Six black slaves are resurrected as lethal and vengeful zombies through voodoo and go on a gruesome spree in Brazil. Vacationing British guy Kevin (smooth Kevin Van Hoven), his spunky American girlfriend Jessica (fetching blonde Sonia Curtis), and Sonia's whiny, annoying brother Dick (the extremely obnoxious Joe Balogh) all find themselves in considerable jeopardy. Director/co-writer Umberto Lenzi manages to create a reasonably creepy atmosphere (the sequence with the zombies coming out of their graves in a misty cemetery is especially strong and memorable), relates the story at a snappy pace, and stages the splatter set pieces with his customary lip-smacking grisly gusto. The pleasingly hideous make-up f/x by Franco Casagni deliver the ghastly goods; nasty highlights include an eye gouged out with a crowbar, an axe splitting open someone's skull, and a bloody throat slashing. Moreover, the shambling, rot-faced zombies with their egg-white eyes, unsightly faces, and rattling chains are genuinely unnerving. The cast for the most part give really bad performances, although Maria Alves contributes an amusing turn as superstitious maid Maria. Franco Micalizzi's spirited spooky'n'shuddery score, Maurizio Dell'Orco's crisp, handsome cinematography, and a lively last third with Kevin burning up those pesky zombies real good with a bunch of Molotov cocktails are all up to speed. An enjoyably schlocky piece of low-grade Italian horror junk.

~Spoiler~ Umberto Lenzi's Black Demons is yet another movie that was released under the title of Demons 3 (along with Soavi's The Church and Bava's The Ogre). Everything about this movie (the title, the box art, the dialogue) is so politically incorrect that I had to check it out. Let me tell you right away it's bad; Laughably bad. Black Demons is about a Macumba voodoo ritual that brings back six slaves (the titular demons) who were blinded and hung for trying to escape. Now they must kill six white people to rest in peace, I guess. The film doesn't really give you a lot to go on. Most of the expository dialogue is given by Jose, whose English is not so good. At the same time, his performance is the best part of the movie. Just watch his death scene. It's the apex of perfection, Oscar worthy even. Another noteworthy aspect is the bouncing Molotov cocktails that explode like grenades. If you check out this DVD be sure and watch Lenzi's interview, it's the highlight of the disc. In it, he talks about how disappointing this movie turned out and dogs all of the actors except for Joe Balogh--and he's never been so right. Also, in the interview, Lenzi would have you believe that this is the only zombie movie he made stating that Nightmare City was about radioactive people. Why kid yourself, Umberto? Nightmare City is more of a zombie film than Black Demons is! The only reason I bought Nightmare City is because it is a classic piece of zombie trash cinema. Sadly, Black Demons is not."We're heading for the year 2000 in a sophisticated, technological civilization and you're asking us to believe in a vendetta of the living dead?"

A bad movie almost bad enough to be good, but not quite bad enough to be worth recommending.Sonia is missing. Her boyfriend Jose thinks that maybe she went to town, but when she doesn't come back, he's pretty sure something bad happened.But then Jose finds... one of Sonia's shoes! Now he knows something has happened to her."Maybe she changed her shoes," suggests Kevin, a cooler head.They go to her room, and find another pair of her shoes."You see!" Jose exclaims. "These are the only other shoes she had! Are you convinced now?""Yeah," Kevin says. "She wouldn't have gone to the village barefooted."These utterly ridiculous, idiotic scenes are meant to be taken seriously. That's the sort of movie you're in for -- accidental comedy. If you can appreciate a film on that level, this is the film for you.Worse than the dialogue is the pacing. The movie is as slow as the stumbling zombies of the film -- and these zombies have chains around their ankles. Everything is very predictable, and we're left waiting around for the next moment of gore to show up. The actors are constantly flubbing their lines -- but not in a particularly interesting way. Just stuttering slightly as they deliver ridiculous, stilted dialogue.For a horror movie, there isn't much blood. Or fear. Or tension. Or horror. Or movie.

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT*A smorgasbord of actors end up at a house in Brazil. The troubled brother of the good girl resurrects the dead. He is obsessed with the Macumba and wants to party down with voodoo. Black magic leads to Black Demons. Six dead slaves rise from the grave to have their revenge.First, let me say something good about the movie. The DVD cover for this flick was great. It has a drawing of a guy on his knees in a graveyard. Standing in front of him are various members of the living dead. There are seven zombies on the cover while the movie makes a big deal about there being only six. A small, nitpicking point but it's still a cool comic book-like cover. It sucked me in. There were a few scenes of carnage in this movie. Not enough to get overly excited about, but they were there. They had one effect where they popped a girl's eye out and let it dangle from her skull. Popping eyes are good.Unfortunately, this movie is pretty bad. If there was an excessive amount of gore, I could have forgiven any other defects. But there is not nearly enough of the red stuff so I have to give "Black Demons" the finger. Where did they get this cast? It was the most jumbled mix of misfits ever assembled. I understand there are budget limitations for a B-movie but give me a break. The bad brother was American. His sister was half English. She was dating an Englishman. They stayed at a house with three people of undeterminable accents. The man who ran the house could barely speak English. I had no idea what he was saying half of the time and the filmmakers conveniently let him do most of the talking. Genius!Basically, "Black Demons" problems can be summed up in two words: NO MONEY. No money for pretty girls to run from demons. No money for nudity although I'm not sad about that since the cast was uniformly unattractive. No money for excessive zombie gore effects. In conclusion, no money for a movie yet they went ahead and made one anyway.Umberto Lenzi has made some great horror flicks. "Nightmare City" is one of my favorites. That was exciting and gory. "Black Demons" is a loser.