Super Slutty Movies: “Demon Kiss” (2008)
Paying tribute to a surprisingly enjoyable late aughties erotic-horror offering!
By: Toxicka Shock
ToxickaShock@gmail.com
@ToxickaShock on Twitter
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As often the case with late 2000s B-horror productions, the shoestring budgeted “Demon Kiss” can’t be considered a “good” film in the usual sense. Simply put, it’s a movie that has a LOT of structural problems, running the gamut from lackluster special effects to acting so wooden, you almost expect the cast to be attacked by a ravenous horde of termites at any moment. But as lacking as the 2008 feature may be in terms of cinematography and dialogue and pacing and plot, it nonetheless makes up for (most) of these shortcomings by doing two things.
Number one, it’s a movie that feels strangely ahead of its time. Yes, with its huge ass CRT monitor personal computers and actresses overdosing on the ubiquitous late aughties’ smokey eye look it definitely looks like a creation of the MySpace era, but when it comes to its depiction and empathizing of sex workers one can’t help but be awed by its very anomalous pro-prostitution message. It may not be the most progressive or flattering tribute to escort service personnel, but compared to *most* depictions of the profession from the decade the portrait painted in this movie is almost pollyannish.
The second thing that makes “Demon Kiss” so appealing in spite of its unpolished nature? It’s a very sex-positive movie for something that came at at the climax of the George W. Bush cultural death spiral. Indeed, this is a movie that embraces its inherent sluttiness and skankiness and feels no need to apologize for its sexually stimulating brusqueness. It’s a delightfully trashy little movie that doesn’t take itself too serious, but it also plays the material straight enough that you feel like the filmmaker and cast were still trying to make an honest effort with it. It has an odd, decadent charm to it, for sure - a sort of infectious naïveté that almost allows you to forgive all of the fundamental problems with the film, otherwise.
From the get-go I feel it’s important to note that virtually everyone involved in the film is a veteran of either pornographic or pseudo-porno movies. Director Dennis Devine is a veteran cinematographer and editor whose oeuvre includes such softcore exploitation favorites as “Vampires of Sorority Row” and “3D Bikini Girls in Action: Paintball Girls.” Fittingly enough, he cowrote “Demon Kiss” alongside Sally Mullins, a long-time porno ace whose filmography includes such delightful, family-friendly romps as “Grannies Love BBC” and “Horny Grannies Love to Fuck 12.” Incidentally, Mullins also stars in “Demon Kiss” Dr. Lacey, a sort of Van Helsing figure who has a soft spot for hookers because she used to turn tricks to support herself in college. And while the IMDB algorithms leave a lot to be desired, judging from the acting skills of those involved in “Demon Kiss,” I would not be surprised one iota of virtually EVERY cast member in the film has at least one or 17 adult film credits to his or her name. Hell, even the lighting and set design of the movie just reeks of late 2000s porno aesthetics, especially considering the moderately above average shot-on-video look of the film itself. Yes, even while Barack Obama was campaigning for his first term of office people were STILL making no-budget shot-on-video horror movies, if you can believe it.
The movie begins with our leading lady of the night Amanda (played by Jessica T. Perez) posting a couple of sexy photos online on an ancient precursor to Backpage. She gives us a little bit of exposition, but not enough to really make any sense out of the movie this early on. Then we watch another escort named Tiffany (played by Shannon Lee) get handcuffed to a bed for $1,000 by this Satan worshipper named D-Man, who uses her body as a vessel to conjure up the Antichrist or something. Possessed by the foulest of unholy spirits, Tiffany stabs D-Man in the eye and is quickly arrested for homicide.
ToxickaShock@gmail.com
@ToxickaShock on Twitter
@ToxickaShock on Instagram
As often the case with late 2000s B-horror productions, the shoestring budgeted “Demon Kiss” can’t be considered a “good” film in the usual sense. Simply put, it’s a movie that has a LOT of structural problems, running the gamut from lackluster special effects to acting so wooden, you almost expect the cast to be attacked by a ravenous horde of termites at any moment. But as lacking as the 2008 feature may be in terms of cinematography and dialogue and pacing and plot, it nonetheless makes up for (most) of these shortcomings by doing two things.
Number one, it’s a movie that feels strangely ahead of its time. Yes, with its huge ass CRT monitor personal computers and actresses overdosing on the ubiquitous late aughties’ smokey eye look it definitely looks like a creation of the MySpace era, but when it comes to its depiction and empathizing of sex workers one can’t help but be awed by its very anomalous pro-prostitution message. It may not be the most progressive or flattering tribute to escort service personnel, but compared to *most* depictions of the profession from the decade the portrait painted in this movie is almost pollyannish.
The second thing that makes “Demon Kiss” so appealing in spite of its unpolished nature? It’s a very sex-positive movie for something that came at at the climax of the George W. Bush cultural death spiral. Indeed, this is a movie that embraces its inherent sluttiness and skankiness and feels no need to apologize for its sexually stimulating brusqueness. It’s a delightfully trashy little movie that doesn’t take itself too serious, but it also plays the material straight enough that you feel like the filmmaker and cast were still trying to make an honest effort with it. It has an odd, decadent charm to it, for sure - a sort of infectious naïveté that almost allows you to forgive all of the fundamental problems with the film, otherwise.
From the get-go I feel it’s important to note that virtually everyone involved in the film is a veteran of either pornographic or pseudo-porno movies. Director Dennis Devine is a veteran cinematographer and editor whose oeuvre includes such softcore exploitation favorites as “Vampires of Sorority Row” and “3D Bikini Girls in Action: Paintball Girls.” Fittingly enough, he cowrote “Demon Kiss” alongside Sally Mullins, a long-time porno ace whose filmography includes such delightful, family-friendly romps as “Grannies Love BBC” and “Horny Grannies Love to Fuck 12.” Incidentally, Mullins also stars in “Demon Kiss” Dr. Lacey, a sort of Van Helsing figure who has a soft spot for hookers because she used to turn tricks to support herself in college. And while the IMDB algorithms leave a lot to be desired, judging from the acting skills of those involved in “Demon Kiss,” I would not be surprised one iota of virtually EVERY cast member in the film has at least one or 17 adult film credits to his or her name. Hell, even the lighting and set design of the movie just reeks of late 2000s porno aesthetics, especially considering the moderately above average shot-on-video look of the film itself. Yes, even while Barack Obama was campaigning for his first term of office people were STILL making no-budget shot-on-video horror movies, if you can believe it.
The movie begins with our leading lady of the night Amanda (played by Jessica T. Perez) posting a couple of sexy photos online on an ancient precursor to Backpage. She gives us a little bit of exposition, but not enough to really make any sense out of the movie this early on. Then we watch another escort named Tiffany (played by Shannon Lee) get handcuffed to a bed for $1,000 by this Satan worshipper named D-Man, who uses her body as a vessel to conjure up the Antichrist or something. Possessed by the foulest of unholy spirits, Tiffany stabs D-Man in the eye and is quickly arrested for homicide.
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| If there's one thing more movies need, I think we'd all agree that it's interracial lesbian demonic french kissing. |
From there Dr. Lacey visits Tiffany at jail, where the latter tells the former to “go fuck yourself with a jagged crucifix.” Tiffany then tells Detective Smith - played by Jamie Macek - “fuck me and I’ll sing like Mother Teresa,” which, no doesn’t make a whole lot of sense no matter how you choose to interpret it, I suppose. Of course, Tiffany ends up kissing Smith, in turn transferring the demonic spirit into his body. So yeah, they’re pretty much doing the “Jason Goes to Hell” shtick here, only without the part about the bodies melting into puddles of goo afterwards and indirectly turning me gay in the process (it’s a long story.)
Then theres’s some more background on Amanda (a ho so nice she lets her clients pop kiss her good night) while this one repetitive harp chord plays over the soundtrack over and over again. Then we watch Detective Smith, in demonically possessed form, try to dig up some dirt on the founder of the Heavenly Bodies escort website. Cue this tremendously tacky little one liner: “I like titties as much as the next guy but I HATE paperwork.”
Then the demon-possessed detective starts putting the moves on this saucy red haired minx with enormous, uh, upper body features and an errant kiss makes the Satanic spirit hop bodies again. There’s quite a bit of tomfoolery from there, but the important part is that hooker ends up getting killed via a mop up the ass, which extends all the way through her open mouth. Time for another gem of screenwriting: “I could tell him to go to hell, but for him that’s probably a turn-on.”
This is the part where the movie starts throwing a lot of needless subplots and red herrings at us. There’s a nightmare scene where Amanda get chased around by a guy dressed up like a knight, the there’s another nightmare scene where she gets stabbed by Dr. Lacey and then there’s this scene where Amanda visits Tiffany in jail and it looks like they had to spend $1,000 on the lipgloss budget alone, then the cop makes out with some more hookers so the devil spirit hops bodies some more and the whole kerfuffle concludes with the demonic detective LITERALLY punching through the skull of a random escort. Granted, we aren’t talking “Hellraiser” here, but for such a micro-budgeted movie the gore effects in this one ain’t too shabby.
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| You can tell it's a movie from the late 2000s by the inordinate amount of metallic pink lipstick alone. |
At this point (and we’re more than an hour into this thing) we finally figure out why the evil spirit wants to get hold of Amanda so bad. It’s because she’s a direct descendant of Mary Magdalene, and if *she* gets possessed than the Antichrist can finally take over the planet. It’s an abrupt plot twist, I know, but hardly an unexpected one considering how popular “The Da Vinci Code” was at the time, I suppose.
From there the possessed cop tries to RAPE a hooker, only to inadvertently pass the demonic spirit onto this one escort who wears a lot of bright red lipstick and rocks that winged eyeliner look like a goddamned champion. Then, in the film’s most porno-tactic scene, the newly possessed escort starts making out with another voluptuous sex worker named Vixen, which as you would imagine, invariably leads in at least one of them getting stabbed to death in a bathtub mid lesbian coitus.
Now we’re at that part of the movie where you have no idea who is supposed to be possessed anymore, so when Amanda finally enters the fray she suspects *everybody* of being Lucifer’s vessels, and sure enough, she soon finds herself in the embrace of the gorgeous Tymica Spiller, whose ultra glossy liplock more or less seals the fate of all humanity in a delicious and delightful sapphic smooch.
From there, the surviving heroes of the film - Dr. Lacey, the founder of the escort website and another detective - subdue Amanda and call up a priest to exorcise her demons in an abandoned warehouse somewhere in north Hollywood.
At this point in the film Amanda is in full Halloween makeup mode, complete with scuzzy black lipstick and ghastly yellow monster teeth. She belittles the priest for being a virgin, then she obtains a ritualistic sword and beheads the founder of the escort website (unfortunately, the special effects budget appears to have petered out shortly before the scene was filmed - the prop severed head, really, looks indistinguishable from a bowling ball covered in Play Doh and faux facial hair.) Thankfully, the priest - who is actually of the Methodist persuasion, marking a rare example of a non-Catholic clergyman making the save in a horror flick - knows just the right holy water trick to get that pesky little demon outside of Amanda, as we are then treated to an epilogue letting us know that the rebirth of Jesus apparently happened with or without the rebirth of Satan which is an all too obvious set-up for one final twist, which sees Amanda killing Dr. Lacey and being imprisoned for all the murders anyway. The movie never really makes it clear whether or not Amanda is or isn’t possessed - unfortunately, the shameless sequel hook never got its intended resolution, as here we are 13 years after the film’s release *still* waiting for “Demon Kiss II: This Time With More Tongue” to happen.
Of course, from a sociological perspective, the movie is notable for two things. First is the late 2000s aesthetics. This is a movie that perfectly captures the ephemera of that weird point in time that could be described as post-MySpace but pre-iPhone. It doesn’t really feel like it came out while George W. was president but it doesn’t feel like a product of the Obama era either. Nor can I really pinpoint if this is a pre-Great Recession movie or an early-stages-of-denial Great Recession movie. The whole picture seems to exist in a weird cultural vortex, which gives it a lot more charm - and inexplicable eerieness - than if its chronological trappings were more obvious.
More importantly, this is a rare horror movie with a POSITIVE depiction of sex workers. Ninety-nine percent of the time hookers and escorts in genre movies are viewed as drug-addicted cretins, the victims of horrific sexual abuse or one-dimensional floozies. In “Demon Kiss,” however, the prostitutes have a bit ore depth and nuance to their characters, with none of the characters really feeling ashamed of their profession. The prostitutes in “Demon Kiss” are depicted as very reasonable women who made the conscious decision to engage in sex work, not because they were coerced into it or needed to sell themselves to feed some sort of controlled substance compulsion. It’s a refreshingly normalized take on the world’s oldest profession and the sort of depiction that even now seems to run contrary to the mainstream media portrayal of prostitution. If anything the perspective on sex work in this movie might be TOO rose-tinted and optimistic - not that anyone goes into this movie expecting a 100% accurate glimpse into the lives of real-life Hollywood hookers, I suppose.
Ultimately, “Demon Kiss” is the epitome of a guilty pleasure movie. The tagline alone - “Evil has an oral fixation!” - should tell you that. While many facets of the movie feel amateurish, on the whole the acting isn’t *that* bad, and for a film that was pretty much made to be masturbatory fodder for people too embarrassed to check out real pornography, the plot isn’t *as* predicable and paper-thin as you’d imagine. It’s a campy, kitschy, somewhat corny little throwaway erotic horror offering that delivers ample T&A and a ton of blood and over the top murder - and really, who could ever complain about that?
XOXO, TOXICKA
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