While his Catholic school roomies are obsessed with copping a feel, Perry (Bobby Jacoby, Tremors) is obsessed with conjuring a demon — specifically, Angela (role-reprising Amelia Kinkade), the satanic seductress who wrought hell in 1988’s Night of the Demons. Ozploitation pioneer Brian Trenchard-Smith (Dead End Drive-In) takes the reins from Kevin S. Tenney to direct this follow-up.

Like the original, Night of the Demons 2 is set on Halloween night. At St. Rita’s Academy, that means a big dance. But when some of the students sin their way out of an invitation, they aren’t about to let some yardstick-wielding nun rain on their parade; instead, they go to Hull House, the abandoned abode still haunted by Angela. Being dragged there is the unpopular, mousy Melissa (Merle Kennedy, May), Angela’s orphaned sister.

Not entirely the same story retread, Night of the Demons 2 distinguishes itself with better actors (including The Brady Bunch Movie‘s Christine Taylor, aka Mrs. Ben Stiller, as a snooty prude), better effects (including a lipstick tube that looks like a dog’s erection) and better breasts (Linnea Quigley has nothing on Zoe Trilling or Cristi Harris). It also has more inventive death sequences. For instance, I’ve seen plenty of movies in which a horny guy grabs a pair of boobs, but never before have I seen a pair of boobs grabbing a horny guy. Another EC Comics-style standout has one unfortunate boy playing basketball with own head; on the downside, this unleashes sports puns galore, each more groan-inducing than the one before.

Trenchard-Smith loses focus in the third act as he allows returning screenwriter Joe Augustyn to steer the material toward self-parody (example: Sister Gloria, played by Heathers‘ Jennifer Rhodes, busts out some martial-arts moves), but I suppose that’s all part of the fun. As with its predecessor, Night of the Demons 2 is one of those rare horror films that feels like a Halloween party in itself. —Rod Lott

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While based on Bram Stoker’s 1911 novel, his final, The Lair of the White Worm is such a different beast in the meaty hands of British writer/director Ken Russell, the author would blush at the hard-R results, if not faint outright.

In a bravura turn, Amanda Donohoe (Liar Liar) slithers her way through this ribald tale of the reptilian threat as Lady Sylvia Marsh, a wealthy, seductive woman who returns to her English mansion soon after the skull of the village’s legendary D’Ampton Worm is excavated by visiting archaeologist Angus Flint (Peter Capaldi, aka TV’s 12th Doctor Who) at a nearly B&B.

It so happens that the quaint inn is built over the site of an ancient convent, and it so happens that Sssssssylvia is a snake woman who was part of it. Baring needle-sharp fangs and spitting hallucinogens when she needs to, she belongs to the cult that worshipped the giant worm. Now that its head has been unearthed, she just needs to sacrifice a virgin to resurrect the monster from its hidey hole; Eve (Catherine Oxenberg, TV’s Dynasty), girlfriend of Lord James D’Ampton (a baby-faced Hugh Grant, Cloud Atlas), looks to fit the bill.

Continuing in the sacrilegious tradition of his most controversial picture, The Devils, Russell is gleefully go-for-broke in this low-budget hot mess of high camp. It’s okay to laugh at it — clearly, that was his intent — but prepare to be taken aback by it as well. Triggered by a touch of Sylvia’s venom, scenes of psychedelic nightmares set out to shock with profane images of nuns being raped, Sylvia suggestively sucking a spear and poor Jesus Christ not just having to deal with being nailed to a cross, but the oversized serpent wrapping around him.

Subtlety was thankfully absent from Lair‘s call sheets. What little audiences it had didn’t know what to make of it, and many still don’t. For the rest of us, it’s a hoot and a half, fulfilling where Russell’s 1986 companion piece, Gothic, was fatuous, and even more insane than the filmmaker. —Rod Lott

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