Demon Knight Shines due to Standout Acting, an Engaging Script and Above Average Effects
Written by BHM Contributor James "Crypticpsych" Lasome
June 29, 2008
Release: January 13, 1995 (U.S.)
Directed by: Ernest Dickerson and Gilbert Adler
Written by: Ethan Reiff, Cyrus Voris and Mark Bishop
Starring:
John Kassir as Crypt Keeper (voice)
Billy Zane as The Collector
William Sadler as Brayker
Jada Pinkett as Jeryline
Brenda Bakke as Cordelia
CCH Pounder as Irene
Dick Miller as Uncle Willy
“God's doing some serious thinkin' tonight. I bet he's saying, ‘On second thought, maybe I shoulda given it all to the monkeys.’ Maybe it's not too late.”
In its most general sense, Demon Knight is something that some modern movies wish they were able to pull off: a near pitch-perfect recapturing of the atmosphere and style of the television show that spawned it. The movie begins, like the show, with the iconic Tales from the Crypt opening sequence and with one of the famed Cryptkeeper wraparounds in which our horror host, the Cryptkeeper, introduces the story through the same morbid puns and wordplay seen in the show and the 50s comics.
Demon Knight opens with a woman calling her lover to tell him that she’s brutally murdered her husband and that, of course, it’s made her horny (what else?). While she takes a bath (in the first of several nude scenes) we are treated to her husband’s fate: drowning in a bath of acid in the house’s basement. As she cleans the blood from her body he rises from the acid, hunts her down and is about to kill her with a hatchet... when the Cryptkeeper yells “cut” and lambastes the actor (John Larroquette in an uncredited cameo!) with such lines as “you’re no Gore-y Cooper, you ain’t even a Robert Dead-ford!”. He then, introduces the film proper (After the film, in the closing wraparound, he attends the premiere and gets his head cut off with a guillotine by the producers).
One of the keys to Demon Knight is that the viewer is thrown directly into the midst of the action with NO explanation as to what’s going on, creating a sense of mystery and dread that serves the film well. Thus we begin with a man (William Sadler) driving a car down an old western road being chased by a second man (Billy Zane) at breakneck speed. This chase ends explosively with the first man blasting his adversary’s car with a rifle, and then barely getting out of his own car before the other man wrecks into it. After noticing that a tattoo of seven stars on his hand is glowing, he then runs into the nearby town. After failing to steal a car, he meets up with an old drunk, Uncle Willy (Dick Miller), who leads him to the Mission Hotel. Meanwhile, a sheriff and deputy find the flaming wreckage of the cars… and the surprise that Zane has survived the crash completely unscathed. Zane convinces the cops to help him find Sadler and bring him to justice for stealing a valuable item from him.
Sadler reaches the hotel and discovers that his tattoo’s seven stars have formed a perfect circle, signifying that he is meant to be there though the viewer again does not know why yet. He enters and we are introduced to a completely stereotypical, stock list of supporting characters. We have the aforementioned Uncle Willy; the hooker with a 
good heart, Cordelia (Brenda Bakke); the no-nonsense owner of the hotel, Irene (CCH Pounder); the hotel employee working there on a prison work release, Jeryline (Jada Pinkett Smith); the meek, quiet guy who is in love with the hooker, Wally (Charles Fleischer); and, of course, what horror movie would be complete without the arrogant prick character who everyone hopes and prays dies horrifically, Roach (Thomas Haden Church). While in some movies this list of archetypes might be a hindrance, in Demon Knight there are actual layers and personality in each character beyond what they are on the surface that elevates just about every one of them.
Meanwhile, the cops receive a tip that Irene has called the police about Sadler’s character. They head over ready to arrest him. When the police arrive, Sadler’s character, revealed to be named Frank Brayker, attempts to take Jeryline hostage, but, as Zane’s “The Collector” says, he cannot allow himself to hurt her and allows himself instead to be arrested. Zane is then about to get his hands on the stolen relic, a key-shaped vessel filled with liquid when the cops decide to arrest him too as both the cars in the wreck were stolen.
It is at this point in Demon Knight that everything you might have thought you knew about who was the hero and who was the villain in the film is turned on its head as The Collector spins around, punches THROUGH the sheriff’s head (!), and rips it off, trying to get to the “key”. Brayker manages to get his cuffs off and get to the key first, burning The Collector with it and causing him to angrily run and jump out the hotel window to escape. Outside, The Collector reveals himself to be the leader of demon hordes and casts neon green ooze out of his hand onto the ground, spawning Pumpkinhead-esque demons that will torment the hotel patrons and Brayker for the rest of the film. The demons then begin their attack upon the hotel, attempting to gain the key Brayker protects for their master. It’s up to Brayker and the ragtag band of supporting characters to protect it and thus save humanity from demon rule and the rise of darkness.
The plot of Demon Knight is stunningly well-thought out, pulling an action-packed storyline together with a tale dripping with religious mythos and imagery. Throughout the movie, the viewer learns the history of the key and the power and identity of the substance in the vessel through both exposition and a particularly creepy couple of flashbacks Brayker has. The story itself also manages to keep the viewers interest while staying generally in the hotel, much in the same way and in the same method as a haunted house movie can by showing the viewer more and more of the building as the movie goes on. Effects wise, beyond the car crash, the birthing, and the head punch I’ve already mentioned, there are multiple additional gore shots throughout the film that, even 13 years later, still hold up startlingly well. The script for Demon Knight is fantastic and strikes a near-perfect balance between dark humor, heroism, emotion, and a dash of b-movie cheese.
However, the best aspect of this criminally underrated movie has to be the outstanding acting. Almost all the characters step into their roles and give them depth and character traits that go beyond simple flat stock characters. Bakke’s Cordelia, for example, may seem simple on the surface, but she gives the character additional emotion and heart not usually seen in such a character. Church’s Roach exudes sleaziness beyond simple arrogance. And Smith’s Jeryline transcends just being a throwaway masculine-woman by displaying fear, kindness, visible maturity and continued development over the course of the film.
Although the acting in Demon Knight is generally very good, two actors outshine the rest in this film: Sadler’s Brayker and Zane’s Collector. If your overall hero and villain do not work and/or mesh together, a film like this will fail every time. In this case, though, the two have a brilliant chemistry and even a possible respect for each other throughout the battle. Sadler nails down a perfect combination of hero and anti-hero. Sadler is a truly outstanding and underused actor.
Zane, on the other hand, manages to channel Freddy Krueger and Hannibal Lecter into one harmonious package. His character is insidiously persuasive, fun-loving, comedic, suave, persistent, palpably evil, hammy in all the right ways, and instantly memorable from the moment you watch the movie for the first time.
Demon Knight would go on to be swallowed up in its first week of theatrical release grossing 10 million and barely doubling that before heading to video and to multiple DVD releases including a two-pack with Tales of the Crypt follow-up Bordello of Blood. Upon its release and afterward, critics in the horror intelligencia would crush Demon Knight citing pacing issues, problems with the script and my personal favorite, “Appalling straightforward horror fare” (filmcritic.com) where the film is based basically for being a horror movie. This drubbing and the critical panning of the movies would derail plans for a trilogy with the key artifact as a jumping point. A third unrelated film would, however, be made (Ritual) …and be shelved for 5 years before a direct-to-DVD release.
If more people would give Demon Knight a chance they too would see that it is a brilliant, well-acted horror homage to one of the best genre TV shows of all time and one of the most underrated and unjustly forgotten horror movies of the last 20 years. Questions or comments about Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight? Discuss it on The Ossuary Forums!
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