When we look back on our childhoods, who among us can’t fondly recall being possessed by murderous demons? Reading IMDb’s plot summary of The Demon Murder Case, a 1983 telefilm, I felt stirrings of nostalgia and decided to track down this horror flick that was sure to play like a home movie. Sadly, the synopsis — “A young boy is taken over by demons who force him to commit murder” — is deceptive. The worst that Demon’s bedeviled pipsqueak Brian Frazier (Charlie Fields) does is anger a sputtering bishop (Burning Rage’s Eddie Albert, sounding more like a revivalist grifter) by blowing raspberries at God.
There is a murder, committed by an adult late in the film, that comes out of nowhere. Its circumstances, in keeping with the rest of The Demon Murder Case, are nonsensical. The screenplay, credited to William Kelley (soon an Oscar winner for Witness), isn’t just inchoate, it is genuinely imbecilic. If you wish to understand the particulars of how a malevolent spirit called the Beast came to reside within Brian, or how it hopscotches into the body of another character, you’re out of luck. This courthouse exchange between Brian’s sister and a reporter typifies the quality of the writing:
Joan: What did you do, then, to get rid of the devil in [Murderer]?
Nancy: Well, we haven’t done anything for [Murderer] as of yet. But he still definitely needs a full exorcism.
THE DEMON MURDER CASE (1983)
Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.
