DEMONWARP (1988) - Vinegar Syndrome

Demonwarp
Vinegar Syndrome

Original Release Date March 1st, 1988

Written by John Carl Buechler (story), Jim Bertges, Bruce Akiyama

Directed by Emmett Alston

Starring George Kennedy, David Michael O'Neill, Pamela Gilbert, Billy Jayne, Hank Stratton, Colleen McDermott

Language English

Purchase yours HERE from Vinegar Syndrome

by "Doc" Hunter Bush

MovieJawn Staff Writer & Podcast Director, cohost of the Hate Watch/Great Watch Podcast

Overview:

Demonwarp comes to 4K from Vinegar Syndrome. Director Emmett Alston, probably best known for directing New Year's Evil (1980), brings us a film almost over-stuffed with concepts. Vinegar Syndrome's release of Demonwarp restores the formerly direct-to-video film to a visual and audio clarity that it has most likely never seen and boasts an extensive array of bonus features.

The Movie Itself: 3.5 stars

I feel that I can confidently say Demonwarp is a film like few others. Born of the direct-to-video boom, the film was originally conceived by John Carl Buechler, director of Troll (1986) and Cellar Dweller (1987) as his next picture, before he left the project to direct Friday the 13th: The New Blood (1988) (the seventh installment in the franchise). Demonwarp would then pass along to director Emmett Alston, of New Year's Evil (1980) fame, with the script reworked by Jim Bertges and Bruce Akiyama. If each person involved in its creation added two concepts to Demonwarp, that MIGHT almost explain how crazy it is.

Opening with a wandering minister (John Durbin) witnessing the crash landing of an alien vessel, we jump forward 100 years to find Bill (George Kennedy) playing Trivial Pursuit with his daughter (Jill Marin) in a cabin before being attacked by what appears to be a Bigfoot, Sasquatch, or Skunk Ape. Then we skip ahead just a little bit more to find five teens arriving at the same cabin to investigate what happened there. Demonwarp has three opening scenes. This should give you an idea of the type of the-whole-kit-and-caboodle approach to story craft and internal logic at its core. Without giving anything more away, the film features, yes: aliens and Bigfoots, but also zombies, human sacrifice, boobytraps, one snazzy yellow bucket hat, a very ambitious assortment of practical effects, and more unnecessary nudity than you can shake a stick at.

Demonwarp, as almost everyone interviewed for the bonus features will bring up as tactfully as possible, isn't what you would call "good". It's a gonzo, tits-and-blood monster movie with so many unexpected turns that it's impossible to predict what's coming next. And therein lies its charm. Demonwarp was never going to be for everyone, for mass audiences. Only the folks who love digging through bargain bins, or scouring late night cable channels are likely to even enjoy it. In other words, Demonwarp is for the sickos, and those sickos have probably seen a hell of a lot of movies. After a while, they can start to feel pretty predictable. But not Demonwarp.

Perfect for a Bad Movie Night (or a Bad Movie Podcast), this is a flick that truly must be seen to be believed. For me, Demonwarp is kind of a "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" moment. I am all about film preservation, and that must include oddities like Demonwarp. Now, in the film's defense: I watched it alone, and stone cold sober but I am certain that my viewing would be greatly enhanced if either one of those were not the case. 

The Packaging: 4 stars

The packaging for Demonwarp is almost too good. The case is, of course, your standard black plastic 4K case which is very handsome, but what really sets this apart is the cover art. Both sides of the reversible cover (I believe both illustrations are by Robert Sammelin?) present Demonwarp as something grander and more epic than it truly is. On one side, gorgeously rendered illustrations of George Kennedy, a gun-wielding David Michael O'Neill (as Jack), and several creatures are layered in neon pink void, while the other features a more stylized image that implies Kennedy, O'Neill, and maybe Pamela Gilbert (as Carrie), are all actively on the hunt for monsters, armed with rifles and an ax.

The illustrations are great pieces of work, magnificent, even. But they definitely do not represent something as shaggy as what Demonwarp turns out to be. There's something I find incredibly charming in that. I'm reminded of browsing my local mom & pop video store as a kid, picking something out and then being kind of let down when the film didn't live up to what the cover conjured in my mind. It's like Sammelin is depicting the movie Demonwarp wants to be, and I think that's kind of great, even if it isn't accurate.

The Video: 4 stars

I can only imagine what Demonwarp must have looked like in the years since it originally hit video. In one of the bonus features, composer Dan Slider remarks on the degradation of quality handed down through copies and dupes over the years. He is speaking of the audio specifically, but I'm certain the same would apply to the video. So while I don't have anything to go on, because for once there wasn't a trailer included in the bonus features, I can say that Demonwarp looks good. Almost too good.

I don't mean to come across as though I'm ragging on this film. I enjoyed it just fine, but I think even any Demonwarp die-hards out there would admit it's not the greatest example of the cinematic art form. And to that end, restoring it to such high visual fidelity might actually work against it. Maybe on VHS or DVD that fuzziness would obscure some of the rubber mask special effects and, leaving more up to the imagination, make them more frightening. As it stands, you can see everything.

But, beyond that, this looks fantastic. I dunno how many human sacrifices had to be made to get this movie up to such a clean visual level, and I don't wanna know! The colors are excellently balanced, with deep shadows but largely avoiding flat blacks. The one thing that most impressed me was that it doesn't appear anyone involved in the restoration did any posthumous color-grading. What I mean is that, you can still tell in certain scenes that the master shots were filmed at one time of day and the coverage was filmed at another; it will from time to time have that slight change of visual temperature. I genuinely enjoyed that because it stays true to what I feel is Demonwarp's most endearing aspect: the scrappiness of the whole endeavor.

The Audio: 4 stars

I have a three-channel soundbar, which handled Demonwarp like a charm. No buzzing or vibration no matter how low the synths got, no muddiness in the dialogue, no riding the volume button between action scenes and dialogue scene; nothing of the sort. There were a few instances where a line or part of one, usually a character name, would be sort of swallowed and a little quiet, but I honestly think that was down to the performances (no judgment).

In the interest of full disclosure, I will mention that there were a few audio / visual issues on my viewing. There was a (non-demon) warping in the score during the opening scene (the third one, when the teens arrive). I'm willing to bet this is just an artifact of the original score that couldn't be avoided. There were also two notable instances of visual skipping on my viewing. One was in the film itself, and one was in a bonus feature. It's entirely possible that this was some issue with my player or my disc in particular, and may not be representative of all copies. I'm not holding any of these against the restoration, because overall I think it's a fantastic job.

The Supplements: 4 stars

The special features here may be a little dry, but they're very informative about the craft of low-budget filmmaking. Each of the interview subjects give a good overview of their careers, before and since Demonwarp, then talk about how they came to the project, explaining how and what they did. I was most interested in cinematographer R. Michael Stringer, in the Of Aesthetic Beauty and Bigfoot featurette, because he talked specifically about not just how he approached lighting certain scenes, but also what he might do differently with the benefit of hindsight (backlighting!) which feels to me the most actionable information.

In bonus content, I'm always looking for the context around the film being discussed. Unfortunately, with John Carl Buechler having passed away in 2019, we may never know the exact impetus behind Demonwarp, or even how much of what is present in the finished film was part of his initial intention. But the special features here, which seemed largely to be organized by Ewan Cant if I'm not mistaken, do a damned good job.

Commentary track with director Emmett Alston and producer Richard L. Albert
Beasts & Breasts: an interview with actress Michelle Bauer (19:10) (HD)
Some of It Was Stupid: an interview with writer Jim Bertges (25:09) (HD)
Of Aesthetic Beauty and Bigfoot: an interview with director of photography R. Michael Stringer (36:45) (HD)
Composing Demonwarp: an interview with composer Dan Slider (27:08) (HD)
Audio interview with actor Hank Stratton (36:31)
FX Gallery: with narration by effects supervisor Mark Wolf (10:07) (HD)
Still Gallery

Final Thoughts: Recommended 

For as much as it might seem like I was dragging this movie, I enjoyed it. For any of us in the disc buying business, there are bound to be blind buys where you watch it once and know you'll never revisit it again. I don't think that's the case for Demonwarp. Is it low budget? Sure, but it does a LOT with the resources it has. Is it kind of nonsensical? Definitely, but in a glorious way. The third act throws a lot of craziness at the audience (and characters) that isn't fully explained, but you can infer enough to make it take shape in your head.

And I have to put my money where my mouth is. Like I said above, I'm always harping on about film preservation in all its forms. Well, restoring gloriously schlocky films like Demonwarp is part of that initiative. It has to be. Noah allegedly took all animals onto the ark, after all. We cannot gatekeep, even under the auspices of "quality". I think certain folks will love Demonwarp for the craft of it, or the breasts of it, or the Bigfoots of it,  and the rest of us will enjoy watching it in groups, but there's something beautiful in that regardless. Plus at one point, there's a zombie wearing a Meet the Residents t-shirt. Thanks, Demonwarp.