Night of the Demon (1979)

Dir: James C. Wasson

NIGHT OF THE DEMON is a crap-tacular film in every possible way. The direction, script, acting, music, FX... I'm amazed that it isn't the one and only credit for everyone involved.

Professor Nugent (Michael Cutt) lays in a hospital bed, his face bandaged due to a disfiguring wound. Attending him are two doctors and a police inspector. They are there to find out what happened to him and the five students that followed him into the woods. Flashback time!

Who is this masked man?

Nugent is assembling a group of students to investigate the many deaths in the area covered up by local authorities. Nugent believes a creature responsible for the deaths, Bigfoot. Carla Thomas, convinced that her father died at the hands (claws?) of Bigfoot while on a fishing trip, relates her story and that of  another woman to the class (flashback within a flashback, baby!), and agrees to accompany the group. They travel to Carlson's landing by canoe to meet with and get information from Lou Carlson. Carlson isn't interested in being cordial to the group but when plied with booze by one of the students he mentions crazy Wanda and that she has a connection with Bigfoot. In the morning the group gathers information from the local townsfolk and then sets off deeper into the woods on their quest to find Bigfoot.

Bigfoot vision

The search for Bigfoot is an opportunity for the film makers to throw all things outrageous and improbable at the viewer. I still can't figure out why a group of the most ill prepared campers I've seen travel by canoe to a spot easily reachable by car but that is the least of the film's issues. Bigfoot, shown in flashbacks and flashbacks inside flashbacks, stalks his prey as made apparent by the red tinted point of view shots. Not only does the costume look cheap, the crude and plenty FX are even cheaper. Bigfoot rips off everything from a man's arm to a motorcyclist's penis. It (he?) grabs a couple of Girl Scouts and forces them to stab one another repeatedly with the knives they just happened to have in their hands while on a leisurely stroll through the woods. We even get to see the big guy doing the nasty with Crazy Wanda back when she was plain ol' Wanda. Throw in a pagan sect who worship Bigfoot, a Reverend, Wanda's father, who sets himself on fire after seeing crimes against god and a slow motion finale of Bigfoot laying siege to the pesky humans holed up in an old farmhouse and it makes for plenty of WTF? moments.

Some may find this so bad it's good, but not me.

* out of ****