Released by: Culture Shock Releasing Debbie Does Demons – Movie Review: Donald Farmer is, like contemporaries Tim Ritter and Mark Polonia, one of those guys who has been making micro-budget genre films since the camcorder days, plugging away in the direct to video market out of nothing more than pure love of genre. And like those contemporaries, not all of his output over the years has been great. Enter 2023’s Debbie Does Demons, a movie with great cover art and an even better title that begins when a young woman named Lauren (Morrigan Thompson )and a group of friends decide to bust out the old Ouija Board for a lark. Their night takes an unexpected turn when they accidentally summon a curvaceous witch named Carmilla (Jessa Flux) who happens to be three hundred years old (but doesn’t look a day over thirty). Carmilla’s sex and sinister influence soon works its way over Lauren’s gal pals as she does away with them and then brings them back as demons under her control. What the witch doesn’t count on is a local TV talk show hostess named Debbie (Angel Bradford) who just so happens to be an expert on witchcraft and who takes it upon herself to send Carmilla back to the hell from whence she came! If there’s one thing that’s for sure, it’s that Donald Farmer loves tit*. Going all the way back to early efforts like Demon Queen and Cannibal Hookers, tit*, be they big ones or small ones, have long been a part of Farmer’s oeuvre and in this most recent effort, it’s clear that the man’s love of breasts has not diminished one iota. There are things you hope never change in life – and Farmer’s love of tit* is one of those things. Debbie Does Dallas doesn’t deliver much in the way of horror – the costumes look like they were picked up on the clearance rack of a Spirit Halloween store and most of the effects work are of the rubber mask variety, but it does deliver tit*, and lots of them. You can’t turn around in this movie without getting slapped in the face with a knocker. Does this make the movie worth seeing? If you share Farmer’s love of tit* and rubber masks, then yeah, it probably does. Just know that Farmer is more interested in boobs and cool lighting effects than anything else. As far as modern day shot on video exploitation throwbacks go, Debbie Does Dallas is, in all seriousness, a good bit of goofy fun. Jessa Flux, who has been popping up in quite a few shot on video schlock movies in the last five years or so (and not all of them are Donald Farmer movies…though some of them are) is fun to watch as the buxotic villainess, chewing the scenery and strutting her stuff with plenty of welcome bravado. She moves about with all the confidence of your favorite stripper, and it works. Morrigan Thompson plays the meeker Lauren well enough, she looks right for the part and is pretty good here. Angel Bradford is equally entertaining as the TV show host/witchfinder character. Farmer isn’t really breaking any new ground here. He wears his influences and his breast obsession plainly on his sleeve, but we kind of love him for that. Those who don’t enjoy his films or SOV movies in general won’t likely be won over by this, but if you do appreciate the man’s output and style, particularly as seen in the movie’s he has made in the last decade rather than his earlier output, there’s no reason you won’t enjoy this one as well. Debbie Does Demons – Blu-ray Review:
Released on: April 11th, 2023.
Director: Donald Farmer
Cast: Jessa Flux, Angel Bradford, Roni Jonah, Morrigan Thompson
Year: 2023
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Debbie Does Demons arrives on region free Blu-ray from Culture Shock Releasing in an AVC encoded 1080i transfer framed at 1.78.1 on a 25GB disc. The film was shot digitally on a low budget but in short, the movie looks pretty good. For a film made without a whole lot of money the crew took the time to light things properly and there’s some obvious care put into the shot set ups and the cinematography. As far as the transfer goes, compression artifacts are only visible once or twice in a couple of the darker scenes, there aren’t any print damage problems (obviously), and edge enhancement and line shimmering is kept to a bare minimum. Skin tones look decent, there’s a surprisingly good level of detail present, and there’s not much too really complain about here in terms of presentation.
An 16-bit English language DTS-HD track is provided in the original 2.0 Stereo with optional subtitles provided in English only. The movie sounds quite decent on this Blu-ray. There’s some nice depth to the track and some solid bass in the lower end. The dialogue is always clean and clear and easy to follow.
Extras start off with an introduction to the film by Donald Farmer that runs just under nine minutes. Seemingly shot by Farmer on his cell phone while sitting in his car, he talks about working with Flux and the other cast members, Rob Zombie's decision not to use a fake trailer he shot with Camille Keaton and being inspired to make his own witchfinder movie, films that influenced his project and more.
Up next is an interview with Jessa Flux that runs twelve minutes. She talks here about her character and what it was like playing a three hundred year old witch, other witch movies she'd seen before this project, handling her dialogue in this movie, working with the cast and crew members on the project, some of the scriptwriting work she's done and how she keeps busy on the indie horror scene.
We also get an interview with Angel Bradford that runs ten minutes. She talks about playing the titular character in the film, how she came to be involved in the film after having worked with Farmer previously, details on shooting specific scenes in the film, some of the locations that they used, what she learned from making this movie, some of the effects work that her work entailed and how she feels about the movie overall.
Finishing up the extras on the disc is a "Demonic Design" SFX behind the scenes gallery, a few Debbie Does Demons teasers, a Debbie Does Demons trailer, some bonus trailers for other Culture Shock Releasing titles, menus and chapter selection options. It’s also worth pointing out that the disc comes with some reversible cover sleeve art, featuring a covered up version on the front and a boob-tastic version on the reverse.
Debbie Does Demons - The Final Word:
Debbie Does Demons is chock full of boobs and bargain store effects work but the performances are fun in the context of the story being told and there’s some creativity to the camerawork that makes this look better than you’d probably expect. Farmer gives his fans pretty much exactly what they’d want and expect from him at this point in his career, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The Blu-ray looks and sounds quite good and the interviews give us a bit of background on the movie. Recommended to Farmer fans of those with an affection for boob-heavy shot on video productions.
