Two girls accept the invitation for the inauguration of a cinema by a strange character with a mask on his face; the film shown is a horror film that tells the awakening of demons who reconquer the earth by massacring all men. During the screening of the film, a woman begins to feel unwell; the malaise seems due to an injury that the girl had caused herself trying on a demon mask found on a mannequin in the cinema's lobby. The young woman quickly undergoes a horrible mutation, transforming into a demonic being, a sort of parallel with the film being screened in the theater. The woman-demon begins to massacre the spectators, infecting anyone she injures with her horrible plague. The two protagonists attempt to flee, but the cinema's doors have been blocked. Only one of them will manage to save herself thanks to the help of a boy, but an horrible truth awaits them outside… It is the film that marks the artistic partnership between Lamberto Bava and Dario Argento, who produces the film and writes the screenplay with Dardano Sacchetti, Franco Ferrini, and Bava himself. It is certainly an important horror film that, in addition to reviving Italian horror cinema for several years, anticipates and influences foreign films such as “The Night of Demons” by Kevin Tenney and especially one of the biggest horror successes of the nineties, “From Dusk Till Dawn” by the Rodriguez-Tarantino duo. Notable is the production effort, starting with the excellent special effects and makeup by specialist Sergio Stivaletti. Many scenes are well crafted and are truly terrifying, it's a shame that in some parts the film descends spectacularly (like in the final sequences where the protagonist furoreggia among the cinema seats on a motorcycle, making a massacre of a large number of demons with a sword!) and that some characters are not well characterized (who is and where does the guy with the mask come from, played by director-actor Michele Soavi, who appears in some sequences of the film), remaining, however, overall of good level. A final note: why after this good horror the talent demonstrated by Lamberto Bava was lost? Perhaps Dario Argento, who in the credits is only credited as a screenwriter and producer, in reality had a more important role?
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