Cover Art

Credits

Director: Umberto Lenzi Starring: Kieth Van Hoven, Maria Alves, Joe Balogh and Sonia Curtis Screenplay: Umberto Lenzi and Olga Pehar Music: Franco Micalizzi Country: Italy AKA: Demoni 3

The plot, what there is of it, tells of a young girl, Jessica (Sonia Curtis), her boyfriend Kevin and her brother Dick who arrive in Rio de Janeiro. Whilst there, Dick somehow manages to get himself invited to a Macumba ritualistic ceremony, which he tapes on his tape recorder. He also seemingly acquires a strange amulet which he then wears constantly. Then one day, whilst out driving in rural Brazil, their jeep breaks down and the intrepid trio are invited to stay at the home of a nearby couple.

However, by this time, our Dick is starting to act very oddly, and wanders off to the local cemetery and plays back his audio recording of the Macumba ritual and – surprise, surprise – wakes the dead. All six of them. That's right, six; this is no zombie epic, that's for certain.

Apparently these undead zoms had been waiting to stir to avenge their mistreatment at the hands of the white man. They were black slaves apparently – hence the title, Black Demons. Following this resurrection is a fair quota of bloodshed, violence, murder and copious amounts of bad acting.

This is nowhere near as much fun as Lenzi's previous zombie outing, Nightmare City, but it's not all bad either. The gore is quite groovy and there are some great locations. However, the acting is wretched; we're talking really really bad. The lead actress, Sonia Curtis, should never have given up her day job, that's for sure. The rest of the cast aren't much better either – but she's definitely the worst of a bad bunch. The zombies are the best actors, actually, they're creepy in their own low-budget kind of way and the gore effects are fairly acceptable.