Watch The Demon Lover For Free

Very well executed

So much average

Memorable, crazy movie

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Man, I just can't get enough of this sweet lunatic trash. The Devil Master was the starting point of prolific trash director/producer Donald G. Jackson (his later works including Hell Comes To Frogtown) and though I've not seen any of his later work if it works like this fun shot of dysfunctional weirdness I'll have to get on it pronto. Plotwise things are simple, members of a group into the occult annoy their leader, the awesomely named (and maned) Laval Blessing, so he sicks a big hairy demon with glowing red eyes on them. Its fairly standard silliness, but the kicks come thick and fast, in no small part due to the fact that any notions of technical ability have been methodically stripped away, leaving only cheap-jack enthusiasm. All the dodgy edits, chintzty sets and inept compositions can't stop things from smoothly bowling along, even where there clearly isn't enough relevant footage and the film has to delve into extended, hilarious filler. A spell of our villain working out at his local dojo will raise smiles, but the bar brawl that comes after is a laugh riot, and this is just a midsection booster. Elsewhere non-acting and characters named after various comic book artists, film-makers and others keep the momentum bubbling and the odd random splash of grue and bleak tone serve to keep you on your toes. Christmas Robbins hams things up an amusing storm as Laval Blessing, while Gunnar Hansen has a fun cameo as a helpful professor and the girls are reasonably pretty (one gets topless as well) so on the human side of things the film checks out OK, but generally the ineptitude is key. That and the monster, which really is pretty cool as monsters go, even if it doesn't appear to often. It really looks just how I'd imagine a beast conjured from the demon side and given life on a fractional budget to be and I cheered a little inside every time it appeared. Oh and weirdly, the ending is actually kinda unsettling in a schlocky sort of fashion, carrying a deranged mean punch that serves to make the whole affair just that little bit more memorable than it otherwise would have been. Altogether this is skippable for 90% of viewers and as far as occult based trash goes it isn't all that interesting, lacking in much in the way of fun esoterica or groovy ritual aesthetics, but if your tastes run towards this kind of no count lunacy its worth a one time watch at least.

Try as they might, no-budget filmmakers working on DV just can't seem to capture this level of sordid, inept fun! THE DEMON LOVER has it all: Bad acting, lousy writing, murky camera work, a ridiculous-looking rubber monster, a little skin (not much), a little blood (not much), characters named after comic-book professionals, and a surprisingly accurate look at what a lot of fringe-type folks were like in the late 1970s. Yep, tasteless and stupid as the movie is, and awful as the people in it act and look, you really could've met people like the cultists in THE DEMON LOVER at the time! They might not have been devil worshippers who ended up facing their lord and master in person, but they still existed (and they're still out there with their, uh, lifestyles). BTW, the final confrontation between the ex-cultists and their blowhard former master is priceless: Watch for the crossbow bolt! And don't miss the big karate demo in the middle; it's truly the stuff of '70s I'm-so-cool wanking. A cruddy drive-in flashback par excellence.

Under-the-barrel raunch involving the usual wild-for-kicks teens...this time around they're a strange mottle resembling old-school Black Sabbath fans, and their audacious dabblings in black magic parenthetically unharness an ancient bloodthirsty demon. This financially underprivileged drive-in bombast is a showboat of laughably deficient capacities...not for one meteoric instant is DEMON LOVER indicative of professional contribution to any aspect of its barnyard production. Even by the casual standards of 70s era drive-in trash it's a wondrous botch, and a veritable Faberge Egg for any fan of golden-age filmschlock. Interestingly, the dubious "mountain in labor" origins of this celluloid poopstain were the subject of DEMON LOVER DIARY, a spectacular film-document which is cardinal viewing for anyone interested in the bizarre universe of impecunious ground-level movie-making. 3.5/10

I first rented this movie at college, and expected so much more than I got. Hansen is the only member of the cast who can act, and despite an OK storyline, the cheap, amateurish production quickly sinks the film.