Night Of The Demon (1980) is famous for being the movie where Bigfoot rips off a man’s penis. Night Of The Demon is that rare video nasty that deserves its reputation for being a gory, ludicrous and tasteless exercise in horror. The film centers around the last Bigfoot who has “mated” with a human woman and will kill anyone who it perceives as a threat.
Night Of The Demon essentially combines narrative elements from Sasquatch, The Legend Of Bigfoot (1976) and Creature From Black Lake (1976). Night Of The Demon follows the narrative structure of Sasquatch, The Legend Of Bigfoot with its many flashbacks and gruesome finale while also incorporating the premise of Creature From Black Lake that focuses on college students trying to prove the existence of Bigfoot. What’s unique about Night Of The Demon is that it adds to this recipe a sub-plot regarding a religious cult that worships the Bigfoot as well as the Bigfoot’s need to rape and mangle humans.
The Bigfoot’s sexual assault links Night Of The Demon to jungle pictures such as Untamed Mistress (1956) and the Mondo films of the sixties. The sex in these films fetishizes beastiality as part of an imperialist political program that casts the “other” or the “unknown” as savage or uncivilized. It’s a way to identify something as being human but outside the political structures of the civilized West. Suffice it to say that the cumulative effect of all the gore and sexual violence in Night Of The Demon make it a uniquely depraved film.
This opus of Bigfoot horror is, on a formal level, as messy and incoherent as the Bigfoot make-up in the film. The film is peppered with stylistic flourishes that are unmotivated by the plot and continuity errors that signal an amateur understanding of the cinematographic langue. The film clumsily lumbers along from one set piece to the next without a care as to how these sequences connect or inform one another.
Night Of The Demon is pure, unadulterated trash cinema. It’s like a car crash one just cannot look away from. The violence, mutilations, and wooden performances feel broadcast from another dimension where The Mutilator (1984) is as revered as Citizen Kane (1941). Only the most adventurous moviegoer need apply to Night Of The Demon.
