Maybe Lamberto Bava's original Demons was like a strike of lightning that couldn't be replicated or maybe this sequel was rushed into production too fast, but something is missing from Demons 2. The makeup effects are still well done even if the gore has been toned down significantly (and curiously so).

The biggest disappointment is that the story is basically the same as the original film, except the cursed movie now plays on TV and the rules of how to get possessed are a little bit different and don't make as much sense. In the original, a character was cut by the demon mask (just like in the movie within the movie) and that's what turned her into a demon and, in turn, allowed the virus to spread. In Demons 2, the demons emerge from the TV at whim with nothing channeling them to emerge from the screen. It all points to poor planning.

Demons 2 always trades a theater location for a high rise apartment complex, which just isn't as moody. Bobby Rhodes returns as a completely different character from his character in the original which further complicates things.

This isn't to say that Demons 2 is necessarily an awful film or anything. It's entertaining and gets the job done, but it feels like there was a lot less thought and passion put into it than the first.

A luxury high-rise apartment complex gets overrun by deadly demonic subhuman monsters who embark on your usual vicious killing spree. That's about it for the skimpy plot, but what this uproariously idiotic cheesefest lacks in substance and tension (plenty, to be brutally honest) it more than compensates for in sheer jaw-dropping unintentional hilarity. Director/co-writer Lamberto Bava shows a winning dearth of competence throughout as the story becomes more increasingly inane and gut-busting as it unfolds, with such gloriously inane highlights as a birthday party which degenerates into a bloodbath, a woman attacked in her apartment by her savage possessed dog, a hokey demon puppet bursting out of a little boy's stomach, whiny party gal Sally (the pretty Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni) taking a massive licking, but keeps on ticking, a gaggle of dim-witted male and female body builders with an appalling lack of intelligence, an underground parking garage littered with axes and a shotgun, and pregnant damsel in distress Hannah (the fetching Nancy Brilli) going into labor at a most inopportune moment. A very young and cute Asia Argento makes her film debut as imperiled teen Ingrid while the almighty Bobby Rhodes cops the top acting honors as take-charge macho gym instructor Hank and David Knight contributes a likable turn as resourceful hero George. The inevitable cruddy dubbing, a ramshackle narrative that shamelessly rips off riffs from "Shivers," "Alien," "Gremlins," and "Videodrome," a thrashy'n'trashy blaring hard rock score, and the tacky make-up f/x further add to the considerable clunky charm of this absolute tacky hoot.