Black Demons (1991) Review

aka Demoni 3

Black Demons is a racist movie, lemme tell ya. It boasts an impressive level of overt racial prejudice. (You might have guessed from the title.) Black Demons was made during the hay day of bigoted Italian gore flicks. A bunch of white devils made a movie called Black Demons... and this was in 1991! Italian cinema was free to express unfettered racism long after the PC police had locked down the US, I suppose. The demons in question are quintessential voodoo zombies, albeit stripped of any originality or flavor. It's always kinda fun to see assassin voodoo zombies swinging machetes through victims' heads, or hooks through eyes, but I much prefer a good rotten corpse.

Black Demons is actually just the name of the US release of the film. IMDb lists the original name as Demoni 3, which confused me. I thought Demoni 3 referred to Demons 3: The Ogre, aka La Casa dell'orco, which was released in 1988 and was directed by Lamberto Bava. Black Demons has absolutely nothing to do with Lamberto Bava's first two Demoni movies and has no place in the trilogy, yet it was released in Italy as Demoni 3 anyway. This is the way of Italian horror film marketing. Just slap a name and a number on it and make sure to rename it as many times as possible.

I'd expect nothing less from Umberto Lenzi, the guy with a rap sheet that includes Nightmare City and Cannibal Ferox. He has a flare for racial stereotypes, and a penchant for shots involving jeeps driving through the middle of nowhere. Lenzi belongs to the B-list of international horror hackney. His films are an interesting blend of pointless, terrible, and and occasional entertainment. Black Demons is just shy of being too terrible to watch. The stuff that kept me interested: Molotov cocktails that explode like grenades, bright red blood flow, and flaming zombies mannequins. It reminded me of Burial Ground, just like every Umberto Lenzi movie reminds me of some other movie that came before it. You should probably just watch Burial Ground.