Demons

**Demons** (also known as **Dèmoni**) is a 1985 Italian horror film by Lamberto Bava and Dario Argento.

## Plot

In a Berlin subway station, university student Cheryl is stalked by a mysterious masked man in black. He eventually catches up to her and gives her a complimentary ticket to a screening of an unspecified film at the recently-reopened Metropol theater. Reluctantly, Cheryl asks for a second ticket for her friend, to which the masked man obliges. She briefly asks him if his mask is to promote the film, but he silently walks away. Outside the station, Cheryl finds her friend Kathy and convinces her to skip class and join her at the Metropol.

At the Metropol, several people enter the theater, and usherette Ingrid collects their complimentary tickets. The moviegoers include middle-aged couple Frank and Ruth, younger couple Hannah and Tommy, preppy friends George and Ken, blind Werner and his associate Liz, and pimp Tony with his friends Rosemary and Carmen. George and Ken immediately flirt with Cheryl and Kathy, helping them retrieve a soda from the vending machine. Meanwhile, Rosemary puts on a demonic mask prop to scare Carmen, but ends up scratching her face on the mask.

Before the movie begins, George and Ken sit next to Cheryl and Kathy. Much to Kathy's dismay, the film turns out to be a violent horror movie, with four young adults finding Nostradamus's tomb. One of the friends, Jerry, discovers a mask - the same mask Rosemary had put on earlier - and puts it on his face. He scratches his face, just as Rosemary did. Bob tells Jerry that anyone who puts on the mask becomes a demon. Rosemary's scratch begins to bleed again, and she leaves for the washroom just as Nancy, on screen, notes that Jerry's bleeding won't stop.

In the restroom, Rosemary screams as she slowly transforms into a demon. Carmen leaves the auditorium to check on her friend, finding a possessed Rosemary in a bathroom stall. Rosemary rushes at Carmen, slashing her neck, then chases after Carmen as she flees. As characters start getting killed off in the film, Carmen gets lost in the theater and finds herself behind the film's screen. Her neck wound begins pulsating, and her screams are heard by Kathy. Suddenly, Carmen bursts out from behind the screen, causing the viewers to panic.

While the movie-goers are distracted, the fully-possessed Rosemary grabs a rope and strangles Liz and her lover. Rosemary hangs Liz's lover from the ceiling to torment the rest of the attendees and leaves Liz's lifeless corpse on the ground only to be discovered by Werner. Rosemary then rips Werner's eyes from his head while Carmen, now a demon like Rosemary, attacks and kills Frank. The survivors flee from the auditorium in search of the exit, but find themselves walled in the building. One woman, Carla, breaks off from the group only to be killed by Rosemary. Tony, George and Ken manage to lock Rosemary in the room behind a vending machine.

Tony then realizes the events from the film are the same as what is happening to them, with Rosemary becoming possessed after wearing the mask. He demands the group sticks together and destroy the film in effort to stop the madness. Meanwhile, Tommy searches for his girlfriend Hannah, who had hid in the auditorium. The group destroys the projector which ends the movie, but when they return to the auditorium, the wounded Werner tells them the film isn't causing the mayhem, it's the Metropol itself. Tony orders George to help him throw Liz's corpse to a stall, but he refuses. Ken helps Tony instead, but the two are quickly attacked by a demonic Frank. Tony stabs Frank multiple times, and Frank falls from the balcony onto Hannah, who becomes infected when Frank spews blood and vomit onto her.

The survivors barricade themselves in the auditorium to keep the demons out of the room, using destroyed seats as a barrier. Tony is killed when Liz returns as a demon and bites his leg while Liz's lover strangles him. Tommy hears Hannah's screams and reunites with her. They decide to escape through a vent, but Hannah is revealed to be a demon and she kills Tommy.

Elsewhere, a quartet of rebellious teenagers drive through the city snorting cocaine. They are soon stopped by a police officer, who chases them to the Metropol theater. The four punks make their way into the theater while the police officers are killed by a demonic Werner. Inside the theater, the delinquents remove the vending machine from the door Rosemary is trapped behind, and Nina is killed when she strays from the others. The three other punks, Ripper, Hot Dog, and Baby Pig, find themselves surrounded by demons and are unable to defend themselves with their guns.

The survivors hear the gunfire in the auditorium and believe that help has come for them. Against George's protests, they remove the barricade and are swarmed by Rosemary and the other demons. George gathers Cheryl, Kathy, and Ken and finds a path through the barricade to escape. Ingrid attempts to follow them but is strangled to death by a demon. Ruth and the rest of the survivors are quickly killed.

The four survivors soon realize that Kathy had been infected after fighting off one of the demons. Kathy succumbs to the possession, but Ken strikes her down. Suddenly, a demonic baby tears itself out of Kathy's back and slashes Ken, then escaping. Ken, unwilling to become a demon, leaves George and Cheryl. George finds a sword on display in the lobby, and Ken begs him to kill him before he transforms into a demon. Reluctantly, George decapitates Ken just as he becomes possessed.

George and Cheryl use the display motorcycle in the lobby to ride around the theater and cut down any demons they come across, including the four punks, Ingrid, Tony, Frank, Ruth, and Kathy. A helicopter soon crashes through the ceiling and the survivors use its blades to kill more demons including Liz and Tommy.

Making their way up through the roof, George and Cheryl find the Man in Black who had given Cheryl the tickets earlier that day. He nearly kills George until Cheryl stabs him in the back with a metal rod. The pair then kill the Man in Black by forcing his face down onto a spike.

George and Cheryl make their way to the roads where they find the city overrun with demons. A Jeep Driver and his children, June and Kirk, stops and tells George and Cheryl to get in. They have several weapons which they use to kill any demons they come across, and plan to travel to the countryside to start a new life. Suddenly, Cheryl is transformed into a demon and quickly killed with a shotgun blast by Kirk. George is horrified as he continues on with the remaining survivors.

## Cast

* Urbano Barberini as George
* Natasha Hovey as Cheryl
* Karl Zinny as Ken
* Paola Cozzo as Kathy
* Michele Soavi as Man in Black / Jerry
* Geretta Giancarlo as Rosemary
* Bobby Rhodes as Tony
* Fabiola Toledo as Carmen
* Nicoletta Elmi as Ingrid, the usherette
* Nicole Tessier as Ruth
* Guido Baldi as Tommy
* Fiore Argento as Hannah
* Alex Serra as Werner
* Sally Day as Liz
* Claudio Spadaro as Liz's Lover
* Stelio Candelli as Frank
* Enrica Maria Scrivano as Blonde Victim
* Pasqualino Salemme as Ripper
* Bettina Ciampolini as Nina
* Peter Pitsch as Baby Pig
* Giuseppe Cruciano as Hot Dog
* Marcello Modugno as Bob
* Eliana Hoppe as Edith
* Jasmine Maimone as Nancy
* Sami Habib Ahmed as Kathy's Baby Demon
* Goffredo Unger as Jeep Driver
* Emanuela Zicosky as June
* Giovanni Frezza as Kirk