STRAIGHT-TO-VIDEO 'DEMONSTONE' WITH JAN-MICHAEL VINCENT

title: Demonstone year: 1990

Although it's one of those bargain bin movies that you might find on late night cable purgatory,  DEMONSTONE is really not that bad for a ninety-minute roller coaster borrowing bits and pieces of every genre under the “thriller” template including horror, action, and science fiction.

The main description is somewhat misleading: "A 400-year curse within a carved stone possesses a young woman to unleash supernatural powers." Well this actually happens but only sporadically...

Most of the time we have tough guys Jan-Michael Vincent and R. Lee Ermey teamed up in the Philippines to investigate a young American soldier accused of killing a room full of locals, Vincent’s hardedge Andy Buck, a world-weary former soldier, goes from one location to the next gathering clues in a seemingly endless maze of red herrings. After joining up with Ermy’s Colonel Haines, the two wind up in car chases and machine gun battles (or a combination of both).

Video Box

On the peripheral, the falsely accused young soldier fights to stay alive as pretty journalist Sharon Gale (Nancy Everhard), having found the amulet in the film’s prologue, is possessed by an ancient monk seeking revenge against those who unearthed the stone: With fiery red eyes she kills random villains, but these corny horror segments (with lame special effects that are very... special) has little to do with what makes DEMONSTONE a surprisingly pleasurable viewing experience.

DemonScore: ***

It's great seeing Jan-Michael Vincent still in muscular, leading man form, right before his sad derelict decline, and Ermy playing a character that, instead of barking orders, takes an energetic part in the gun blazing bravado. And there’s also a side plot involving a Philippines mafia while one nicely choreographed scene has an entire town erupting in a violent protest. And through it all, our brawny heroes survive just about anything thrown at them – and then some. Until the end when it's apparent our boys have been babysitting that possessed lady all along, and she, or rather, he... isn't happy!