"Sometimes dead is better."

Pet Sematary (1989)
Director: Mary LambertStars: Dale Midkiff, Fred Gwynne, Denise CrosbyPlot: A family moves to Maine only to find that their new home is near an Indian burial ground.

The Creed family moves from Chicago to a small town in Maine. The new house is gorgeous and on a large lot, but next to a highway that truckers often speed down. Thanks to their next door neighbor, Jud (who is played by the guy who played Herman Munster in the old Munsters TV show!), they find a pet cemetery on their property for past residents' roadkill. Jud also leads Louis Creed, the father of the family, past the cemetery where the ground is "sour"--an Indian burial ground. Anything buried there will come back to life, but as an evil version of themselves. I'll let you guess what happens next.

Pet Sematary is based on the novel by Stephen King. If you're familiar with King's work, then right off the bat you know the film is going to be bloody and that death of some kind is going to happen to at least one person/animal. You know what I like about this movie, though? There's an Indian burial ground involved, but there isn't a house or some other kind of building on top of it; there aren't any angry poltergeists or ghosts of any kind. It's like a zombie-demon type story. I think the presence of an Indian burial ground but lack of ghosts is refreshing, what do you think?

I found this clip from Bravo's "100 Scariest Movie Moments." There are definitely some spoilers here, but Stephen King and Mary Lambert talk about the story so it's two minutes of interesting people saying interesting things. Plus you get to see the most adorable little evil child ever.

"Whoever wears it becomes a demon, and an instrument of evil!"

Demons (1985)
Director: Lamberto Bava
Stars: Urbano Barberini, Natasha Hovey, Karl Zinny, Fiore Argento
Plot: A large group of people become trapped in a movie theater as demons prey on them.

This film is produced, presented, and partially written by Dario Argento. Therefore, I consider this to be a Dario Argento film (which is a good thing). Argento is more widely known for his witchy film Suspiria (1977), and more recently for The Mother of Tears (2007). He also did an episode in the first season of Masters of Horror entitled "Jenifer." I'm saying all of this because, if you like horror--and Italian things--then you should check out Dario Argento's films. I would start with either this one (more of a fun movie) or Suspiria (more serious).

Anyway. This basically being an Argento film, it is pretty good. A group of people go to a theater for a free horror movie showing. The movie they see features a mask that turns one of the kids in the movie into a demon. What the moviegoers are unaware of is that the demons in the movie are real; the same mask was on display in the theater lobby. As the movie plays, a woman who tried on the mask earlier and had been scratched by it becomes possessed and starts infecting the others through biting and scratching (kind of like a zombie). Of course panic and chaos ensue as the people try to escape the theater, which has been locked up by the movie attendants. It was a setup!

This clip is about seven minutes long and shows the part when the woman, Rosemary, becomes possessed. There's some ooze and puss involved so you might not want to be eating anything while watching this.

This is the second Italian horror movie I've talked about (the first was Cemetery Man). Do you think these movies sound better or worse than American horror movies?

"Chill out, hun. It's your party, you ain't goin' anywhere."

Night of the Demons (1988)
Director: Kevin Tenney
Stars: Cathy Podewell, Alvin Alexis, Hal Havins, Amelia Kinkade
Plot: Angela throws a small Halloween party at Hull House. Judy and her other friends try to make it out alive.

No one is entirely sure what's wrong with Hull House. All they know is that it was built on "unclean land," surrounded by an underground stream, and those who used to live there were brutally killed. In other words, it's a perfect place to party on Halloween, right? Angela thought so. Everything is fine until they try to do a séance, afterwards they spend the rest of the movie fighting for their lives.

This is a great Halloween movie. Night of the Demons is campy, funny, weird, and it was made in the 80's. It's one of those movies you'd want to watch with a bunch of friends while eating pizza and drinking, you know? It has a The Evil Dead (1981) feel to it, though not quite as exciting. There's also a dance scene to Bauhaus' "Stigmata Martyr," which is a little odd but I suppose it represents the demon's possession.

I almost forgot to mention that this movie was remade in 2009. As far as remakes go, it wasn't as bad as it could've been. Edward Furlong (Terminator 2, American History X) plays a small role and, while it was nice to him in something other than Syfy movies like Arachnoquake, I would still rather watch the first Night of the Demons.