Blu-Ray Review: Night Of The Demons (Collector’s Edition)

By Brad Henderson

Angela is having a party; Jason and Freddy are too scared to come. But you’ll have a hell of a time.

That is the freaking tagline to Night Of The Demons. The box art for this movie always stuck with me when I passed by it and its sequel numerous times at my local video store as a child. My mom let me watch a lot of R-rated films but this one was off limits . . . until I was ten or so. Yeah, my mom is a badass and let me watch R-rated films when I was five, but it had to do with the content.

Night Of The Demons has teenagers, so of course there was nudity and that was the only thing my mom protected me from when I was younger. When I was allowed to actually rent whatever I wanted, I had a few films on my list to rent. This was a big day for me. I remember going to the video store that day and picking up five titles. I was only in the video store for about three minutes because I knew exactly what I wanted: Slugs, Rest In Pieces, Ghost Town, and Night Of The Demons and Night of the Demons 2.

I’ve always been one to stick up for Night Of The Demons. People don’t put it down but it always seems like it’s considered “overrated” and pushed to the side. Personally, I think the film is one of a kind because it has something that a lot of films don’t. You kind of hate everyone in Night of the Demons. That isn’t a bad thing, but the majority of the characters are assholes. They are terrible to one another and just act stupid. Of course, you also have a couple of characters who aren’t as bad but the film does a few things different than your normal cliché horror film from the ’80s. I won’t explain that because spoilers would be included, but I’m sure you know what I’m talking about if you’ve seen the movie.

If you haven’t seen Night Of The Demons you’re in for a special treat. First, the film is great. Second, Scream Factory has released it on Blu-Ray. If you are a longtime reader of my reviews (I hope you are), you’ll know Scream Factory is the love of my life. Everything I love, Scream Factory is putting out on Blu-Ray and doing a bang-up job with the transfers, sound, and special features.

As usual, the transfer for Night of the Demons is great, but I really want to take a moment to talk about the sound. Holy poop. I have seen every Scream Factory release and own every single one. No, I’m not kidding. Every one is great but this one did me in because of the sound. Between the music and sound effects, my speakers were rattling (in a good way). Whenever Angela speaks in her demonic voice my windows would shake and it was a little terrifying. These movies don’t scare me but I haven’t experienced anything like that before. Every word and growl was boisterous and hurt my ears (in a good way).

Scream Factory put some amazing special features on this release. The interviews with the crew and director are fantastic and we learn a lot about the hardships and “problems” both on and off set. The most interesting interview for me is the in-depth one about the title change of the film. (Haha, I’m not going to tell you; you’ll have to watch it, silly.)

Night Of The Demons is an essential horror film to have in your collection and now you have the best version to date from Scream Factory. So buy, watch it, lock your doors, bolt your windows, and turn off the lights. If not, nothing can protect you from Angela.

Night of the Demons (Collector’s Edition) was released on Blu-Ray by Scream Factory on February 4.