Demonoid/Review

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< Demonoid
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Curious, heavy on atmospheric music and underground excavation, Demonoid is one part The Hand and one part The Exorcist: a low budget, slow-burn 42nd Street entertainment.

Jennifer (Samantha Eggar) and her husband Mark (Roy Jensen) are explorers: a wealthy couple on the lookout for new ways to expand on their already substantial income. A trip to Mexico allows them to enter an abandoned 300-year old mine and discover an iron tin—that once contained a cursed severed hand. Locals say it was the hand of the devil and their disruption of the spirit’s final resting place will have lasting repercussions. It does!

Sometimes meandering and filled out with a couple of car chases, Demonoid delivers when it gets to the meat of the story: literally—a moving, jumping, always showing up severed hand! Watch out: it can caress you, grab you, or strangle you to death.

Mexican Director Alfredo Zacarias is clearly determined to crack the American movie market, and this derivative but spirited story supplies all the necessary bells and whistles. An on-screen amputation, a missing corpse, a trip to the Sands in Las Vegas (with Wayne Newton headlining!), and the specter of an inescapable ancient curse linger largely—and throughout.

Who knew a severed body part could be so insistent? Props to the “superstitious” straight-faced locals who flee amidst the desecration of hallowed land!


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Josiah Howard is the author of four books including Blaxploitation Cinema: The Essential Reference Guide (now in a fourth printing). His writing credits include articles for the American Library of Congress, The New York Times and Readers Digest. A veteran of more than one hundred radio broadcasts, Howard also lectures on cinema and is a frequent guest on entertainment news television. Visit his Official Website.
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