Demons 3-The Ogre (Casa dell'orco, La) (1988) (NTSC)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Horror	Main Menu Audio Gallery-Photo-Slideshow Theatrical Trailer Trailer-New York Ripper, Manhattan Baby
Rating
Year Of Production	1988
Running Time	89:55
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Lamberto Bava
Studio Distributor	Stomp Visual	Starring	Paolo Malco Virginia Bryant Sabrina Ferilli Stefania Montorsi Patrizio Vinci Alice Di Giuseppe David Flosi Alex Serra
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$29.95	Music	Simon Boswell

Video (NTSC)		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Famous Italian horror novelist Cheryl (Virginia Bryant) is a sexually repressed young woman distressed by childhood nightmares involving a slavering monster. Needing rest and inspiration to start on her new book, Cheryl decides to take her family to an old villa out in the Italian countryside for a short stay. However, when she arrives she is overwhelmed by a sense of déjà vu and soon realises that the villa is a carbon copy of the one in her nightmares.

    The sins of the father passing onto the son truism must be an overbearing burden on director Lamberto Bava. Being the offspring of Maestro of the Macabre, Mario Bava, fans and critics will always draw comparisons with his work and the pioneering gothic cinematography and legacy of brilliant horror films left by his dad. It certainly didn’t help when Lamberto attempted a re-engineering of his father’s seminal Black Sunday in 1989, which was greeted with disdain by those few who actually saw it. However, Lamberto’s reputation within the horror community has been sustained through one particular film, Demons, in which he demonstrated a capacity and an ingenuity to branch out on his own.

    Originally intended for broadcast on Italian television, Demons 3: The Ogre bears no resemblance to Lamberto’s ferociously blood-soaked original (the less said about the awful Demons 2 the better). There are no gargoyle-possessed, razor-fanged humans lurking within dark shadows waiting to pounce and tear victims to shreds. Nor is there a frantic energy propelling the narrative onwards to a spectacular climax (who can forget the helicopter crashing through the roof of the cinema near the end of the film). In fact in Demons 3 Lamberto drops the splatter and attempts to formulate a dark fantasy based on the Beauty and the Beast myth. At times he almost succeeds with imagery such as a bloody taloned claw tenderly removing a small orchid from around a white teddy bear’s neck and a bulging painting where a hand threatens to break through it. But these sequences fail to resonate.

    The main problem is that so much of the film is dulled by a plodding attempt to build atmosphere. The many dream/nightmare sequences where Cheryl as a child roams around the gothic villa are beautifully photographed, but pointless. She simply wanders, gets frightened by some Freudian imagery, screams, then wanders some more.

    Incomprehensibly, the “ogre” is dressed in a romantic period costume and its chunky, greasy, latex-heavy appearance make it look more like a man in a monster suit than a menacing creature from beyond. Its history and existence is not satisfyingly explored other than some throwaway lines about it being attracted to orchids, which grow in abundance around the villa grounds, and something about it needing to have sex to propagate its species. So ultimately the monster seems to serve no other purpose than to fornicate with Cheryl and scare her witless.

    As an aside, I’m baffled by the film’s ‘R’ rating for “strong violence” and so-called “horror theme.” There is no gore and the only moment of “strong violence” occurs at the end of the film. Even then, it is so badly executed that the only adverse effect it had on me was that I nearly choked on my pizza laughing. As far as the “horror theme” is concerned, I have seen worse (or is that better?) in episodes of R.L Stine’s Nightmare Room.

Video

    Demons 3: The Ogre is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. Considering it was a made-for-television production, I’m assuming it was originally shot open-matte and cropped for DVD. If this is the case, then apart from a few scenes where heads of characters go out of frame further than they comfortably should, most images do not appear adversely affected by the widescreen format.

    The opening sequence doesn’t fare well on the transfer front. The print is too soft, shadow detail murky and indistinct and there’s a fair amount of grain. I also noticed a flickering effect on the bars of the steel gate at 2.39.

    However, after the first 7 minutes the action moves to the outdoors where the transfer demonstrates only a slight softness and thin veneer of lo-fi grain. It goes back to its old noisy habits at 12:41 when the camera moves inside to more low-lit scenes. Although it’s not too distracting, the transfer could have been a little sharper.

    The subdued organic colour palette is generally well-rendered, but the few occasions when red is used it tends to appear oversaturated. Two noticeable examples include the kid’s jacket (19:22) and the pot (30:10) where red is too bright and bleeds.

    I only detected a couple of fleeting moments of aliasing, such as when the camera pans the outside of the mansion (11:50), and in the highly decorated billiard room (21:02).

    The print is quite clean with only a few instances of white speckling and thin hair lines making an appearance.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The Dolby Digital 2.0 mono mix is poorly mastered. The sound is recorded too low, so be prepared to crank up the volume and have your nerves jangled by Cheryl’s intermittent ear-piercing screams. Unfortunately, you then have to endure an irritating monotone audio hum that sounds like wind passing through a hollow tube during the many quiet moments.

    The haunting, ethereal music-box type score by composer and Lamberto Bava favourite, Simon Boswell, makes its presence felt, but is used way too often and loses its power to charm.

    Being a two-channel mono mix there is no surround activity, nor is the subwoofer called upon.

    The English-dubbed voices are passable, being suitably matched to the characters. But like the rest of the audio, dialogue is difficult to discern until the volume is turned up. This tends to distort voices, especially when characters are speaking loud or screaming.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Slideshow

    A series of 12 poor quality publicity and artwork stills.

Theatrical Trailer (2:36)

    Trailers

    New York Ripper (3:17)

    Manhattan Baby (3:01)

    The Region 1 Media Blasters version is identical in picture and sound format to our Stomp release, but it does contain a very illuminating 10-minute interview with director Lamberto Bava.

    The Region 2 (UK) release by Vipco contains a picture gallery and promo trailer. It is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, which is more than likely the format in which it was aired on Italian television. However, Vipco are notorious for their shoddy transfers and horrid plain cover art.

    Collectors will want both the Region 2 release to trainspot the information possibly lost by the 1.85:1 cropping and the Region 1 for the director interview. Personally, I’m not too bothered by the widescreen formatting (even if does crop some of the image from the top and bottom of the screen) and 16x9 enhancement, but the director interview is a must. For me, Region 1 is the go.

    There is a dark fairy tale simmering beneath the surface of Demons 3. Unfortunately, it is lost amid a clumsy narrative structure that lacks the adventure, moral lessons and cultural insight essential to draw the viewer into its sinister wonderland.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall