THE OGRE (DEMONI 3)

1989 / Director Lamberto Bava.
Review by Glenn Cochrane.

Lamberto Bava has made dozens of films but none have been more widely received than DEMONI 1 & 2. They've become cult classics and celebrated by gore-fiends all over the world. When he made a television film called THE OGRE the distributors seized the opportunity to cash in on the DEMONI property and renamed it to DEMONI 3. Of course has has NOTHING to do with those films and there isn't a single demon in sight. Instead, the film tells the story of a family who move to an old castle in the Italian countryside. The wife spent her childhood on the estate and believes she was tormented by a celler-dwelling ogre. Now 22 years later she suffers recurring nightmares of the ogre and she can't distinguish dreams from reality. The story is contrived but for a late 80s TV movie, THE OGRE is actually very good. It moves at a snail's pace but the atmosphere and sense of dread is very strong. The set design and use of locations is effective and the SFX are surprisingly decent. The ogre himself is hokey and laughable but he's rarely seen and the strength of the movie lies in it's build up. To the average movie-goer this would be scoffed at and passed off as shit, but to an avid genre fan there is a lot to sink your teeth into. I would compare THE OGRE to movies like RAWHEAD REX, CASTLE FREAK and SUBSPECIES... all shoddy at first glance yet all have more to offer when you bother to pay attention. It's the type of movie that brings out the inner child in me and I know that 10 year old self would have been terrified and excited in equal measure by THE OGRE. 

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