Starring:

Starring: Gregory Lee Kenyon, Venesa Talor, Brannon Gould, Kyle Tracy, Jennifer Capo, Allen Nabors, Candace Kroslak, Dominic Joseph, Val Perez, Todd Rex

Directed by: Jay Woelfel

The Story: This movie was perhaps 120 minutes long, but it felt like hours. I don't mean normal hours, either, I mean long, long hours. I feel like I wasted my entire day watching it. And this was the third time I watched it. Why did I do that? One viewing is enough for this flick.

Well, one hand I kind of feel sorry for the movie. Its plainly obvious by the complete lack of anything  that the movie had a budget of maybe 8 bucks. There are no sets to speak of, except for the interior of the cave....most of the "action" takes place out in the woods....and I get the idea that there was very little time given to actually film it. Which is kind of a shame....its not like this was ever going to be good movie, but it could have been better. That's an understatement.....the movie pretty much blows.

A group of young Americans are on a hiking trip in the Italian alps. One of them, James, finds a cave that holds the remains of an ancient roman gladiator, Tyranus, and after putting on the helmet of the corpse, is possessed by the evil spirit. He then goes out into the wilderness slaughtering his friends in an effort to bring Tyranus back to life.

And that's it. After I saw this movie the 2nd time I realized how challenging it must have been to make a movie on the cheap like this one. But after the 3rd and thankfully final viewing of it, I realized what a complete waste of time it is to watch it. There's only one genuinely chuckle worthy moment in the entire flick, when Frankie gets killed. Its downhill from there. You'll swear this movie is five freaking hours long by the middle of it, and by the end you really won't give a damn about it. Trust me on this, my droogies...I'm trying really hard to find something positive to say about Demonicus and I  am having a difficult time. There's simply no reason to rent or buy this turkey if you're not a fan of bad movies. And I don't mean like fun bad, I mean boring bad. The actors and actresses weren't awful, I suppose that's something...but since the movie isn't very good it doesn't matter. The DVD has a "Making of" segment and it confirms my first impressions of the flick...the budget was minimal, and they didn't have lot of time to shoot. Apparently the cast and crew made do with what they had, so you have to give them an A for effort. Listening to the director, Jay Woelfel, I can see that he sincerely wanted to make a decent horror/ slasher movie, and that he was working against a tight cash flow. Mr. Woelfel probably won't invite me to his next party since I wasn't too crazy about Iron Thunder, but for what its worth the Inferno can understand the problems he must have had in making this movie.

You know, the basic idea isn't something new, but with a little more money and time, it could have been made into a better movie, I think. No one rents a slasher/ horror movie like this expecting a mind blowing knockout good movie....we rent them to see people getting chopped up, smashed and killed in gross, sometimes hilarious ways. We rent them hoping that there might be one or two good scares or perhaps a funny bit (intentional or unintentional) somewhere in it. Demonicus doesn't deliver any of that....not even female nudity could have saved it, so I'm almost relieved that there was none.

I said Almost....the actress playing Maria was really cute.

Best Lines:  “One's fun, the other sucks.” - The difference between hiking and mountain climbing.

“You say that as if it were a bad thing!.” -Gina, when James/ Demonicus says "You are no virgin!".

 Are you kidding me?

1.) Demonicus' cave looks a lot like a tunnel to me....and the trail leading to it looks like a well used road. Are you telling me that no one before now has found the cave and the remains of Demonicus? Aren't there any archeologists in Italy? According to dialogue in the movie, the mountain path is known well enough to have been documented in a book about Rome! There's even the remains of an ancient monument near it. Really, this movie MUST be kidding me, because it makes it really hard to believe that no one has found this cave with nearly perfect ancient Roman artifacts in it before now.

2.) It doesn't seem like James is being controlled by Demonicus when he first finds the body....so he's really kind of a sick guy. If I found a corpse from a few thousand years ago in armor the last thing I'd do is put on its helmet, just from a hygiene point of view. I hope he's got some killer shampoo.

3.) I'm a little confused...Frankie says their entire group is taking different paths to the top of the mountain to see who can get there first. But in the next scene we see him and his girlfriend walking with another couple just a few yards behind them. I think the movie was supposed to have been edited so we wouldn't see the two couples in the same location like that, but someone slipped up. Either way it bodes ill for the flick....its either wonky editing, or Frankie's statement makes no sense at all.

4.) When James slices off Frankie's arm and then his leg see if you can help but shout out "It's just a flesh wound!" a la Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

5.) Maria should kick Gina's ass. When Gina awakens in the cave she tells the bound Maria "Hold on Maria, I'll help you in a second", and then starts looking around. You know, if someone kidnaps you and you wake up to find one of your friends bound in a cave with you I think getting them free would be really really important. And Maria has her arms tied over her head, so it must be uncomfortable...she's been bound that way for a day or so!

6.) Dino tries to upset Demonicus' cauldron and burns his hands. Apparently metal doesn't get hot when its over an open flame where he comes from, or else he wouldn't have tried such a retarded stunt.

Nudity and Sex: Sex is talked about and Maria is uh....well, kissing Joe's little fireman at one point, but no nudity is seen.

Huh?:

I'm unsure of what the temperature is in this movie. Some of the characters are dressed in a way to suggest its not very cold, yet we snow on the ground in some parts. You can even see the people's breath sometimes. I do know that the actor playing Demonicus must have been cold. The Demonicus armor exposes a lot of his body and at one point we see him trampling through some snow in sandals. I hope the man was well paid for the discomfort he must have felt.

Frankie asks what's Italian for hello. I'd hate to travel with this guy. Most people at least try to know what the word for hello is in a foreign country when they visit.

I can see why Marta left Dino for some Italian waiter....he's annoying as hell. He's also a dumb ass and a chicken. Dino doesn't want to go after the Demonicus-possessed James and possibly rescue Maria and talks Joe out of doing so. But the part that really grated my nerves about Dino is when he witnesses James fighting Joe he doesn't even try to help his friend. He just watches a guy he went to Catholic School with get skewered. When he's alone shortly after that Dino reads Gina's book about ancient Rome trying to figure out what's going on...and he does so aloud. Okay, I know he read the book out loud so that the audience could hear what he's reading, but it just makes him look rather dull-witted.

After all that she's been through, why would Maria put on the helmet at the end of the movie?

The Final Judgment: Demonicus isn't the first movie to be hampered by little cash and big ideas, and sadly it probably isn't the last. As I said earlier, this movie is only worth the dinero if you're a fan of cheap movies or a Full Moon completist. The Inferno gives it one devil head. As Demonicus said, "Woe to the vanquished".