Review: Demon Queen (1987)

Directed by: Donald Farmer
Starring: Mary Fanaro, Dennis Stewart, Clifton Dance
Written by: Donald Farmer
Music by: Marc Fredrick, Jan Haflin
Country: United States
Not currently available on physical media
IMDb

You know how, in the motion pictures, vampires can hypnotize their victims, holding them sway while they drain the lobotomized meat-lumps of their delicious life-juice? That’s Donald Farmer’s Demon Queen, except the bloodsucker has huge tits, a fem-mullet, and access to some gnarly settings on their Casio Goth-Rox 1000 synthesizer.

Perhaps best known as the other movie that uses that artwork, this is a tight-yet-interminable 54 minutes of Mary Fanaro prancing around like a Bauhaus-obsessed Pennsylvania Dutch, ripping out the still-thumping hearts of the low-lives that cross her new low-life boyfriend, Jesse. No one’s sure why she’s around or why she’s hot for the drug-dealer whose house she crashes. Apparently, Jesse saw Ghostbusters too many times, as we’ve all done, and conjured Gozer the Gozerian into VHS form to protect him from the highest-waisted pimps Florida has to offer.

Most of these 54 minutes are like some blood-hued dirge, with long dialog-less, keyboard-flooded passages that invite you to let your brain soften into a pool of id-slush and dribble from your ear-holes. Marc Fredrick and Jan Haflin’s music — a work of Wagnerian pomp that weaves together preset grooves, pitch-dark pad drones, and some of the biggest synth-pop hits no one but Ms. Haflin has heard of (such as “Anglefire” [sic] and “Break It Off”) — is truly fantastic. It lilts you to the outskirts of your consciousness and cradles you close as you drift peacefully over the portions of this flick where nothing whatsoever is happening at shabby locations all over a quarter-mile radius of the Sunshine State. But to Mr. Farmer’s credit, stuff is mostly happening. There is a satisfying amount of chest-cavity excisions, throat gnawings, and grim skeletal remains. Also, boobs. Also, a mall. Also, a video store for reasons that could be vaguely comedic.

But the video store tangents do illustrate that Farmer and co. know and adore their horror films, and that’s honestly quite appreciated. It’s tempting to conceive of all the folks making horror movies as lifelong fans fulfilling their morbid dreams, but — particularly in the video realm — some were there for that quick, gorgeous ROI. It seems reasonably obvious that Farmer actually made this lean slab of awkward sex and grue-slathered breasts because he adores bungled copulation, the various ways the human boob can be massaged by the liberated human heart, and the sounds of a narcolept passed out on the same keyboard note for two minutes.

Demon Queen seems more intentional in its experimentation than some of its camcorder-borne colleagues. Story and plot aren’t even a first course in this no-fi feast for the senses, but it’s got something entrancing going for it that overcomes all the normal movie shit that’s missing.

Overall rating: 7 out of 10