"Demonia" is one of the master horror director Lucio Fulci's final achievements and, though not exactly one of his finest ones, it remains a truly interesting film for his many avid fans to track down and enjoy. The first half hour is tame and slow and, generally speaking, the entire film isn't nearly as gory as Fulci's previous highlights (though there's one jaw-dropping scene that compensates for nearly everything), but the script is ambitiously compelling and the atmospheric Sicilian settings are quite wonderful. Fulci even managed to create suspense at some points here and successfully sustains an adequately mysterious ambiance. The depiction of the eerie nun's face on the cover looks appealing, but "Demonia" has really nothing in common with the so-called "Nunsploitation" movies that also primarily came out of Italy. The nuns in this film were barbarically crucified by angry villagers in the catacombs of their Sicilian monastery in the late 15th Century. More than 500 years later, an archaeological expedition intends to investigate the ruins, only the local population brutally objects and act as if they're all commonly sharing a morbid secret. Particularly the young archeology student Liza Harris becomes increasingly obsessed with the mysterious convent's past, as visions and nightmares lure her straight to the exact place where the nuns were executed. The cloister's background is sinister, to say the least, and especially the flashback sequence is unsettling. Death occurs in the film frequently and with pleasingly nasty effects, including implements, beheading and spontaneously attacking meat hooks. And, of course, since it's undeniably Lucio's pet peeve, you may also anticipate the repulsive removal of someone's eyeball. But the very best piece of gore, accomplished with stunningly realistic effects, shows a guy getting split in half human wishbone style clean down the middle. This scene alone is worthy of a top-recommendation! Unfortunately several sequences are extremely overlong and tedious, as if our good friend the directors thought it was necessary to endlessly stretch the plot to reach the running time of the film. Shame actually, because in case of a little less padding and pointlessness, "Demonia" could have been a modest classic listed directly underneath his best works "The Beyond", "City of the Living Dead", "House by the Cemetery", "Cat in the Brain" and "Zombi 2". Fulci granted himself a modest but entertaining role as the police inspector investing the series of grisly murders. To those who don't know him, he's the elderly man with enormous glasses big enough to cover half of his face.
