Crew
Director/Screenplay – Rocco Karega, Producer/Photography/Bestial Makeup Designed by Hal Miles, Music – Brian Malone, Makeup Effects – America International Effects (Supervisor – Hal Miles). Production Company – America International Pictures.
Cast
R.M. Anthony (Edward Thurman), Julia M. Westland (Kelly Adams), Theresa Fenneaux (Maria Bentley), Ray Klein (Detective Ike Logan), Tony Zotta (Detective Brian Spence), J. Arthur Dickinson (Lieutenant Digby), Duncan Larson (Horst “Bloodhound” Steinfeldt), Jacquie Ward (Patricia Harper), Cameron Mitchell (Asylum Doctor), Joey Giacomazzi (Officer Tony Drayton)
Plot
Police around the Aurora Hills area near Denver investigate a series of strange killings. They are approached by the wheelchair-ridden Maria Bentley who tells them that what they are dealing with is the demonically possessed probation officer Edward Thurman. At the same time, the detectives also meet “Bloodhound” Steinfeldt, a German specialist in the occult who is tracking the demon, which is transferred by blood.
Demon Cop is a badly made film on all fronts. I ended up watching a video transfer that was of poor quality – it may say something that nobody has bothered to give the film a dvd release of any sort.
The photography looks drab and dreary, the editing and scene transitions as though conducted by minimally skilled amateurs. The most ridiculous aspects is the single unchoreographed fight scene in the middle of the film where a hooker just happens to produce a full machine-gun from somewhere in her mini-skirt and unleash it against the demon.
The plotting is soporific. There is the germ of a good idea in there somewhere about police hunting a were-demon – it is something that you suspect could have worked if it had been structured as a more standard story. But there is almost no investigation aspect to the police side of it – the detectives go from scene to scene and are told information rather than investigate and find out for themselves. The whole film consists largely of people sitting around talking dialogue at one another, or else into phones or handheld recorders. There’s a German monster hunter (Duncan Larson) also running around but he gets forgotten about halfway through.
The title ‘demon cop’ is also misleading. There is a demon – some crappy makeup effects from producer Hal Miles – but in behaviour the demon is more like a werewolf while there is talk about the demonic infection being transmitted by blood. It makes you think of the virally-transmitted demonic possession of the later [Rec] (2007) and sequels.
The other misleading part of the title is the actual ‘demon cop’ aspect. There was a spate of films around this period that gave us various supernaturally empowered law enforcement officers with the likes of Vampire Cop (1990) and Zombie Cop (1991). I suspect this was due to films trying to copy the success of Lethal Weapon (1987), which saw a number of fantastic copycat buddy cop films jumping on its bandwagon. The big problem here is that while what we have is arguably a demon, it isn’t actually a cop. It’s a demon probation officer, but I suppose that doesn’t make for a very catchy title.
Rocco Karega has never made another film besides Demon Cop. Producer/effects creator Hal Miles is credited as a co-director at the IMDB but not on the film itself. Miles has a substantial number of credits working in special and visual effects on films such as Creepozoids (1987), The Blob (1988), 976-Evil (1988), The Abyss (1989), Communion (1989), Leviathan (1989), Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), among others.
Full film available here