Starring Michael Cutt, Shane Dixon, Joy Allen
Produced By Jim L. Ball Directed By James Wasson

Night of the Demon, the bigfoot film known for its unusually high gore content, was a breath of fresh air for fans of the horror genre. In the midst of the flood of gore movies during the late 1970s, certain subgenres were over-represented, such as the cannibal/zombie subgenre. The slasher film was also beginning to become a saturated concept with many film makers following the examples of Halloween and Friday the 13th. However, one of the subgenres that finally got their due (as far as gore/exploitation treatment was concerned) was the bigfoot film. Not only do we see a killer bigfoot that wants to kill unsuspecting campers in order to protect his territory, but he also wants to crossbreed in order to keep his race going.

Professor Nugent goes on a trip into the wilderness with his Anthropology students in order to investigate murders that were reported to be at the hands of bigfoot. They set out and speak with people from the town on the outskirts of the woods. They inform the Professor and his students about a man and his daughter who lives deep in the woods who allegedly had a close encounter with the half-beast. The daughter supposedly lost her speech after having a baby and seeing her father get killed by members of his religious congregation. They mystery surrounding this story prompts the Professor to investigate further. The anthropologists stumble across a ceremony for the worship of the bigfoot creature (complete with a man-made bigfoot idol at the head of the makeshift altar). After interrupting the ceremony by firing gunshots into the air, the group finally finds "Crazy Wanda," the woman who lives deep in the woods. The Professor hypnotizes Wanda in order to find out the truth behind the story of the bigfoot creature. Wanda reveals that she was attacked by the creature and bore its child. Wanda's father, insistent that the offspring is that of the Devil's, destroyed the bigfoot's child. Upset by the murder of her child, Wanda burned her father alive.

When the Professor decides to exhume the grave of the supposed offspring of the Sasquatch, the creature appears, eager to kill.....

This film was available on several different video labels at different times, the but picture/sound quality left something to be desired. Unfortunately, the A/V presentations of Night of the Demon has not been improved upon by neither Miracle Pictures nor Bijouflix. While both DVDs worked on the Toshiba 1200 DVD player that they were originally screened on, neither worked on the APEX AD1500.

The video quality of the presentation by both companies is comparable. They are both evidently from a videotape source. While the blocky artifacts are prevalent on Bijouflix's Region 1 DVD, video dropouts and color imperfections plague Miracle Picture's Region 0 DVD. Miracle's red hues seem to have green tones and the picture is generally blurry compared to Bijouflix's version.

The limitations of the source materials used for these DVDs are sorely revealed. Audio hiss is constant throughout both of these DVDs. While Bijouflix utilized PCM 2-Channel encoding, Miracle used MPEG-encoded audio. Miracle's version has a stronger, louder soundtrack. The packaging on the Miracle Pictures DVD claims to have a 5.1 DTS track; however, after searching the audio features on the disc, it appears to have only the MPEG track.

The Miracle DVD is a barebones release. The disc contains only the movie, menus and chapter stops. The Bijouflix version carries a newly-created trailer for The Laughing Dead and a 5 minute clip from Horror Express. Bijouflix's menu contains no graphics and consists only of buttons to start the movie.

Unfortunately, until another company decides to license this picture and restore it from better sources, fans of this film must be satisfied by these versions that are available. Recommended for fans of gore only.