By Geno McGahee
“The soul of the demon was true, wasn’t it?” – Josh (John Bonito)
In the 1980s, the SOV (shot on video) horror films were coming out at an incredible rate. Filmmaking was finally affordable and there was a market for these low budget horror films. BLOOD CULT sent the message that these films could be popular even if they lacked the elements that the viewer was typically used to seeing. These films usually had questionable acting, editing, and production value, but they had heart and were endearing. Stumbling across SOUL OF THE DEMON was a great surprise and despite its 1991 release, this is a 1980’s SOV film through and through. It is terribly wonderful.
Joey (Sky Daniel) and his friend, Toby (Garry Godfrey), skip school and head up to a secluded area. Most young teen boys do this. I did it. Nothing ever weird happened that I will discuss. As they hang around, Joey uncovers a box, buried in the ground, and finds a statue inside of it. An old man (Harold Allen) comes out of nowhere and warns the duo of the dangers of the statue. There is a demon’s soul trapped inside. Suddenly, the old man disappears and the kids take the statue home.
Josh (John Bonito), the older brother of Joey, hears of the statue and gets together with his good friend, Mike (Kirk King), to have some fun with it. They bring their girls over the house to have a séance, but the real agenda is to get the girls scared and horny. They needed something. Both Josh and Mike had major mullet action going on. Why was the mullet popular? This is why this film could never be timeless. There is far too much mullet. It’s a distraction.
The group has a séance and it raises this demon that goes around killing the people in very interesting ways, including having one person’s head explode and cutting a girl in half with a saw through the crotch. Another girl gets her head sliced in half. These are some pretty good special effects for such a low budget movie. The demon smiles with great joy at the death he has caused or he is just thinking of a joke he heard that day.
Written and directed by Charles Lang, SOUL OF THE DEMON is heavily influenced by EVIL DEAD and NIGHT OF THE DEMONS. It is a very good effort from a group that had never done a film before and had a very limited budget. Sadly, this is the only film that they ever did and I can only imagine where they would be had they stuck to it because this film had nothing but promise.
SOUL OF THE DEMON is a film that most would not understand. The acting is as bad as it gets and the production value is terrible, but it still delivers. This is an example of a bunch of friends getting together with an idea and heart and creating a film. It was rough around the edges, but they did a great job with the gore and the movie moved along at a rather brisk pace. I really enjoyed this one.
Rating: 6.5/10 – it’s got soul.
