Movie Time Capsule Blog #6: "My Demon Lover"

When I first created a list of movies I planned on using for my reader’s choice poll, I tried to stick to the movies I knew, or at least thought I knew, the most about. This way I could at least have some sort of idea what I would say about the movie before I rewatched. In the even that I couldn’t watch it immediately, I could always draw upon my previous knowledge and at least have an outline of a review in place.

1987’s “My Demon Lover” was a movie that was shown on HBO on an almost daily basis when I was growing up. It was a movie that I had seen when I was younger in bits and pieces to the point where I had eventually seen the entire thing a couple of times over. Then, sometime in the early 90’s, I am pretty sure they stopped showing it since I hadn’t thought of it since I created this writing project.

Then when “My Demon Lover” came back into my life and I remembered what it was about, I thought that it immediately had to be placed into the reader’s choice poll. “My Demon Lover” is the story of a homeless musician in New York City who is possessed and turns into a demon whenever he becomes sexually aroused. A somewhat decent comedy, or decent horror movie, even, could have been made out of such a premise, but even as a kid I knew this was not that movie.

And after having watched it again, I must quote Ron Burgundy:

“I immediately regret this decision.”

Before the “Lord of the Rings” films, and before their subsequent fade into parent company Warner Brothers, New Line Cinema turned out a lot of quickie films to bide their time between “Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” sequels. This was one such movie that thankfully has not found its way to DVD yet. In fact, if they haven’t already, the negatives of this film should be burnt, pissed on, dipped in acid, and then burned again, repeating the process until even that atoms that make up its ashes are reduced to as close to nothing as humanly possible.

I now realize the error of my ways. I made this movie sound way too appealing. The clip that I showed last week when presenting the choices might have seemed too appealing, and when you boil it down to just a one sentence blurb, it sounds like a camp classic. In truth it is one of the most insipid, insulting movies I have seen in my life.

To give you an idea of how truly painful this movie is, as soon as the opening credits begin to roll and the Police-sounding bar band that opens the move starts up, the dog in the house started howling and barking. She was trying to tell me something. She told me to turn back or she would leave me. I shit you not, before the song was over and the movie could actually start, the dog had run upstairs and as far away from the computer as possible.

In the opening scene we meet the unfortunately named Denny; a woman who is coming home just in time to see her very soon to be ex-boyfriend Chip loading up his friend’s van and robbing her apartment. After screaming to him as he is long gone that she thinks things aren’t going to work out between them, Denny’s friend Sonia, who oh so conveniently is both a sex addict and way into the occult, comes over to help her pick up what self esteem she has left off the floor and takes her out for her birthday.

From there we are whisked to the subway where “Family Ties” veteran Scott Valentine, playing the equally unfortunately named Kaz, playing the saxophone on the subway and screaming like a vagrant should. He doesn’t really look homeless, but he definitely has crazy down. Meanwhile, on the same subway line, a woman is murdered and we are thrust into the beginnings of one of the most uncomfortable movie subplots that I can remember.

A serial killer lovingly dubbed “The Mangler” long before the Stephen King abomination of the same name came out, is preying on women and slaughtering them. But let’s not dwell on it too long! We have hijinxs to engage in!

Denny meets Kaz when he wakes up in a pile of trash (perfectly clean, mind you) across the street from where she is eating her vegetarian lunch. Kaz begs her for her burger and then spits it out when he finds out it is a “fruit burger.” So naturally this sexual predator that gets more amped up than Michael J. Fox in “Teen Wolf” every time he sees a woman follows Denny home asking her if she wants to take a shower with him and repeatedly referring to her as “fruit burger.”

In order to get these two to fall in love, we have to have an inciting incident. So Denny’s ex-boyfriend shows up and threatens to beat the shit out of her because Sonia called the cops on him. Much like a stalker who just happens to be oh so noble and always in the right place at the right time, Kaz takes care of business like a demon in the night should.

Kaz brings her up to her apartment and makes her coffee at three in the morning so they can have the kind of conversations that only happen in movies. The kind where the characters blurt out all of their character motivations in a single sitting because the movie can’t craft a feasible way for them to do it otherwise. Denny explains herself as follows:

“I’m a woman of the 80’s. I can do anything I wanna do. I can risk my life in armed combat. I can have empty sex with strangers. The world is mine, but all I want is someone to take care of. Someone to take care of me too.”

The all of a sudden loving and attentive Kaz that was previously ranting and raving like a lunatic at every girl he saw that wasn’t wearing a bra, looks deep into Denny’s eyes and says “At least you know what you are.”

Kaz tries explaining to Denny that he can’t become sexually aroused, but when you are bound to a PG-13 rating (even though the concept is patently R-rated). At first Denny is excited by this sexless prospect. He says he can’t have a relationship with anyone. She says she can have a relationship with anyone. They are the perfect fucking couple, right? What better way to show your love then by 80’s style montage that somehow involves Central Park now having a giant fucking bounce house in the centre of it.

Eventually the lack of sex gets to Denny and she wants to know why. Kaz tells her. She doesn’t believe him, so he shows her... blah blah blah, and if you can’t tell the turns the movie takes from here maybe you really are the audience this movie was trying to reach but never did. They audience that doesn’t have a shred of dignity, decency, or a working brain cell. This shit makes “No Holds Barred” look like a Kubrick film.

At this point I am going to invoke my own executive privilege and not give this movie another moment of thought. The story, oddly enough written by a woman, is so cloying, pandering, and downright gross that only the most cynical of chauvinists would have ever thought it was entertaining. The film flails wildly between “Beauty and the Beast” type fantasy, police procedural, and low sex comedy. It failed so stunningly at all three, I had to watch the movie in parts and apologize to the dog. It isn’t directed or acted with any skill at all, and somehow this movie was widely released in theatres.

I don’t really have much else to say, I have notes going through the rest of the film, but I will sum it up like this. “My Demon Lover” offended every last sensibility I had as both a human being and as a film lover. If you liked this movie, chances are you are a massive asshole or are still in a coma because you thought you could jump in front of a train a survive. If you had any hopes of catching this movie in the future, let me save you the trouble. Kaz is not The Mangler. The fucking end.

Verdict: Fuck off.