The Road to Self-Discovery is Paved with Bullstuff
It’ll blow you away. So promises the tagline of the painful yet highly entertaining series of directoral decisions known as Demon Wind, our rousing kick-off to Week 5.
The Demon Wind we’re showing tonight is not the 4th-grade fart documentary from Brady Elementary. That one is actually good. – Joe Bob Briggs
Joe Bob’s Week 5 commentary featured farts on the front end and tales of French embassy whizzin on the back – in other words, just another night at the Drive-In. Along the way, Joe Bob pondered two of his favorite topics: late 20th-century erotic thrillers and the proper use of pentagrams.
All while wearing THE SHIRT: that suede, sienna, lace-embroidered puffy shirt that Joe Bob rocked with a bolo, Nehru collar be dern’ed. A man in a chemise like that should not be picking up beer cans at Shudder, not even his own.
Plot Summ’ry
Why write my own when Joe Bob gifted us with this:
Demon Wind is the only haunted house, time-travel, vomit-spewing demon zombie apocalypse, multi-generational satan worship martial arts film. It was one of those genres that just didn’t catch on. Instead we get the old familiar story of the portal to hell that exists inside an old burned out house that’s been sittin on the prarie for 60 years waitin for the grandson of a cult-worshippin pioneer woman who gets exploded by her goop-vomiting husband to return with his nine closest friends for a weekend of funsies at the old farm which the creepy gas station owner says not to visit because it’s owned by the dead people.
You can almost hear the self-satisfied sound of Director Charles Philip Moore pencil-checking each plot point and special effect as it wrapped. Dull but never boring, pointless yet entertaining, Demon Wind proves there’s a lot you can do with a Commodore, short ends and available fog.
The longer the totals, the more drive-in the flick. Roll em…
- 58 Dead Bodies
- 47 Gallons of Slime Glopola
- 1 Pus-Encrusted Super-Zombie and 1 Pornstar Demon
- Pointy Fingers Through the Forehead
- Cackling Zombie Neck Biting
- Demon Breast Pawing
- Demon Children with Spirit Sticks and Supernatural Strength
- Dove Tossing with Poop
- The mother of all FUs – Kung Fu
- Gratuitous Blogger Faux Fu: Rustic Cabin Featuring Multiple Jesus- and Mary-Encrusted Surfaces, with Candlelight
Plus a heiroglyphic diary and one silent but deadly zombie performance by the unforgettable star of La Bamba, Louis Gem Phips.
“It’s four people who go into the woods, Chuck – not nine”
Besides a barely comprehensible plot Demon Wind is short on nothing, including characters. What made this amorphous blob of personalities powerful enough to summon a demon brigade from centuries of slumber? Just when you think you’ve met them all, a barking spider wind ushers the arrival of two more, sporting berets and Single Dangling Earring Fu that at the very least distinguish them from the rest of the cast.
Just as quickly as they appear, they start dropping like flies. Not that Cory gives a wangdoodle. An alarmingly short period passes between “I need your help” and letting two friends set off with “I don’t think they’re gonna make it.” Bonnie gets the worst of it, turned into a bloody exploding baby doll and forced to reincarnate repeatedly before finding eternal rest.
WTF
Like the Hot Link Sandwiches and Goat’s Milk at Harcourt’s Station Café, Demon Wind leaves you hungry an hour later. But who cares? Who cares about the semi-pounding synthesizer soundtrack that’s here to convince you something interesting is about to happen? Who cares about the unintentionally hilarious, rickety roadside bone Jesus and the skeleton with a steer’s head that looks like it needs to go pee. This slice of celluloid is all about the demons. The film’s yogurt- and butternut-squash-driven effects make for the gul’durn juiciest demons Joe Bob has ever seen. My own personal gripe? They all kind of look the same. The FX team clearly had but one demon jello mold that they used on everybody, underlying facial structures be damned.
Otherwise, Demon Wind is an endless stream of WTFs that somehow work, including:
- WTF with the random, bare-breasted demon stripper?
- WTF with the gas pump flashback? (complete with nekkid buttocks and grandmas with open neck wounds)
- WTF with Jack’s demon regression from toddler to dove?
- WTF with the beer can Kung Fu? (if those were Lone Stars, they better have been empty)
- WTF with Siegfried and Roy?
And perhaps the biggest WTF of all: “Hey, I actually like this movie.” A lot of us Drive-Inners did, some even called it great. Point of distinction: You’ve got your greats and your Joe Bob Greats. Your Hustlers and your Demon Winds. One earned an Academy Award, but only Demon Wind makes for a mutant Friday night.
Last Call: Watch out Sir Purr
Warming to Darcy’s Panthers cheerleader aspirations and suggesting a little mascot cosplay to take her audition over the top, Joe Bob hits a favorite topic (geography) while noting The Last Drive-In’s high South Carolina quotient and their claim to fame:
Joe Bob: You people in South Carolina started the Civil War.
Darcy: But we have better food.
Joe Bob: Better food than who?
Darcy: Than North Carolina.
Joe Bob: Okay, we’ll get into that later.
Set and match – this one to Joe Bob. Low Country Boil can’t make up for what rednecks painfully refer to as The War of Northern Aggression.
This week’s mail: Amanda Callahan, Clayton, NC
Next Up:
Lunar eclipses, nasty pizza and a babysitting gig from hell. Must be Ti West’s classic…
This week’s mail: Amanda Callahan, Clayton, North Carolina