Nonsense about an old, haunted piano being brought to the small town of Ludlow, population: 47, and it causes all sorts of murder and mayhem there. The plot is obviously rather thin.A surprising, although slightly silly, killing in a barn is a highlight. Snowy photography is well done, film has the look and feel of a small town in the middle of winter, to great effect, but interior photography is unmemorable; the special effects are variable: sink catches fire (already done in Boogeyman, three years earlier) and a girl is attacked by a roll of toilet paper? Did I see that correctly? An overlong, dumbass sequence with a girl trimming her doll's hair and being attacked by people in white wigs and dressed like it's the 1700s was seemingly trying to be so-bad-it's-good, but ended up just trying this viewer's patience.The first half hour was pretty good, and there is a bit of atmosphere throughout, but it's a downhill after that first third.

I know it's not saying much, but so far this is my favourite Bill Rebane film (out of the four or five I've watched). It's low budget, sure, but Rebane fills Demons of Ludlow with loads of weirdness and a few creepy scenes, adds in a dollop of Wisconsin cheese, and just goes for the scares.It's a very Stephen King like plot too. A New England town receives a gift of an antique piano from the relatives of its founding father, and immediately things begin to get weird. Objects move of there own accord, a ghost girl appears randomly everywhere, and people from the past are seemingly stepping back into the present. It's up to a visiting journalist (and once resident) and the local priest to sort things out.Although the budget is extremely low, Rebane's no fool. He throws in as many scares as possible, what with the moving objects, ghost demons, surreal, crying and laughing toys, a demonic hand pulling folks into another dimension, and even a bit of good for good measure (a decapitation and amputation). It got a sense of that playfulness of his other films, but it's more like an outright horror. I was hooked from start to finish.I've heard Blood Harvest is his best film, but haven't had a sniff of that. Other Rebane films are the ultra-cheesy (and great!) Giant Spider Invasion, the weird but fun The Cold (aka The Game), the so-so but still watchable Twister's Revenge. I've also got a copy of The Alpha Incident, but it refuses to work.Nice one - I'm a fan of your work Bill.

Talk about having your priorities out of order! Chris the town preacher who sports a man perm is married to Sybil, a drunk hottie who appears on screen either in sexy lingerie, drinking, or both. How many more signs does a cat need that this lady needs some serious husband on wife attention? Does she have to signal him in with airstrip landing lights for crying out loud? Instead Chris becomes infatuated with a piano. Yes a freaking piano. Anyway, this piano that sounds like an organ is returned to the village of Ludlow by the descendants of Efrem Ludlow one of the town's original founders. Turns out Efrem really angered everyone by constantly playing the thing so they did what any respectable music hating citizen would do. They cut off his hands. Fast forward two hundred years and the spirit of Efrem emerges from the piano/harpsichord/organ/kazoo and takes revenge on the town descendants who did this to him. Pretty steep a curse for a pair of hands if you ask me. Soon the townies are being dispatched by demon hands or invisible spirits or ghosts that resemble late eighteenth century citizens that are either cannibals or pack some serious heat. Yeah this movie is all over the place. Chris is aided by Debra a former resident who is a reporter though in what capacity I have no idea. They discover that this curse never ends and that a list is composed of the families that were complicit in Efrem's banishment. Sure enough Chris and Debra both have family ties to the cursed townspeople which makes them targeted to be killed. This could be stopped immediately by simply moving out of town. Perhaps Westchester that everyone keeps crowing about.A return to form for Bill Rebane after I was pleasantly surprised by The Alpha Incident. A cursed piano? Sorry, not frightening. Who exactly cursed the town? If it was Efrem then why did various ghosts appear to help him? How come some are capable of ripping apart flesh like when Emily was "strangled" and yet others use firearms to kill? What was the purpose of the mutant arm? Who is responsible for the worst funeral spread ever at about the forty-second minute mark? Biscuits with ham slices? No open bar? Come on! Lastly and most confusing of all, why didn't Chris get some of that drunk tail Sybil was tossing his way? Was he gay? A eunuch? A ghost? At least he gets what he deserves by having HIS hands cut off. HA! Serves you right holy man.

Yet another low budget effort from Wisconsin's legendary low budget filmmaker Bill Rebane, this one involving ghosts, a cursed town and a haunted piano.It reminds me a lot of Carpenter's "The Fog" only with a cursed piano instead of a ghost ship, which would look pretty stupid in an inland town anyway. There's even a preacher who is the last to die just like in Carpenter's film.The effects, (especially the beheading), are weak but, like most of Rebane's films, it's still an enjoyable way to kill some time. And since it's in the public domain should be available cheap on a bargain DVD.