A number of worthwhile plot elements are thrown haphazardly at the screen in DEMONSTONE, and few of them stick. At the center is the traditional horror-movie curse, cast 500 years before the main action of the story begins and depicted in flashback. A Filipino warlord played by Joonee
Gamboa oversees the massacre of a cult headed by Chinese mystic Han Chin (Jose Mari Avellana), who swears with his dying breath that the warlord's clan will be wiped out. Flash forward to the present. Gamboa now portrays Senantor Belfardo, a powerful Filipino gangster-politician whose high-placed
relatives are being ritualistically murdered, their foreheads branded with the demonstone, a symbol of revenge. Belfardo suspects the rival Hong Kong underworld, but when a young US Marine, Tony McKee (Pat Skipper), is found at the scene of one slaughter, the corrupt senator sets him up as a
scapegoat. Ex-Marine Andrew Buck (Jan-Michael Vincent), bounced out of the service for prying into Belfardo's crooked affairs, thinks McKee is innocent; so do viewers, who know that Buck's girl friend, TV reporter Sharon Gale (Nancy Everhard), is now possessed by the spirit of Han Chin. When McKee
escapes from custody during an anti-American demonstration, Buck and base commander Maj. Joe Haines (R. Lee Ermey) try to find him. Meanwhile, the killings continue. Seized by Belfardo and his minions, the leathernecks are threatened with hideous death unless they produce the real murderer. But
just when our heroes look like goners, Hong Kong mobsters attack, and during the ensuing gun battle, Buck and Haines escape, only to be pursued by a ruthless Filipino general. Needless to say, he, too, is related to Belfardo. In short order, a scream draws Buck and Haines to the general's bloody
corpse, from which Gale, identified by McKee as the murderer, flees. That night Gale bursts into Belfardo's heavily defended mansion. Bullets barely affect her as she slays the rest of his clan, finally skewering the tyrant Belfardo with an ancient ceremonial sword. Only the senator's youngest
son, a mere child, remains alive. When Buck appears on the grizzly scene, he pleads with Gale to spare the boy. She relents and exorcises the spirit of Han Chin the only way that she can, by killing herself.
DEMONSTONE might have worked better had it eschewed the supernatural stuff altogether and remained a straight action-thriller. Unlike a lot of potboilers shot in the Philippines, this one incorporates the volatile political climate of the country into the story. Hoping to parlay Filipino
opposition to the US military presence into election to the presidency, Belfardo whips up anti-American sentiment among his countrymen by claiming that the Marines are harboring a Filipino-killing psycho. Meanwhile, he traffics in guns filched from the Yanks, and his underhanded dealings with the
Pentagon brass make it possible for him to get away with everything. This potent premise is all the more powerful because, as Australians, the film's creators have no conspicuous patriotic axe to grind. But after the riot scene (highlighted by Haines' pep talk to the Marine defenders), the plot
lapses into chases, gun battles, and enactments of Han Chin's revenge. Tellingly, John Trayne's original script was rewritten to deemphasize the oriental mysticism, which explains why the possessed Gale makes like Rambo, donning camouflage fatigues and automatic weapons--hardly the style one would
expect from an ancient Eastern wraith.
Delicately pretty, Everhard is an unconventional avenger, but her character is so poorly drawn that it's frequently unclear when she is possessed and when she isn't. Ermey (who received an Oscar nomination for his performance in FULL METAL JACKET) and Vincent make a good ultra-macho team, although
Ermey's tough-guy narration merely states the obvious. Newcomer Skipper makes the most of his supporting role and may be an actor to reckon with in the future.
Veteran film editor Andrew Prowse took over the project's directing chores when Brian Trenchard-Smith fell ill, but Prowse's considerable cutting-room experience doesn't appear to have helped him much with DEMONSTONE's plentiful action scenes, which leave something to be desired. The gun-toting
heroes never miss, the bad guys never aim, and it's generally hard to tell what's going on, even during a basic fistfight.
Domestically, DEMONSTONE had a limited run in Nashville movie theaters before going the home-video route. It's likely, however, that the film will enjoy more success overseas, where Vincent is a major star due to his "Airwolf" TV series. (Profanity, violence, adult situations, sexual
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