The Demoniacs (1974)
8/10
Stylish and poetic but not really much of a horror
27 June 2017
After being raped and left for dead, a pair of women suddenly starts to invade the lives of the pirate gang that originally killed them after finding themselves imbued with supernatural powers and set out to take revenge on the gang for what happened to them using those powers.

This one wasn't all that bad of an art-house-style horror film. As is to be expected given the film's style, a lot of the film's positives reside on the showcasing of it's frequent and oftentimes excessive nudity. From the very beginning, featuring the beach rape of the girls as they're tormented by the gang features plenty of such titillating fare as the girls are captured, stripped, raped and disposed of while the fact that a vast majority of the revenge scenes are handled with the idea of the girls seducing the group one-by-one and then killed them off, give this one a lot of such material throughout the film. Moreover, there are all the inserts of nameless prostitutes and village girls getting fondled and played with alongside the finale of the female leader pleasuring herself to the girls being raped once again in incredibly wild, vivid fashion brings that up a lot as well, and with the general atmosphere found here really gives this one a pretty sleazy feel. As well, the fact that there's plenty of rather interesting choices throughout here because of this showcase gives this a kind of artistic sensibility that comes across far more dynamic than expected. Since the opening shots of the groups' rape and attack of the girls is done almost entirely devoid of dialogue makes for a rather startling and striking opening lasting nearly fifteen minutes before anyone really speaks a word, and the entirety of scenes that go by filled with silence or a more artistic representation really makes this one feel like a much more ambitious film than just straightforward exploitation like the way it's presented here. Even the action scenes, from the all-girls brawl on he ship to the escape from the underground jail are handled more like an art-house film than a traditional horror film and really manage to showcase extraordinary skills here. While these here all manage to make for an enjoyable time throughout here, the film does offer up a huge nagging issue that derails it somewhat slightly in that it never really goes for the horror at times. Not just due to the film's art-house look and feel, but the films' reliance on poetic atmosphere and the group going insane from their belief in what's going on makes this rather shock-less for nearly all of it's run-time despite the general plot line supporting such a potential outcome. The softcore groping and sex scenes don't help matters, but because the revenge finally comes in the last third of the film it rarely feels like much of genre effort and really stands out as the major drawback to this one.

Rated Unrated/NC-17: Continuous Full Nudity, strong sex scenes, Language, Mild Violence and several rape scenes.
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