Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Aspen Orson There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

Dr. Monster Even films that are blatant rip-offs of far superior films have some good merits of their own and the Jaws rip-offs are no exceptions. Films like Joe Dante's excellent "Piranha" (1978); Charles B. Griffith's campy "Up from the Depths" (1979); and the MST3K-target "Devil Fish" (1984) are basically Jaws rip-offs, but each film makes up for this by doing at least one thing right to make it their own. Whether the merits include: decent acting, likable characters, decent writing, decent characters, good creature effects, et cetera. Whatever the case may be at least one of these are present in each film (or all like in "Piranha"). Unfortunately no such merits are found in "Demon of Paradise" whatsoever.*SPOILERS* Not only is it a "Jaws" rip-off, but a its a "Creature from the Black Lagoon" rip-off that's stitched together to create a Frankenstein-esque mess. The basic plot is that it takes place in "Hawaii" (the Philippines) where hunters' illegal dynamite fishing awaken a prehistoric fish- monster-man (which looks like the secret love child of the Beast from "Krull" and the tree monster from the 1957 film, "From Hell it Came") that the locals believe to be a mythical creature. Once awake the monster begins to terrorize the locals (those dumb enough not to leave after finding the first body) and guests at a tropical resort. Now its up to Sheriff Keefer (played by Steis who looks like a failed clone of David Carradine) and the herpetologist, Annie (Witt), to track down the lethal living fossil before it kills anymore people.Throughout the course of the film there is the standard skepticism followed by a greedy moron (Cahill, the resort owner) wanting to profit on the local lore and finally an all-out hunt for the creature. In addition there's a pointless side-story involving criminals illegally making explosives which adds nothing to the main story save for colliding with the creature story at the end of a shoot-out with the cops. Once the creature's existence is confirmed the National Guard are called in only to leave save for a few troops the commander leaves with them. The movie ends with the real heroes, the National Guard, using grenades to blow the creature suit into green chunks as the two leads look on doing nothing. Yes, the creature is killed by nameless extras and not the main character. Anyway Keefer reasonably assumes it's over, but Annie "ominously" asks "have you ever cut the tail off a lizard" implying the creature might have the ability to regenerate it's entire body cut to one of the creature's arms floating down into the stream before abruptly ending. Although it sounds serviceable on a B-movie level it still fails.The main reason "Demon of Paradise" fails is because it commits the worst B-movie sin a movie like it can commit: it's boring. Why is it boring? Where to start? The two leads act as if they're on tranquilizers and the side-characters are cookie-cutter generic, annoying, or both. Even on the level of a Jaws knock-off it's exceptionally awful because it does not even make an attempt on the most basic level other films in its class made. What it results in is a rip-off that does nothing with the source material and chooses the lazy way by creating an inferior carbon copy of elements from two classics for the price of one in every way possible.In addition it makes the mistake of taking itself too seriously which one might think would make it unintentionally funny, but it doesn't go overboard and suffers for said misstep. You can find the film on a Double Feature DVD of Roger Corman's Cult Classics series alongside "Up from the Depths" which is the far superior film in the Double Feature.Simply put "Up from the Depths" succeeded by having decent acting; at least one likable character; intentionally over-the-top performances; self-awareness. Unfortunately for "Demon of Paradise" no such thing is present here leaving the boring story to trudge along as the boring set- pieces and boring, inferior carbon copied characters make no effort to get anything moving. As a result viewers are left watching an unappealing mass of waste taken from great films and asked to stare at it for over 80 minutes floating face-down in the water.

Woodyanders A carnivorous reptilian humanoid brute of local legend (played by some poor zhlub in a laughably hokey and obvious rubbery suit) terrorizes a tropical resort after fishermen using dynamite awaken it from its many decades of slumber. It's up to fetching herpetologist Annie (an appealing turn by the fetching Kathyrn Witt) and skeptical no-nonsense sheriff Keefer (a likable performance by William Steis) to kill the bloodthirsty beastie. With fumbling (non)direction by Cirio H. Santiago, a plethora of dippy dialogue, a meandering narrative, poky pacing, infrequent and flatly staged monster attack set pieces, mild cheesy gore, zero tension or spooky atmosphere, loads of exotic local color tossed in as complete filler, and a priceless rousing conclusion with a commando unit of army guys opening up a king-sized barrel of raw hurtin' on the creature, this amusingly silly and schlocky piece of pure celluloid flotsam sure ain't remotely good, but still manages to be pretty enjoyable and occasionally quite sidesplitting in its hopelessly blatant ineptitude. The cast struggle gamely with the incredibly inane material, with especially admirable work by Laura Banks as bitchy and greedy resort owner Cahill, Frederick Bailey as obnoxious and opportunistic journalist Ike (Bailey also came up with the extremely asinine story), and striking blonde hottie Leslie Scarborough as vacuous pin-up model Gabby (the luscious Leslie removes her shirt and bares her beautifully bountiful breasts for the flick's yummy obligatory gratuitous topless scene). Ricardo Remias' bright cinematography gives this picture a slicker and more attractive look than it deserves (the effectively moody fog-shrouded nocturnal scenes are quite impressive). Ding Achacoso's shivery and syncopated score does the funky trick. A real tacky hoot.

mattysturgess A quick Summary of this film: A Green Fish like Monster takes a liking to eating people 0n the Paradise island of Hawaii.With the low budget and poor acting the only watchable aspects about this film are the scenes showing the Wildlife and the Island. I managed to watch the whole film on my Film philosophy that it can only get better, Unfortuantly it Didn't!Why i gave it 2/10 instead of 1/10 shows the quality of films i have seen in my life time. I would say avoid but make your own mind up....Next

willywants Hunters become the hunted when illegal dynamite disturbs the age-old slumber of a carnivorous lizard-man. Resort owner Angela, joins forces with Sheriff Keefer to save tourists from the beast's path of death. This doesn't sound to bad, right? wrong. I am guilty of a crime many science fiction fans are guilty of. I call it "cool-box-syndrom". It's a common thing that happens, renting a movie because of a cool cover art. In this case, the cover showed a fanged reptile dragging a bathing beauty into the water.I was fooled. The monster looked nothing like the one on the cover. The plot was bad. The acting was ho-hum. The creature suit was mediocre. Some nice photography & locations, but that's not enough to make this sinker worth a renting. I now know to check with the Internet movie data base before I rent a film with good cover art.