Demon Knight
Encyclopedia
Demon Knight is a 1995 American horror film
directed by Ernest Dickerson
, starring Billy Zane
, William Sadler
, and Jada Pinkett Smith
. Brenda Bakke
, CCH Pounder
, Dick Miller
, and Thomas Haden Church
co-star.
Demon Knight is a feature-length film presented by the HBO series Tales from the Crypt
, and features scenes with the Crypt Keeper (voiced by John Kassir
, as in the series) at the beginning and end of the movie. The film was followed by Bordello of Blood
; although it is not a direct sequel
, the key artifact from this film makes an appearance.
and unleash darkness across the universe.
In the beginning, before the Earth
was formed, demon
s used these seven keys to focus the power of the cosmos into their hands, but after God created the world, He scattered the demons and then scattered the keys all throughout the Universe. After millions of years of searching, they retrieve six of the keys and find the location of the seventh on Earth. To prevent the key from falling into the demon's hands, it was filled with the blood of the dying Jesus Christ, obtained during his crucifixion
.
The blood in the key has the power to create barriers on entrances where it prevents demons from entering. These barriers can, however, be broken by either removing the blood from where it was poured, or if the structure creating the barrier is destroyed.
If the blood runs out, the key can be refilled with the blood of the latest guardian of the artifact; the new supply of blood still has the same power, due to it still having some (however diluted) blood left in it from Christ or possibly because the sacrifice of the knight's life re-empowers the blood.
of seven stars that eventually will form a circle. When the stars form into a circle, it signals to The Demon Knight when the most important moment has come: the night when a group formed only by seven persons and The Demon Knight will fight the demons and pass on his/her duties to the only survivor of the group, once the night is over.
The first Demon Knight was a thief named Sirach. Almost 2000 years later, during World War I
, a soldier named Dickerson passed the key and his responsibilities to a soldier named Frank Brayker on August 23, 1917. This was the night that Brayker became the Demon Knight. It is unknown how many Demon Knights came before Dickerson.
tasked with retrieving the key. Arriving in New Mexico
and narrowly eluding the Collector on the highway, Brayker heads into a nearby town where he runs into Uncle Willy, an alcoholic who takes Brayker to a boarding house
that used to be a church. There, Brayker meets the landlady Irene, young criminal on work release
Jeryline, postal worker Wally, prostitute Cordelia and her crooked boyfriend Roach.
Shortly after, the Collector arrives at the hotel with Sheriff Tupper and Deputy Bob, who arrest Brayker and question him about the artifact. The two police officers find the artifact, but the Collector can't touch it as long as there is blood in it and needs it emptied out. Uncle Willy starts to empty it, but Tupper takes the key. As they are about to leave, the Collector punches the sheriff, driving his fist right through his head. Brayker scuffles with the Collector, driving him off with the key. The Collector jumps out the window and summons a legion of skeletal, lower-level demons that can possess people after they've been killed. To complicate things, the Collector tempts the people inside the hotel with promises of getting things they want if they join him.
First, he seduces Cordelia and uses her to get to Wally, who is then killed by a possessed Cordelia. In the following confrontation, Cordelia rips off Irene's arm before finally being killed by Brayker. Roach leads a revolt against Brayker, and everyone else agrees to head into an underground mine shaft in an effort to escape without the demons knowing it; Brayker grudgingly joins them. Jeryline gets separated from the others and finds Danny, a young boy whose parents were possessed by two of the Collector's minions. Just then, the demons in question attack. Jeryline and Danny join up with the others, and everyone returns to the hotel basement. Roach ends up destroying a blood barrier after shooting a demon, and everyone runs upstairs, where the demons are unable to get to them (earlier, a blood barrier was accidentally created at the top of the stairs).
Brayker explains the history of the key to everyone; at that moment, Jeryline realizes that Danny is missing. Everyone goes to look for Danny, but Roach manages to obtain the key from Brayker without his knowing it. The Collector tries to entice Jeryline into helping him retrieve the key, while Irene finds Danny in the attic with Uncle Willy and orders Uncle Willy to bring Brayker up into the attic. Uncle Willy takes Danny with him, only to fall victim to an illusion of being in a bar with beautiful, topless women. The Collector, posing as a bartender, goads Uncle Willy into drinking alcohol. Irene and Deputy Bob find a trunk loaded with weapons, and learn that Wally had been planning to attack the post office
.
While looking for Uncle Willy, Brayker and Jeryline find Danny in a room, and encounter a possessed Uncle Willy. Brayker is barely able to fight Uncle Willy as he finds that he doesn't have the key, while Jeryline is torn between killing Uncle Willy and helping Brayker. Brayker grabs a machete
and cuts off Uncle Willy's head, but that doesn't stop the possessed man. While Uncle Willy's headless body proceeds to attack Brayker, Danny takes Uncle Willy's disembodied head and stabs his eyes out with deer antlers, ending his menace.
Roach, meanwhile, has made a bargain with the Collector: the key in exchange for safe passage out of the hotel. Roach wipes away the blood on the stairwell to allow the Collector to past through, and gives him the key. However, once he finally gets the key, the Collector reneges on his bargain by saying, "Oh and Roach there is just one more thing I forgot to mention. I lied" and sics his minions on Roach, killing him. Victory is short-lived, though, when Brayker fires an arrow into his eye. The Collector drops the key and falls to the floor far below. Brayker gets the key and heads up into the attic with Jeryline and Danny, while Irene and Deputy Bob fight off the demons. Irene sets off a belt of hand grenades
, and she and Deputy Bob sacrifice themselves to kill the minions.
Now alone with Jeryline and Danny, Brayker uses what little blood is left to make sure that Jeryline is not a demon by pouring it on her hand. Jeryline then takes some of the blood off her hand and creates a barrier on the attic window. Brayker hands the artifact to her, saying that she is the "chosen one", the one who, being the only person to survive the night, will receive the duties of guardian. Just then, a possessed Danny attacks Brayker, clawing into his chest. Jeryline kicks Danny through the window, and Danny is killed by the blood barrier. Before dying, Brayker gives Jeryline the key, which brands the gauge tattoo onto her palm. She then fills the key up with Brayker's blood, since he is now the last guardian of the key.
After Brayker dies, the Collector comes up into the attic and again tries to sway Jeryline to join him. Jeryline has slathered blood on her body; when she grabs the Collector's arm, the blood burns his skin. The Collector disappears, and Jeryline goes to confront him, only to be ambushed by him. The Collector washes the blood off of Jeryline's body, but she tries gouging him with the key; though it has no effect, since he is a higher-level demon, it distracts the Collector long enough for Jeryline to drink some of the blood. After one last attempt to get her to join him, the Collector is about to kill Jeryline until she spits the blood in his face. The Collector writhes in pain and goes up in flames before reverting to his true demonic form and exploding.
As a new day dawns, Jeryline refills the key with Brayker's blood and heads off into the world, boarding a bus and making a barrier at the door. A man in an overcoat and a black hat declines to board the bus, looks at Jeryline as she is going inside it, and walks down the road, following the trail of the bus while whistling the Tales from the Crypt theme...
The film ends with the Crypt Keeper attending the world premiere of the film. When he arrives at the theater, the producers confront him, revealing that they have a "final cut." The Crypt Keeper is decapitated
by a guillotine
, and the film ends with a shot of his head, laughing maniacally.
Following the credits, a brief post-credits scene of the Crypt Keeper plays, promising that the next film, supposedly titled Dead Easy, will appear in theaters soon. This post-credits scene only appears in a later DVD reissue of the movie. The title referenced was the working title of what would be Bordello of Blood.
. The first draft of the script was written in 1987, two years before the HBO series debuted, and it was first intended to be made into a film by director Tom Holland
, who planned to shoot it as a followup to Child's Play. Holland hired an FX team to do preliminary sketches, but he ultimately went on to direct the box-office bomb Fatal Beauty
.
Next the script wound up in the hands of Pumpkinhead
screenwriter Mark Carducci, who sat on it for several years before it was given to Pet Semetary director Mary Lambert. Lambert had some radical ideas for the script, including casting an African American
as Brayker to create a theme that the oppressed people of Earth were its also saviors. Once Lambert went on to direct Pet Sematary Two, which was a theatrical bomb, she couldn't get people to invest in the film.
The script later went to Charles Band's Full Moon Features
, but budgetary constraints held up the production in limbo. When it finally made its way onto desks at Joel Silver
's Silver Pictures
, it was optioned to be the second in a trilogy of Tales from the Crypt
theatrical spin-offs. Universal Pictures
executives thought the script had more potential than the other two films (Dead Easy and Body Count, neither of which was ultimately produced) and the movie was quickly sent into production with a tentative release date of Halloween 1994 (though the release was pushed back to January 1995).
At this point, two versions of the script were created to solve budgetary problems: one with demons and one without. In the latter, the Collector was a Bible salesman who was using a legion of fellow salesman clad in black suits and sunglasses (later revealed to be demons) as his minions. A film called Demon Knight with demons that looked like killer yuppies made everyone nervous, so Universal pitched in some additional money to get some demons on the screen.
and alternative rock
was released on January 10, 1995 by Atlantic Records
. It peaked at 157 on the Billboard 200
.
thought it should go first because it was the most Tales-Like feature out of the three proposed. Demon Knight was only one of the original titles planned that was actually made; Dead Easy (aka Fat Tuesday), a New Orleans zombie
romp which was to possibly open the following Halloween
, and the third film, Body Count, were never materialised as planned. The Key in Demon Knight was supposed to appear in every part of the trilogy. It appeared in Bordello of Blood
, but not in Ritual
.
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
directed by Ernest Dickerson
Ernest Dickerson
Ernest Roscoe Dickerson A.S.C. is an American film and television director and cinematographer. He directed generally urban films sometimes with supernatural stories like Juice, Tales from the Crypt Presents Demon Knight, Bones and Never Die Alone...
, starring Billy Zane
Billy Zane
William George "Billy" Zane, Jr. is an American actor, producer and director. He is probably best known for his roles as Caledon Hockley in Titanic, The Phantom from The Phantom, John Wheeler in Twin Peaks and Mr...
, William Sadler
William Sadler (actor)
William Thomas Sadler is an American actor who works in film and television. His television and motion picture roles have included Lewis Burwell "Chesty" Puller in The Pacific, Luther Sloan in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Sheriff Jim Valenti in Roswell, convict Heywood in The Shawshank Redemption,...
, and Jada Pinkett Smith
Jada Pinkett Smith
Jada Koren Pinkett Smith is an American actress, producer, director, author, singer-songwriter, and businesswoman. She began her career in 1990, when she made a guest appearance in the short-lived sitcom True Colors. She starred in A Different World, produced by Bill Cosby, and she featured...
. Brenda Bakke
Brenda Bakke
Brenda Jean Bakke is an American actress better known for her roles as Lana Turner in L.A. Confidential, Michelle Rodham Huddleston in Hot Shots! Part Deux, where she plays a spoof on Sharon Stone's character from Basic Instinct, Cordelia the prostitute in Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight and...
, CCH Pounder
CCH Pounder
Carol Christine Hilaria Pounder , known professionally as C. C. H. Pounder , is a Guyanese-American film and television actress...
, Dick Miller
Dick Miller
Richard "Dick" Miller is an American character actor who has appeared in over 100 films, particularly those produced by Roger Corman, and later in films of directors who started their careers with Corman, including James Cameron and Joe Dante, with the distinction of appearing in every film made...
, and Thomas Haden Church
Thomas Haden Church
Thomas Haden Church is an American actor. After co-starring in the 1990s sitcom Wings, Church became well known for his film roles, including his Academy Award-nominated performance in Sideways and his role as the Sandman in Spider-Man 3.-Early life:Church, the fourth of six children, was born...
co-star.
Demon Knight is a feature-length film presented by the HBO series Tales from the Crypt
Tales from the Crypt (TV series)
Tales from the Crypt, sometimes titled HBO's Tales from the Crypt, is an American horror anthology television series that ran from 1989 to 1996 on the premium cable channel HBO...
, and features scenes with the Crypt Keeper (voiced by John Kassir
John Kassir
John Kassir is an American actor, voice artist, and comedian who is best known as the voice of the Crypt Keeper in HBO's, Tales from the Crypt franchise...
, as in the series) at the beginning and end of the movie. The film was followed by Bordello of Blood
Bordello of Blood
Bordello of Blood is a 1996 comedy/horror film starring Dennis Miller, Erika Eleniak, Angie Everhart, Corey Feldman, and Chris Sarandon. It is based on the HBO television series Tales from the Crypt. It received an R rating for vampire violence, gore, language, and nudity...
; although it is not a direct sequel
Sequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
, the key artifact from this film makes an appearance.
The Key
The story of Demon Knight revolves around an artifact and its guardian. The artifact is a key, one of seven keys that can open the gates of HellHell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
and unleash darkness across the universe.
In the beginning, before the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
was formed, demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
s used these seven keys to focus the power of the cosmos into their hands, but after God created the world, He scattered the demons and then scattered the keys all throughout the Universe. After millions of years of searching, they retrieve six of the keys and find the location of the seventh on Earth. To prevent the key from falling into the demon's hands, it was filled with the blood of the dying Jesus Christ, obtained during his crucifixion
Crucifixion of Jesus
The crucifixion of Jesus and his ensuing death is an event that occurred during the 1st century AD. Jesus, who Christians believe is the Son of God as well as the Messiah, was arrested, tried, and sentenced by Pontius Pilate to be scourged, and finally executed on a cross...
.
The blood in the key has the power to create barriers on entrances where it prevents demons from entering. These barriers can, however, be broken by either removing the blood from where it was poured, or if the structure creating the barrier is destroyed.
If the blood runs out, the key can be refilled with the blood of the latest guardian of the artifact; the new supply of blood still has the same power, due to it still having some (however diluted) blood left in it from Christ or possibly because the sacrifice of the knight's life re-empowers the blood.
The Demon Knight
The Demon Knight is the guardian of the key. He is immune to aging and natural death, but he is still vulnerable to death through other means. On his hand, there is a kind of tattooTattoo
A tattoo is made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment. Tattoos on humans are a type of body modification, and tattoos on other animals are most commonly used for identification purposes...
of seven stars that eventually will form a circle. When the stars form into a circle, it signals to The Demon Knight when the most important moment has come: the night when a group formed only by seven persons and The Demon Knight will fight the demons and pass on his/her duties to the only survivor of the group, once the night is over.
The first Demon Knight was a thief named Sirach. Almost 2000 years later, during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, a soldier named Dickerson passed the key and his responsibilities to a soldier named Frank Brayker on August 23, 1917. This was the night that Brayker became the Demon Knight. It is unknown how many Demon Knights came before Dickerson.
Brayker's fight
Nearly nine decades after receiving the key from Dickerson, Brayker is being pursued by the charismatic Collector, a higher-level demonDemon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
tasked with retrieving the key. Arriving in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
and narrowly eluding the Collector on the highway, Brayker heads into a nearby town where he runs into Uncle Willy, an alcoholic who takes Brayker to a boarding house
Boarding house
A boarding house, is a house in which lodgers rent one or more rooms for one or more nights, and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months and years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and some services, such as laundry and cleaning, may be supplied. They normally provide "bed...
that used to be a church. There, Brayker meets the landlady Irene, young criminal on work release
Work release
In prison systems, work release programs allow a prisoner who is sufficiently trusted or can be sufficiently monitored to leave confinement to continue working at his or her current place of employment, returning to prison when his/her shift is complete...
Jeryline, postal worker Wally, prostitute Cordelia and her crooked boyfriend Roach.
Shortly after, the Collector arrives at the hotel with Sheriff Tupper and Deputy Bob, who arrest Brayker and question him about the artifact. The two police officers find the artifact, but the Collector can't touch it as long as there is blood in it and needs it emptied out. Uncle Willy starts to empty it, but Tupper takes the key. As they are about to leave, the Collector punches the sheriff, driving his fist right through his head. Brayker scuffles with the Collector, driving him off with the key. The Collector jumps out the window and summons a legion of skeletal, lower-level demons that can possess people after they've been killed. To complicate things, the Collector tempts the people inside the hotel with promises of getting things they want if they join him.
First, he seduces Cordelia and uses her to get to Wally, who is then killed by a possessed Cordelia. In the following confrontation, Cordelia rips off Irene's arm before finally being killed by Brayker. Roach leads a revolt against Brayker, and everyone else agrees to head into an underground mine shaft in an effort to escape without the demons knowing it; Brayker grudgingly joins them. Jeryline gets separated from the others and finds Danny, a young boy whose parents were possessed by two of the Collector's minions. Just then, the demons in question attack. Jeryline and Danny join up with the others, and everyone returns to the hotel basement. Roach ends up destroying a blood barrier after shooting a demon, and everyone runs upstairs, where the demons are unable to get to them (earlier, a blood barrier was accidentally created at the top of the stairs).
Brayker explains the history of the key to everyone; at that moment, Jeryline realizes that Danny is missing. Everyone goes to look for Danny, but Roach manages to obtain the key from Brayker without his knowing it. The Collector tries to entice Jeryline into helping him retrieve the key, while Irene finds Danny in the attic with Uncle Willy and orders Uncle Willy to bring Brayker up into the attic. Uncle Willy takes Danny with him, only to fall victim to an illusion of being in a bar with beautiful, topless women. The Collector, posing as a bartender, goads Uncle Willy into drinking alcohol. Irene and Deputy Bob find a trunk loaded with weapons, and learn that Wally had been planning to attack the post office
Going postal
Going postal, in American English slang, means becoming extremely and uncontrollably angry, often to the point of violence, and usually in a workplace environment....
.
While looking for Uncle Willy, Brayker and Jeryline find Danny in a room, and encounter a possessed Uncle Willy. Brayker is barely able to fight Uncle Willy as he finds that he doesn't have the key, while Jeryline is torn between killing Uncle Willy and helping Brayker. Brayker grabs a machete
Machete
The machete is a large cleaver-like cutting tool. The blade is typically long and usually under thick. In the English language, an equivalent term is matchet, though it is less commonly known...
and cuts off Uncle Willy's head, but that doesn't stop the possessed man. While Uncle Willy's headless body proceeds to attack Brayker, Danny takes Uncle Willy's disembodied head and stabs his eyes out with deer antlers, ending his menace.
Roach, meanwhile, has made a bargain with the Collector: the key in exchange for safe passage out of the hotel. Roach wipes away the blood on the stairwell to allow the Collector to past through, and gives him the key. However, once he finally gets the key, the Collector reneges on his bargain by saying, "Oh and Roach there is just one more thing I forgot to mention. I lied" and sics his minions on Roach, killing him. Victory is short-lived, though, when Brayker fires an arrow into his eye. The Collector drops the key and falls to the floor far below. Brayker gets the key and heads up into the attic with Jeryline and Danny, while Irene and Deputy Bob fight off the demons. Irene sets off a belt of hand grenades
Grenade
A grenade is a small explosive device that is projected a safe distance away by its user. Soldiers called grenadiers specialize in the use of grenades. The term hand grenade refers any grenade designed to be hand thrown. Grenade Launchers are firearms designed to fire explosive projectile grenades...
, and she and Deputy Bob sacrifice themselves to kill the minions.
Now alone with Jeryline and Danny, Brayker uses what little blood is left to make sure that Jeryline is not a demon by pouring it on her hand. Jeryline then takes some of the blood off her hand and creates a barrier on the attic window. Brayker hands the artifact to her, saying that she is the "chosen one", the one who, being the only person to survive the night, will receive the duties of guardian. Just then, a possessed Danny attacks Brayker, clawing into his chest. Jeryline kicks Danny through the window, and Danny is killed by the blood barrier. Before dying, Brayker gives Jeryline the key, which brands the gauge tattoo onto her palm. She then fills the key up with Brayker's blood, since he is now the last guardian of the key.
After Brayker dies, the Collector comes up into the attic and again tries to sway Jeryline to join him. Jeryline has slathered blood on her body; when she grabs the Collector's arm, the blood burns his skin. The Collector disappears, and Jeryline goes to confront him, only to be ambushed by him. The Collector washes the blood off of Jeryline's body, but she tries gouging him with the key; though it has no effect, since he is a higher-level demon, it distracts the Collector long enough for Jeryline to drink some of the blood. After one last attempt to get her to join him, the Collector is about to kill Jeryline until she spits the blood in his face. The Collector writhes in pain and goes up in flames before reverting to his true demonic form and exploding.
As a new day dawns, Jeryline refills the key with Brayker's blood and heads off into the world, boarding a bus and making a barrier at the door. A man in an overcoat and a black hat declines to board the bus, looks at Jeryline as she is going inside it, and walks down the road, following the trail of the bus while whistling the Tales from the Crypt theme...
The Crypt Keeper
The Crypt Keeper appears in the film's prologue explaining that he is in Hollywood trying his luck as a movie director, and then he starts to unveil the story of Demon Knight.The film ends with the Crypt Keeper attending the world premiere of the film. When he arrives at the theater, the producers confront him, revealing that they have a "final cut." The Crypt Keeper is decapitated
Decapitation
Decapitation is the separation of the head from the body. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, e.g., as a means of murder or execution; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, knife, wire, or by other more sophisticated means such as a guillotine...
by a guillotine
Guillotine
The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...
, and the film ends with a shot of his head, laughing maniacally.
Following the credits, a brief post-credits scene of the Crypt Keeper plays, promising that the next film, supposedly titled Dead Easy, will appear in theaters soon. This post-credits scene only appears in a later DVD reissue of the movie. The title referenced was the working title of what would be Bordello of Blood.
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Billy Zane Billy Zane William George "Billy" Zane, Jr. is an American actor, producer and director. He is probably best known for his roles as Caledon Hockley in Titanic, The Phantom from The Phantom, John Wheeler in Twin Peaks and Mr... |
The Collector |
| William Sadler William Sadler (actor) William Thomas Sadler is an American actor who works in film and television. His television and motion picture roles have included Lewis Burwell "Chesty" Puller in The Pacific, Luther Sloan in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Sheriff Jim Valenti in Roswell, convict Heywood in The Shawshank Redemption,... |
Frank Brayker |
| Jada Pinkett Smith Jada Pinkett Smith Jada Koren Pinkett Smith is an American actress, producer, director, author, singer-songwriter, and businesswoman. She began her career in 1990, when she made a guest appearance in the short-lived sitcom True Colors. She starred in A Different World, produced by Bill Cosby, and she featured... |
Jeryline |
| Brenda Bakke Brenda Bakke Brenda Jean Bakke is an American actress better known for her roles as Lana Turner in L.A. Confidential, Michelle Rodham Huddleston in Hot Shots! Part Deux, where she plays a spoof on Sharon Stone's character from Basic Instinct, Cordelia the prostitute in Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight and... |
Cordelia |
| CCH Pounder CCH Pounder Carol Christine Hilaria Pounder , known professionally as C. C. H. Pounder , is a Guyanese-American film and television actress... |
Irene |
| Dick Miller Dick Miller Richard "Dick" Miller is an American character actor who has appeared in over 100 films, particularly those produced by Roger Corman, and later in films of directors who started their careers with Corman, including James Cameron and Joe Dante, with the distinction of appearing in every film made... |
Uncle Willy |
| Thomas Haden Church Thomas Haden Church Thomas Haden Church is an American actor. After co-starring in the 1990s sitcom Wings, Church became well known for his film roles, including his Academy Award-nominated performance in Sideways and his role as the Sandman in Spider-Man 3.-Early life:Church, the fourth of six children, was born... |
Roach |
| Gary Farmer Gary Farmer - History :Farmer was born in Ohsweken, Ontario into the Cayuga nation and Wolf Clan of the Haudenosaunee/Iroquois Confederacy. Farmer attended Syracuse University and Ryerson Polytechnic University, where he studied photography and film production.... |
Deputy Bob |
| Charles Fleischer Charles Fleischer Charles Fleischer is an American actor, stand-up comedian and voice artist.-Life and career:Fleischer was born in Washington, D.C. As a child, he is reported to have spent several summers at Kamp Kewanee in La Plume, Pennsylvania, where he started practicing his stand-up routine at age nine... |
Wally |
| Ryan O'Donohue Ryan O'Donohue Ryan Sean O'Donohue is an American voice actor, most notable for his performances in many Disney projects.O'Donohue began his acting career at the age of nine when he played Zeke Byrd on the 1994 ABC drama Byrds of Paradise, filmed in Hawaii. The show was cancelled after a 13-episode run despite... |
Danny |
| Sherrie Rose Sherrie Rose Sherrie Rose is an American actress, producer, director, and screenwriter.Sherrie Rose appeared in Killer Crocodile and on Married... with Children as Mandi in the episode Do Ya Think I'm Sexy , along with 60 other TV and film appearances.... |
Wanda |
| Chasey Lain Chasey Lain Chasey Lain is an American pornographic actress. She became a stripper as a young adult, and later pursued a career in California as an adult film actress... |
Party Babe |
| Traci Bingham Traci Bingham Traci Bingham is an American actress, model and television personality who is best known for playing Jordan Tate on the television series Baywatch between 1996 and 1998.-Personal life:... |
Party Babe |
| John Larroquette John Larroquette John Edgar Bernard Larroquette, Jr. is an American film, television and Broadway actor. His roles include Dan Fielding on the series Night Court, Mike McBride in the Hallmark Channel series McBride, John Hemingway on The John Larroquette Show, and Carl Sack in Boston Legal.-Personal... |
Slasher |
| John Kassir John Kassir John Kassir is an American actor, voice artist, and comedian who is best known as the voice of the Crypt Keeper in HBO's, Tales from the Crypt franchise... |
Voice of The Crypt Keeper |
History
Unlike episodes of the HBO series, the story was not ripped from the pages of EC ComicsEC Comics
Entertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books specializing in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series...
. The first draft of the script was written in 1987, two years before the HBO series debuted, and it was first intended to be made into a film by director Tom Holland
Tom Holland
Tom Holland may refer to:*Tom Holland , American film director*Tom Holland , British author*Tom Holland , British actor*Tom Holland , English footballer...
, who planned to shoot it as a followup to Child's Play. Holland hired an FX team to do preliminary sketches, but he ultimately went on to direct the box-office bomb Fatal Beauty
Fatal Beauty
Fatal Beauty is a 1987 American action film starring Whoopi Goldberg and Sam Elliott, directed by Tom Holland. The screenplay was written by Hilary Henkin and Dean Riesner. The original music score was composed by Harold Faltermeyer, of Top Gun fame. The film was marketed with the tagline "An...
.
Next the script wound up in the hands of Pumpkinhead
Pumpkinhead
Pumpkinhead is a 1988 supernatural horror film. It was the directorial debut of noted special effects artist Stan Winston. While Pumpkinhead received mixed reviews, the film has built up a cult following in the years since its release.-Plot:...
screenwriter Mark Carducci, who sat on it for several years before it was given to Pet Semetary director Mary Lambert. Lambert had some radical ideas for the script, including casting an African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
as Brayker to create a theme that the oppressed people of Earth were its also saviors. Once Lambert went on to direct Pet Sematary Two, which was a theatrical bomb, she couldn't get people to invest in the film.
The script later went to Charles Band's Full Moon Features
Full Moon Features
Full Moon Features is a motion picture production and distribution company headed by B-movie veteran Charles Band. It is known for the direct-to-video series Puppet Master and Subspecies, as well as the innovative VideoZone featurette at the end of films through 1989 to 2000.-Full Moon...
, but budgetary constraints held up the production in limbo. When it finally made its way onto desks at Joel Silver
Joel Silver
Joel Silver is an American Hollywood film producer, co-creator of the sport of Ultimate, co-founder of Dark Castle Entertainment and owner of Silver Pictures.-Life and career:...
's Silver Pictures
Silver Pictures
Silver Pictures is a film production company founded by Hollywood producer Joel Silver during 1985. All movies after Ricochet have been distributed by Warner Bros and its subsidiary New Line Cinema.-Films:-Television series:*Moonlight...
, it was optioned to be the second in a trilogy of Tales from the Crypt
Tales from the Crypt (TV series)
Tales from the Crypt, sometimes titled HBO's Tales from the Crypt, is an American horror anthology television series that ran from 1989 to 1996 on the premium cable channel HBO...
theatrical spin-offs. Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
executives thought the script had more potential than the other two films (Dead Easy and Body Count, neither of which was ultimately produced) and the movie was quickly sent into production with a tentative release date of Halloween 1994 (though the release was pushed back to January 1995).
At this point, two versions of the script were created to solve budgetary problems: one with demons and one without. In the latter, the Collector was a Bible salesman who was using a legion of fellow salesman clad in black suits and sunglasses (later revealed to be demons) as his minions. A film called Demon Knight with demons that looked like killer yuppies made everyone nervous, so Universal pitched in some additional money to get some demons on the screen.
Soundtrack
A soundtrack containing Heavy MetalHeavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
and alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
was released on January 10, 1995 by Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...
. It peaked at 157 on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
.
Sequels
Demon Knight was supposed to be the second film in the trilogy, but Universal PicturesUniversal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
thought it should go first because it was the most Tales-Like feature out of the three proposed. Demon Knight was only one of the original titles planned that was actually made; Dead Easy (aka Fat Tuesday), a New Orleans zombie
Zombie
Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...
romp which was to possibly open the following Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
, and the third film, Body Count, were never materialised as planned. The Key in Demon Knight was supposed to appear in every part of the trilogy. It appeared in Bordello of Blood
Bordello of Blood
Bordello of Blood is a 1996 comedy/horror film starring Dennis Miller, Erika Eleniak, Angie Everhart, Corey Feldman, and Chris Sarandon. It is based on the HBO television series Tales from the Crypt. It received an R rating for vampire violence, gore, language, and nudity...
, but not in Ritual
Ritual (film)
Tales From the Crypt Presents: Ritual is the third and final film spin-off from the HBO television series Tales from the Crypt, the first being Demon Knight and the second being Bordello of Blood. The film was released in 2002 and stars Tim Curry, Jennifer Grey, and Craig Sheffer with Avi Nesher...
.