delirium), with whom the two hit it off immediately; Tony (Flight from Paradise's Bobby Rhodes), a black pimp accompanied by his employees Rosemary (Geretta Geretta) and Carmen (Fabiola Toledo of Bava's A Blade in the Dark); Tommy (Guido Baldi) and his girlfriend Hannah (Fiore Argento, eldest daughter of co-screenwriter and producer Dario Argento); and blind man Werner (Ladyhawke's Alex Serra) and his daughter Liz (Sally Day). Rosemary tries on a mask on display in the lobby, which leaves a scratch on her cheek. The film plays: it features a group of young people discovering the tomb of Nostradamus, which contains nothing but a book in Latin and a mask. One of the characters tries on the mask, which scratches him just like Rosemary. True to the prophecy in Nostradamus' book, the mask turns the character into a demon, and mayhem ensues. In the real world, Rosemary discovers her wound is bleeding again and heads to the bathroom, but turns into a hideous, green bile-spewing demon herself. Soon, the filmgoers discover fiction has become horrifying reality.


Lamberto Bava may not have been a brilliant filmmaker on the level of his father Mario, the master of Gothic horror, but he did have genuine talent, and of the three films of his I've seen to date, this would have to be the best, and indeed it's Lamberto's favorite of his own films. The story by Bava, the legendary Dario Argento, Dardano Sacchetti (writer or co-writer of such masterpieces as the elder Bava's A Bay of Blood and Fulci's The Beyond), and Franco Ferrini (Once Upon a Time in America and Argento's Phenomena) is surprisingly meta (including fakeout end credits!), and thankfully no explanation is given for why the demons of the movie are real other than Werner's claim the theater is cursed. The gore FX by Angelo Mattei and makeup by Sergio Stivaletti are impressive indeed. The characters are not particularly well-developed, but still entertaining, especially the foul-mouthed Tony, who takes charge of the theatergoers in their escape attempts. Unfortunately, he is not as lucky (relatively speaking) as Ken Foree's Peter Washington in Dawn of the Dead. The idea of a blind man going to the movies is pretty hilarious (according to the film's trivia page on IMDB, deliberately so), but since Werner's daughter Liz is there for a romantic tryst, it makes a certain amount of sense. Sadly, Werner suffers an ironic fate. Surprisingly, redheaded usherette Ingrid (Nicoletta Elmi of Argento's Deep Red) at first seems mysterious and sinister, but ultimately turns out to be an innocent victim herself, something not acknowledged. There are some hilarious scenes with a quartet of punks who steal a Ferrari and snort coke through a straw in a can of Coke and stumble upon the theater, which contains posters for Argento's Four Flies on Grey Velvet Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre, and Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Look out for a cameo at the end by young Giovanni Frezza, who genre fans will know best as Bob in Fulci's The House by the Cemetery. The soundtrack is utterly '80s: besides excellent work by Claudio Simonetti, it also boasts work by Rick Springfield (this would be my second favorite film with a scene where characters snort coke while listening to his music, the first being Boogie Nights), Mötley Crüe, Pretty Minds, Go West, the Adventures, Billy Idol ("White Wedding"!!!), Accept, and Saxon. A sequel by Bava followed in 1986, and as so often happens in Italian genre cinema a number of unrelated horror films were touted as sequels in other countries. Stivaletti said in 2016 he, Bava, and Argento were talking about a 3-D remake, but two years later there seems to be no forward progress. No worries; this version would be hard to top for sheer fun.