Movie Review: The Nine Demons

THE NINE DEMONS – Visual Vengeance Blu-ray Review by Matt Boiselle

Martial arts, black magic, flying skulls, vampiric children, and a whole lot of blood — The Nine Demons is exactly the kind of wonderfully bizarre cult oddity that feels right at home in the Visual Vengeance lineup.

Directed by legendary Hong Kong filmmaker Chang Cheh, The Nine Demons reunites members of the famed Venom Mob for a wild horror/martial arts hybrid. Zou Qi makes a Faustian bargain that gives him control over nine demonic spirits, unleashed through a chain of skulls. He uses his newfound supernatural power to settle a bloody feud between rival families and save his childhood friend, but it isn’t long before the demons — and the price of controlling them — become more than he bargained for.

Though not a Shaw Brothers production, The Nine Demons has plenty of the DNA that made Chang Cheh and the Venom Mob legendary, only this time it’s thrown headfirst into supernatural horror. Martial arts action collides with flying skull demons, vampiric children, bloody practical effects, and gloriously low-budget insanity. It’s strange, energetic, messy in all the right ways, and exactly the sort of forgotten genre mashup that cult-film fans will have a blast discovering.

Visual Vengeance, through MVD Entertainment, gives The Nine Demons a loaded Blu-ray release built around a new 2K transfer from original film elements supervised by film archivist Toby Russell. Viewers can choose between the original Chinese-language track and English dub, with optional English subtitles and closed captions for the dubbed version.

The disc includes a commentary with martial arts film historians Justin Decloux and Dylan Cheung, The Discovery of James Wu Kuo-Ren and The Late Period Chang Cheh video essays, an interview with actor Yu Tai-Ping, and an episode of the Unsung Horrors podcast devoted to the film. For anyone wanting the full retro experience, there’s even a complete old-school “Dirty VHS” version of The Nine Demons.

Additional extras include an image gallery, trailer, and Visual Vengeance trailers.

The physical package gets the usual Visual Vengeance collector treatment as well, with a folded mini-poster featuring the original theatrical artwork, reversible sleeve with original alternate artwork, and a limited-edition O-card featuring artwork by Uncle Frank. First-pressing copies also include a “Stick Your Own” VHS sticker set and the Enter: The Venom Mob liner-notes booklet by C.J. Lines.