VHS Week, Day 3: Demon of Paradise

As you may have noticed, I review a lot of movies here at Final Girl. Some of these movies are made of awesome, some are made of lame...this is to be expected. You take the good, you take the bad...you take them both and there, my friends, you have the facts of life. It's a rare film that crosses my path, however, that is so bad that I want to go back in time and stop myself from pushing play on the VCR. Even more rare is the film that makes me want to go back in time and stop myself from seeing the movie on the shelf...or further back in time so I can stop the filmmakers from beginning production. Or even further back so I can prevent the filmmakers' parents from having "intimate" "relations" so I can ensure the film will never get made.

This is how I feel about the 1987 Creature from the Black Lagoon wannabe Demon of Paradise.


Blah blah blah legend of prehistoric underwater lizard-man Akua blah blah oh no, he's really real blah blah blah let's follow the standard animal attack movie formula: we can't cancel the annual Parade Festival blah blah blah the scienceologist will save the day blah blah fucking blah.

Trust me, that description is way more exciting than what happens on screen. What happens on screen? NOTHING. So much nothing that when I looked over at one point and my viewing pals were asleep, I thought that maybe I was actually the one who fell asleep and I was having the most boring dream ever dreamed.

Let's take a look at some of the things I wrote whilst taking notes for this review:

• Reporter = die, please
• nothing happens. nothing happens some more. badly acted nothings happen.
• music = horrendous, always inappropriate
• more nothing happening = kill myself
• testing my resolve as a human being to overcome adversity and boredom
• why won't it end?
• hell = this
• when will it end?
• PLEASE END

Finally, it did end and I was left feeling like I'd just completed ten tours of 'Nam. Demon of Paradise was so bad then when the credits finally rolled I nearly went apoplectic, ranting and flipping it off so hard I'm surprised my middle finger didn't explode. There's no doubt that in those few moments, I could have legally been deemed a fire hazard- such was the white-hot intensity of my rage. I'm only shocked that lasers didn't shoot out of my eyeballs.

Oh, how Demon of Paradise angried up my blood! Why did Satan himself have to shit this movie into existence? Why did I have to see it in the 3-for-$5 bin at Video Hut? Why did the filmmakers not realize that a man in a rubber suit popping up out of the water every once in a while to wave at people off camera does not induce terror? Why did it have to be so boring that I couldn't even laugh at the waving monster?

Clearly, Demon of Paradise hates me as much as I hate it.

Originally, I didn't even want to bring the tape home with me: I really, really don't want this movie in my house. Since last night, however, I've reconsidered that stance and I think some good may actually come from this steaming pile of dook.

Some outreach program should take Demon of Paradise to all the Ebola clinics of the world and show one-minute clips to patients. Then they can say "See, Ebola patient? Your internal organs are liquifying and your face is being eaten away, but at least you don't have to endure the other 86 minutes of Demon in Paradise!", to which the Ebola sufferers will say "Hooray! I may have Ebola, but clearly my life could be a lot worse!"

don't tell mom, the babysitter's hobnobbing with satanists

Unless you’re Paris Hilton, chances are when you hit your teens your parents put a stop to your weekly allowance and forced you to get a “real job”.

Wait, ARE you Paris Hilton? OMG hi! I totally saw you at the Scream Awards last year and you were, like, skipping down the hall and I thought that was funny. And I’ve totally copped your method for avoiding talking to people- you know, pretending to talk on your cell phone? Except I’m always forgetting my cell phone so I end up, like, talking into a fruit smoothie or my elbow and people look at me all funny. Are you and Nicole Richie still friends? I saw that episode of The Simple Life where you worked at Sonic for a day and it was—

Sorry, got off track for a second there*. The point is, jobs for teenagers tend to suck, don’t they? Retail this, fast food that, mow this, deliver that; no wonder teenagers are so damn sullen all the time. In my opinion, the worst of the worst job is the one that girls are most often saddled with: babysitting. If you’ve got kids, I’m sure they’re lovely. If you can relate to kids and you love babysitting, you’re awesome. Me? I just don’t really get ‘em- nor do I get the appeal of looking after someone’s kids for money. The idea of getting paid something like a dollar an hour to be saddled with the enormous responsibility of, you know, someone’s life is a bit much for me, even if the family should offer up “all the sodas you can drink!”

I say all of this after having successfully completed the Babysitter’s Training Course in 8th grade. Might I add, I even passed with flying colors- I emerged from the course with an arcane knowledge of snack mixes and I correctly circled “Call 911” in response to the question “What should you do if the baby explodes?” Regardless of my stellar performance, my certificate declaring me a competent babysitter didn’t inspire me to seek out work in that particular field as a teen- I chose the “retail hell” route instead. In fact, in my life I’ve babysat exactly one time...as an adult...for a co-worker who was in a real bind. I spent the day with her three ADD-riddled punkass brats and while it was happening, I wanted to kill myself. I came home with the migraine to end all migraines and something like $15 for my troubles. If I still had that stupid babysitting certificate lying around, I surely would have set it afire with only the power of my rage-filled thoughts!

As if that day weren't enough to put me further off of babysitting until the end of time (plus a week), then horror movies certainly would be. Hi, Laurie Strode, anyone? Or "Have you checked the children?" Babysitters, as a rule, do not fare well in the horror realm.

"Oh my God...there are children in the house?!"

Yesterday, Cinematical brought news of House of the Devil, a flick currently in production about a babysitter getting mixed up with a family of devil worshippers. Seriously, they had me at the devil-worshipping mom is played by Mary Woronov.

In my mind, this movie will be a throwback to an era when movies about Satan and Company were abundant and nonsensical. These kids today will deem House of the Devil "slow and boring", whilst I will deem it "atmospheric and awesome". The supernatural '70s will be back, baby- back in a big way! We'll see the DVD release of many weird and creepy thrillers such as The Haunting of Julia. The success of House of the Devil will show studio execs that original properties can rock and the remake train will derail for a little while. A seismic shift will occur in the world of horror moviemaking, and I can't wait!

So say we all.


*You know, I get off-topic and go all tangent-y here at Final Girl all the time. It's kind of what I do, though I'm not necessarily saying it's a good thing. Do you think it's a good thing, or do I ramble on about irrelevant crap so much that you get bored and confused? I'm always scolded gently reminded by editors at other websites for which I occasionally write that I need to stay on-topic more and be more precise. Is my style being hampered by The Man, or is my "style" only a "style" in my head? Has writing only to please myself- on a blog of all places- led to my growing a garden in desperate need of a trim? No, that's not a euphemism, yes, it probably doesn't make sense...and yes, I'd really like to know what you think.