Demon Wind (1990)

The current health and cultural resurgence of genre cinema is reliant on many things, but none so heavily as nostalgia. Though much has been said about the culture surrounding "toxic nostalgia", particularly in our instant gratification informational age, nostalgia has also done a whole lot of good for the genre film. The signs are everywhere. A cursory glance at what is on slate for 2018's genre offerings highlights films such as the ethereal and transcendent Mandy, throwbacks such as Summer of 84 and Let the Corpses Tan, and new iterations of horror mainstays like Suspiria, Hellraiser and Halloween. Hell, even the upcoming film, Death Kiss, worships nostalgia so much that they cast a man who looks almost identical to the late Charles Bronson (though if that's a benefit really depends on who you're asking). And it's not just filmmakers solely benefiting from this. Enough time has passed that a whole new generation of historians are adjusting their rose-tinted glasses and putting out essential tomes dedicated to the field's more esoteric bits, like Grady Hendrix's Paperbacks from Hell or Michael Gingold's upcoming Ad Nauseam: Newsprint Nightmares from the 1980s (which debuts early next month). And with these new set of eyes comes new reevaluations of forgotten and overlooked films.

Enter the physical media distributors, who are the true champions of this realm. For without them, many of these titles would remain semi-lost or forgotten forever. I'm talking about labels like Arrow Video, Scream Factory, Vinegar Syndrome and many, many more. By offering second chances to films almost lost by time, many of these new scans eventually make their way to the theatrical circuit, much like Suspiria's critically lauded 4K scan from famed company Synapse Films did last year. (Though Suspiria has left enough of a cultural mark that it's unlikely it'll ever become forgotten, much less lost.) While labels like Scream Factory and Arrow Video offer a lot of fan favorites, it's companies like Vinegar Syndrome, it's subsidiary Intervision Picture Corp, Bleeding Skull and more that are truly paving the way in offering genre fans a look at the deeper cuts.

And in this case it's all thanks to the good folks over at Vinegar Syndrome, a company so dedicated and passionate that they even fund their own scans at their homebase (check out this great interview with co-owner Joe Rubin!). Whenever VS drop a new title it's time for a celebration. Aside from the painstakingly new transfers and boatload of bonus content included in the overall package, they also provide our revival/repertory culture with a new film to foam over. Sometimes the films are great and prove to be essential viewing. Sometimes they're just okay. And other times they're a whole lot of fun, much like Charles Philip Moore'd Demon Wind.

Demon Wind is essentially a riff/homage of Evil Dead/Night of the Demons mixed with the gross-out attention to detail seen in the films of the great gore maestro, Lucio Fulci. I mean, really, there's some disgusting pus/bile bubbling out one character's mouth within the first five minutes of the movie. The setup is familiar: a young man is "called" via dreams to come to an old farmhouse where his grandparents mysteriously died and his father committed suicide in while accompanied with enough friends to offer enough victim fodder to keep the viewer happy.  And that's basically it. You have your mad gas station attendant who tries to ward off the young group, you have your incantations written in Latin smeared across the walls, and... wait, a woman who turns into a baby doll that erupts into flames? An old woman who drops a snow globe which results in her house exploding in a great big ball of fire? A weird, tongue-like tentacle unfurling from the mouth of a cow's skull? How has nobody been talking about this?

Released on home video on VHS but entirely missing during the DVD boom, Demon Wind finally finds it new home and audience with this VS Blu-Ray release. As for the movie? It's okay. Definitely not essential viewing but also not worth missing out on. For those fans who have seen it all, I would recommend seeking this one out. It has enough practical effects and fun characters to keep you entertained and would be a great addition to anyone's month-long Halloween binge that is just around the corner.