A fairly rare example of a British Shot-On-Video horror film from the 1990s (although it did bypass the UK market). Demonsoul was a film I remember being mentioned in passing in a few of the horror mags of the time and I think FAB press’ Ten Years of Terror book (a fairly derogatory mention, if I recall correctly) but since its VHS release was confided to the States, Demonsoul quickly fell off the radar. The film’s profile only being raised slightly by its recent reappearance on a cheapo US DVD release, that partnered it with three other SOV titles.
Erica Steele (Kerry Norton) is plagued by nightmares about black masses, vampirism and the mysterious Selena (Eileen Daly). “I wake up and I can never get back to sleep” Erica tells her shrink “then I turn up to work tied and restless, and piss everyone off”. Visits to pervy hypnotherapist Dr Bucher (Daniel Jordan), who uses hypnosis as an excuse to grope female patients, don't help and soon Erica is seeing vampire Selena on the street and having visions of Selena fucking her boyfriend Alex. During one of his touchy feely sessions Bucher discovers that Erica is in fact being controlled by Dana. No, not the Irish Eurovision song contest winner, rather Selena's long dead lesbian vampire lover of the same name. Bucher attempts to enter into a pact with Dana, even offering his secretary to her as a blood sacrifice. Only for it all to backfire on Bucher when Selena and her hooded followers kidnap him and Alex leading to some BDSM and spirited blood drinking by leather clad vampires.
Demonsoul does have
Eileen Daly's sapphic vampire shenanigans going for it, a shtick later to find
a better known home in Razor Blade Smile (1998) a few years later. Alas, the
film does tend to fall asleep when she isn't onscreen, leaving you with some
flat supporting actors and echoey sound recording to test your patience. Norton
and Jordan are fine, and contrary to the idea that actors who appear in SOV productions
are on a hiding to nothing, seem to have enjoyed lengthy and successful
careers, but when the one-movie-and-they’re-done cast members take to the
screen, Demonsoul does get brought back down to a home movie level. Along the way though there is gore, nudity,
kinkiness and a few truly bizarre moments to wake you up like Alex being mobbed
by cult members in a park, which apropos of nothing is intercut with shots of a
cute l'ttle squirrel going about its business….awwww. Allen Bryce, the editor of The Dark Side magazine
also shows up as the head of a lunatic asylum towards the end.
Demonsoul’s
credits reveal it to be the work of several pioneers of the American SOV
scene. Co-producer Matt Devlen was the man
behind The Abomination (1986), one of the more famous SOV horror films of the Eighties. Another producer Jerry Feifer was the
mastermind behind the long running ‘Witchcraft’ movie series, which managed to
make it to sixteen entries. Demonsoul
has the feel of a test movie, to see if Feifer’s Witchcraft formula of horror,
sex and no-frills production values could work in a UK setting. A test it presumably passed since Feifer
temporarily relocated the Witchcraft series to the UK for 1998’s Witchcraft X: Mistress
of the Craft which retained this film’s director and brought back Eileen Daly
in its cast. Too cash strapped for any
gothic horror trappings (we only anecdotally hear about Dana’s persecution and
death in ye olden times) Demonsoul is resolutely contemporary and despite its
American financing resolutely British too.
The opening credits are a runaround of the capital that manages to
include just about every piece of London iconography that you can think of, the
Tower of London, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, double-decker buses, black cabs, red phone
boxes. This isn’t just a glamourous
travelogue made with American tourists in mind though, Demonsoul is happy to
get its hands dirty location wise, with SOV production values making 1990s
Britain look even more colour drained than usual. Demonsoul’s London takes in shots of garbage
ridden streets, the stiflingly middle class blandness of the office Erica works
at, while a dirty, disused church plays host to the majority of the horror film
incidents here. Then there is Erica’s
lodgings, with its dirty kitchen sink, Jean-Luc Godard poster and where
characters pass the time playing Monopoly, all of which feels on the money in
terms of young people living on the low down in 1990s London. Seemingly the only concessions to its
intended American video market is a reference to Erica “needing a vacation” and
a last minute appearance by R.J Bell, a Canadian actor who lent a bit of
transatlantic flavor to many British productions of the era.
As well
as giving the vampire myth a contemporary spin, Demonsoul zips it up in a PVC
costume and firmly entrenches it in the era’s fetish scene. A reoccurring theme in Demonsoul, and the
heart of its fetishistic appeal lays in seeing obnoxious, domineering men
having the tables unexpectedly turned on them.
Erica, firmly under the influence of Dana, struts her stuff around the
backstreets of London, attracting the attention of a longhaired bloke who slaps
her about and calls her a bitch, only for her to hit back with dirty talk “let
me go, you peasant” before baring her fangs and going for his jugular. A gimpy guy clad in leather underwear and a
dog collar is regularly brought out for Selena to straddle and torture with a
knife, before her leather clad underlings make a bloody mess of him. This man’s
lack of connections to other films suggesting he was here for the party rather
than the acting experience. Bucher is
built up as such a repugnant creep, who only got into hypnotherapy after being
discredited as a medium, and uses it to con women out of money and sexually
molest them while they are unconscious.
Naturally, given the film’s fem-dom inclinations it is Bucher who
suffers the most, as he is rendered powerless when Erica/Dana gets the upper
hand during one of the hypnotherapy sessions, stripping off, becoming the
dominate one sexually, then tearing off his shirt and biting his chest. The ultimate frightmare of a predatory guy
who likes ‘em passive and passed out.
Later on he is whisked off to by whipped by Selena, who adds insult to
injury by tearing into his back with her fingernails “You’re pathetic, you
worthless piece of slime”. Demonsoul
showcases the dominatrix bitch persona that Eileen Daly would take on a roll
for many years, from Redemption VHS covers to the aforementioned Razor Blade
Smile, before reinventing herself as a kooky, Big Brother contestant (although
surely anyone who appeared in three Richard Driscoll movies along the way must
surely have a masochistic streak to them as well).
The
first time I saw Demonsoul I have to admit that I didn’t make it all the way
through, the second time I managed to get through it but didn’t like it, the
third time around and I have to admit to warming to it, and I daresay the film
might make a convert of me yet. SOV
productions do tend to be the unwashed urchins of the horror movie world
though, in that it does take a bit of persistence, not to mention perseverance,
in order to see any good in them. The
1990s was a punishing time to be a British horror film fan, trust one who lived
through it and spent a little too much time staring into that abyss. You would hold out hope that the next film to
come along would be a return to former glories, only to be confronted with
bores like Beyond Bedlam, Tale of a Vampire, merely adequate schlock like
Breeders and Proteus, or retarded garbage like Revenge of Billy the Kid and
Funnyman. Believe me, it is no coincidence
that the same decade saw many adopt a backwards gazing stance and choose to rediscover
later day Hammer and Amicus, plus the films of Pete Walker, Jose Larraz and
Norman J Warren, rather than champion the present. However Demonsoul does suggest that there was
the odd glimmer of hope which we may have overlooked whilst we hurried back
towards the comforting bosom of the 1970s.
So it’s sad to discover that the film's director Elisar Cabrera (billed
here as Elisar C Kennedy) died recently at the young age of 49.
