Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight

Demon Knight may be a good career move by director Ernest Dickerson ( "Juice" ), proving that he can work with a reasonably large budget on a genre film. But the picture breaks no ground, and in terms of his own development, it's hardly a step forward. Read full review

PRESUMABLY this zombie flick is supposed to be funny, since it's about as scary as "Little Women." [18 Jan 1995, p.6F]

Despite the strength of the cast, Demon Knight stumbles over its own indecision. It's a scream, up until the laughing stops.

To call Demon Knight a popcorn movie is to give it too much credit — I doubt it would raise the pulse of Orville Redenbacher. Read full review

Based on the quality of the screenplay alone, “Demon Knight” is strictly a direct-to-video affair; with “Tales From the Crypt” tacked to the title, the budget expands exponentially to accommodate state-of-the-art special effects--most of them featuring dismemberment, naturally. Read full review

Good entertainment stretched to three times its natural length is rarely three times better, but bad entertainment dragged out that long will typically be three times worse. In the case of Demon Knight -- which probably doesn't have ten minutes of worthwhile material -- such a statement could be regarded as infinitely kind. Read full review

When the slimy creatures pop out of the ground in Tales From the Crypt Presents Demon Knight, one of the hapless humans in their path advises that the most strategic weapon to try is "anything that destroys their eyes and frees their tortured souls." Anyone exposed to this nauseating piece of brain-dead nonsense may want the same treatment. [13 Jan 1995, p.16]