Four pirates(..labeled "wreckers" for they draw ships with light crashing into the shore to pillage them)ruthlessly rape and assault two blond young women as they walk to shore, appearing from the darkness in nothing but gowns. Soon the Captain(John Rico),already insane, is haunted by ghostly apparitions of those two girls they left for dead on the shore. Yet, somehow, the girls survive fending off yet another proposed attack by the pirates, making their way to the "haunted ruins" which holds a demonic presence, imprisoned by two guardians who can give them the power they seek in weakness needed for revenge.

I really enjoyed this one, even if I was often left with my jaw open wondering what the hell was going on. I couldn't help but snicker when the twins make to the haunted ruins and are greeted by the female clown. Many would probably throw their hands up at that, but I couldn't help but love such an audacious move by Rollin to throw a modern image inside a film representing pirates. I loved the brothel pub hybrid with patrons fondling the gals as our clairvoyant Madam plays the piano when she isn't foretelling doom. I like how over-the-top the pirates are, even Tina(..let me stop for a moment and gain my composure)who Rollin films in nearly every scene naked, delighting in her devilish ways. Take, for instance, the Captain who lifts his mug to drink with beer spilling out all over himself, or Bosco(Willy Braque),always morose until he begins to trash the fisherman's bar and brothel.The film is Joelle Coeur for me. There's one image I'll always have to summon every now and then. Rollin's camera eyeballs a naked Coeur with her arms stretched to the heavens after their conquest and corruption of the innocence of two girls who had just lost everything. The camera slowly pulls away as she stands, enjoying every minute of the atrocities committed. How Coeur can't help herself as her men ravage their bodies, tearing their already shredded gowns, in a state of ecstasy. She craves this type of cruel activity, embellishes the evil they partake in. The wrecking is child's play compared to the rape and destruction of innocence.

I liked how Rollin gets his skeleton and bat in the film, by using them as "decoration" in the brothel-pub. Oh, and I loved that winged creature statue in the brothel-pub as well(..I believe Rollin shoots one of the girl's apparitions next to it when they haunt the Captain).The ruins left me in a state of bliss, particularly how Rollin shoots the female clown guiding the girls to the "crypt-watcher"(..he looks like a Russian czar, or something)down those massive steps. And, when the girls remove their shirts making their way to the prisoner's cell to release him.. One of my favorite techniques established by Rollin is how he follows his female beauties, either naked or clothed under a gown or shirt(..just long enough to cover their crotch),holding a candle to guide themselves, as they make their way to a specific destination.I also liked how the final sequence ends with water engulfing the main characters. Oh, and my favorite scene, besides the bedroom sequence where the Captain is fondling a bird he'd later rip into as Coeur slowly gets naked, is a certain character's death as a piano plays on it's own.

Les Demoniaques, or Demoniacs as it is largely known under in English speaking country's, starts on a beach where a gang of four people, one known as the Captain (John Rico),his right hand man LeBosco (Willy Braque),Paul (Paul Bisciglia) & an attractive but deadly woman named Tina (Joelle Coeur) wave lanterns to attract ships which then get wrecked on the rocks & sink at which point they steal anything of any value, these gangs are known as 'wreckers'. This particular night things go well & they recover some loot, suddenly they see two young women (Lieva Lone & Patricia Hermenier) stagger ashore, obviously survivors from the shipwreck. LeBosco & Paul rape, beat & generally abuse them while the Captain & Tina have sex together. The gang leave the women for dead & wander off into the night, the Captain ends up at the local tavern where he begins to have spooky visions of the two women while the landlady (who happens to be psychic) Madame Louise (Louise Dhour) becomes suspicious. The two women manage to make it to the apparently cursed ruins of a Church where the devil resides in a crypt protected by a guy with a long beard & a woman dressed as a clown (Mireille Dargent),they release the devil who gives them the power to extract a terrible revenge on the gang of wreckers...

This French Belgium co-production was written & directed by Jean Rollin who made quite a few of these arty surreal horror sex films of which I have not seen many, however I thought Les Demoniaques was an OK film if not exactly brilliant. The script tries to tell a decent story about supernatural revenge & it does a fair job at entertaining. The film moves along at a fair pace & never becomes too boring although the character development leaves a lot to be desired, no one in Les Demoniaques has any sort of personality beyond whether they are meant to be good or bad. The two shipwrecked women are good & are violated innocents while the wreckers are uniformly evil who never stop drinking, fighting & having sex. There is no depth or subtly here I'm afraid but then Rollin isn't renowned for his writing abilities is he? No, Rollin is far more interested in the visual side of a film which is not a good thing. Lots of things don't make any sort of sense as he tries to mix horror, art, exploitation, sex & supernatural elements with uneven results, I was also expecting a big 'pay-off' for the wreckers at the end which unfortunately never materialised, that alone made sitting through the thing rather unsatisfying.

Director Rollin lays on the visual style with Les Demoniaques being a very textured film, I love the old wooden boats, the inside decor of the tavern, the stone work of the Church, the bright almost cartoonish costumes & the dangerous looking jagged rocks of the beach. Personally I think the arty surreal shots in Les Dominaques aren't that distracting, although the scenes in the Church with the clown, crypt keeper & some guy locked in a room who looks more gay than devil like are bizarre to say the least & destroys any credibility that the powerful & graphic opening establishes. There is far more nudity in Les Demoniaques than violence, in fact apart from some fights & a bit of blood there isn't much graphic horror here while the nudity & sex is plentiful including a couple of very graphic & exploitative sexual assaults which do nothing for me personally. You should also be aware that Les Demoniaques was filmed in French & I don't think an English language version exists so the sparse dialogue is subtitled throughout.

Les Demoniaques must have been a really low budget affair, there are barely any actors in it, it has about three locations, no special effects to speak of & as a whole it could be described as minimalist. However the locations Rollin chooses are appropriate, from the Gothic Church ruins to a beach full of stranded shipwrecked boats. Obviously the photography is by far the most impressive aspect of the production although I suppose it's generally well made throughout. The acting is pretty poor from all involved especially the two shipwrecked women who are mute for the majority of the film yet still manage to be awful & irritating, oh & that Tina is a nice looking bird with or without clothes...

Les Demoniaques is an OK Euro horror sex film from Rollin, if your a fan of his style of film-making then you'll probably love this, if not then you'll probably hate it. But what about me? Well, I'm stuck somewhere between the two, not my favourite film by any stretch of the imagination but I found enough here to entertain on a basic level. My advice would be to think carefully before you give it a go.

After being raped and left for dead, a pair of women suddenly starts to invade the lives of the pirate gang that originally killed them after finding themselves imbued with supernatural powers and set out to take revenge on the gang for what happened to them using those powers.

This one wasn't all that bad of an art-house-style horror film. As is to be expected given the film's style, a lot of the film's positives reside on the showcasing of it's frequent and oftentimes excessive nudity. From the very beginning, featuring the beach rape of the girls as they're tormented by the gang features plenty of such titillating fare as the girls are captured, stripped, raped and disposed of while the fact that a vast majority of the revenge scenes are handled with the idea of the girls seducing the group one-by-one and then killed them off, give this one a lot of such material throughout the film. Moreover, there are all the inserts of nameless prostitutes and village girls getting fondled and played with alongside the finale of the female leader pleasuring herself to the girls being raped once again in incredibly wild, vivid fashion brings that up a lot as well, and with the general atmosphere found here really gives this one a pretty sleazy feel. As well, the fact that there's plenty of rather interesting choices throughout here because of this showcase gives this a kind of artistic sensibility that comes across far more dynamic than expected. Since the opening shots of the groups' rape and attack of the girls is done almost entirely devoid of dialogue makes for a rather startling and striking opening lasting nearly fifteen minutes before anyone really speaks a word, and the entirety of scenes that go by filled with silence or a more artistic representation really makes this one feel like a much more ambitious film than just straightforward exploitation like the way it's presented here. Even the action scenes, from the all-girls brawl on he ship to the escape from the underground jail are handled more like an art-house film than a traditional horror film and really manage to showcase extraordinary skills here. While these here all manage to make for an enjoyable time throughout here, the film does offer up a huge nagging issue that derails it somewhat slightly in that it never really goes for the horror at times. Not just due to the film's art-house look and feel, but the films' reliance on poetic atmosphere and the group going insane from their belief in what's going on makes this rather shock-less for nearly all of it's run-time despite the general plot line supporting such a potential outcome. The softcore groping and sex scenes don't help matters, but because the revenge finally comes in the last third of the film it rarely feels like much of genre effort and really stands out as the major drawback to this one.

Rated Unrated/NC-17: Continuous Full Nudity, strong sex scenes, Language, Mild Violence and several rape scenes.