Despite being a massive horror fan, I have to admit that I don’t really have comfort horror films. I have a catalog a mile long of horror films I admire greatly, films I would consider the best of all time. But the ones I specifically rewatch because they make me feel outright comfortable or lift my spirits are few and far between.
I don’t have many outside of Demon Knight, at least.
It’s got everything I like in a horror movie: wild effects, lots of intricate supernatural lore, a whip-smart pace, and an insane amount of character actors reading off of a very fun script. It feels a lot like a campier version of Legion, but if I really had to sell someone on Demon Knight quickly, I would say that above all else it feels like the Raimi movie Sam Raimi never actually made. It’s gooey, goofy, fun in that distinct style few directors can emulate.
The film follows a transient named Brayker, who after being run down by a mysterious cowboy, ends up at a church-turned-boarding house with seven strangers. It’s soon revealed that Brayker and his pursuer, The Collector, have been in a game of cat and mouse for decades: The Collector is an immortal demon, who wants to take a holy artifact from Brayker for himself. Destiny itself has brought these people together, and if it means killing everyone in the boarding house to get the relic back, The Collector won’t shy from that method.
Demon Knight was the first full-length Tales from the Crypt film, and the first in an intended trilogy that was being planned out by Universal Pictures. After the abysmal sequel Bordello of Blood bombed both critically and financially, Tales from the Crypt has been on the backburner ever since. It might be a bit dramatic to say that Bordello was so bad it killed the franchise, but it certainly didn’t help the legacy of the series. Which is a shame because Demon Knight is a really enjoyable film, and it deserves sequels like it in that irreverent, slightly immature style of horror that Tales from the Crypt is known for. It’s got the energy of Tales from the Crypt’s very origins, the feel of an old-timey horror comic book; this is something the film plays up to and even acknowledges in its most stylized sequence.
The cast, led by William Sadler (playing Brayker) and Jada Pinkett Smith (playing criminally underrated final girl Jeryline) are phenomenal. It’s the aforementioned character actor Olympics here, as everyone is bringing the full force of their “‘isms” to the table. By which I mean, the little acting quirks they’re known for; for instance, the most notable Saddler-ism being William Sadler’s very breathy and dramatic acting breaks out when it’s time to get dire. Pinkett Smith spends the entire runtime giving her signature “Are you serious?” stare, Dick Miller doing his iconic little laugh that makes you feel like you’re talking to your grandpa who just pulled a quarter from behind your ear. And of course, it wouldn’t be CCH Pounder if she wasn’t being a Terminator-level hard-ass on the people around her, even when her whole arm has been ripped off and she shouldn’t be able to talk let alone walk. It’s very endearing to watch if you’re familiar with them from other films, and it’s a little cozy in its familiarity, which I can appreciate. It’s in these little quirks you start to really enjoy their characters and begin rooting for them, as they become unwitting pawns in a chess game between heaven and hell.
The cream of the crop here, though, is Billy Zane, who is genuinely explosively charming and violently funny as The Collector. He’s a human cartoon in his physical performance, with the appeal of Him from Powerpuff Girls wrapped into the physique of a 90’s fashion model. He’s an eldritch abomination you don’t trust at all but can’t help but find charming because of how charismatic he is. He just makes you want to smile a little with each of his quips. The Collector is an all-time villain trapped in a mostly forgotten movie; like the lineage of demons he’s supposed to be spawned from, trapped in darkness, there’s a stupendous character hidden in this film that not many people have seen, and that’s the true crime of Demon Knight’s general obscurity. Free Billy!
Regarding the film’s special effects, Demon Knight spared no expense in creating The Collector’s cohorts of slimy little hellspawn. The film has some impressive work for the reported time and budget constraints they had between sudden rewrites, and it’s mostly thanks to Todd Masters, an SFX maven who’s worked on everything from James Gunn’s Slither to Denis Villenueve’s Dune (he rescued the film’s Pumpkinhead-inspired creatures from being replaced with guys in suits, a version of the demons he jokingly called ‘the Blues Brothers’). Outside of some sparing digital effects and glowy rotoscopes for exploding demon eyes and magical blood, the film is 99% practical, and it’s top-tier stuff. Ernest Dickinson’s directing of not just the actors, but of these effects and the creatures make for an exciting film that reminded me of Raimi’s work heavily in the visual energy it packs.
I struggled quite a bit to find things I don’t like about Demon Knight. It’s hard to critique something in my usual mode when all you have to say is positive. Maybe it’s the comfort film bias, or maybe it’s because it’s actually a real hidden gem. Maybe it’s because it has one of the craziest heavy metal compilation albums for a soundtrack. Regardless of the reason, you should take this rundown of the film’s strengths as a full-throated endorsement of Demon Knight and watch it as soon as possible.
Happy watching horror fans!
