There has been enough written about the Demons films to last a lifetime (or at least a solid month’s worth) of reading. Reviews for the film’s numerous DVD releases and Arrow’s problematic blu-ray release are a dime a dozen, so I’ve decided not to review Demons 2 (1986)… sort of. Instead, I’m going to attempt to explain my confusing thirteen-year relationship with this odd film. I love the first Demons (1985) – and I mean love. I watched at it at the influential age of fourteen; an age where my obsession with Italian horror began. To say it blew my mind would be an understatement. I had never seen anything so garish, loud and out of control. Still to this day, I consider it the most balls-out entertaining film to come out of 1980s Italy.

Demons 2 – VHS scan from VHS Wasteland

Hiring Demons 2 shortly after seeing its predecessor, expectations were ludicrously high and, not even ten minutes in, my smile had vanished. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I was furious. Everything I loved about the first seemed absent, despite the film following a nearly identical structure with only minor tweaks. Gone was the gore and relentless action, in its place a plodding film full of douchey puppets. The apartment building was a great concept, but I thought the demons appearing on television, rather than a cinema, was an irritating and neutered retread. Demons 2 had me scratching my head. It seemed more a remake than a sequel with only stuffy narration in the opening to confirm that it was indeed a sequel and the demonic events from the Demons were a reality. Hitting stop on the VCR, I tried to forget Demons 2 ever existed.

A few years ago, I nervously revisited this much maligned sequel. With anticipation and expectations removed, Demons 2 became a much different experience. I found myself enjoying it – a lot – and upon re-watching Demons 2 for a second time only yesterday, my opinion of it has climbed even further upwards. I was suddenly embracing everything I initially hated about it. The repetitive music and pace that I considered plodding first time round became hypnotic. The seemingly useless scenes set outside the apartment building added to the dreamlike qualities of the film, rather than distracting me. The gore was gone, but the puppets were now an exciting and absurd addition. And I no longer considered the finale with the blind demon goofy, rather it was almost a little chilling.

The first Demons has a nightmarish quality, particularly apparent in the film’s excellent finale. But there is enough action and (reasonably) coherent story to push this into the background. With Demons 2, the distractions of action and plot are removed. What we are left with is something that resembles a filmic nightmare more than it does a narrative film. Lamberto Bava, son of Mario, is obviously not the director his father was. In fact, he’s done little of value outside the Demons films. Everything that is so hypnotically dreamlike about Demons 2 is probably unintentional. The insane overreactions from the cast, the recasting of key members from the original film, the irritating Gremlins-esque gargoyle and the fragmented structure are potentially the result of sloppy directing and writing. But these elements compliment the film’s intentionally frightening moments. There are some genuinely unnerving scenes – the child-demon, Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni running in slow-motion against a surreal background, the demon coming out of the television, the permanent pain the demons appear to be in and even the demented demon-dog. Intentional or not, Demons 2 is a big, throbbing, hellish nightmare.

Demons 2 is, I guess, technically a bad movie. But it’s a film I’ve come to appreciate, in some ways even more than the original. At first it seemed a lacklustre followup to an amazing piece of b-grade cinema. Second time round, I started to see it in a different light. And a third viewing has confirmed for me that Demons 2 is something very special. It’s accidental genius; a work of hallucinatory art. If you hate Demons 2, but haven’t seen in it in a while, give it another chance. Consider it the head-fucking nightmare you might have after watching the first Demons rather than a sequel.