She may be more famous for
borrowing the second half of her name from husband Will Smith, but
Jada has also clocked up more than a few worthy
film roles of her own – most notably in Michael Mann’s Collateral
and as Niobe in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. However,
back when she was plain ol’ Pinkett she was battling the forces
of darkness in this over-the-top movie spin-off from the Tales From The
Crypt TV show.
The movie opens with a man called Brayker (William Sadler, see: Katie
Holmes) fleeing from the charismatic Collector (Billy Zane, hamming it
up like a good ‘un). The chase leads Brayker to a dilapidated motel,
based in a converted church, and home to a rag-tag bunch of lowlifes.
Among these mostly doomed tenants we find Jada Pinkett as Jeryline, a
pint-sized ex-con with an oversized attitude, reduced to doing oddjobs
for Irene, the crotchety owner.
Also living in this fleabag hotel is
crusty old lush Uncle Willy (genre legend Dick Miller) and Wally, an
ex-postal worker who harbours a crush for the resident prostitute, Cordelia.
Sadly for him, as well as being a prostitute she’s got a boyfriend
and he’s a bullying bruiser called Roach (Thomas Haden Church,
who wowed critics in Sideways and returned to villainy as Sandman
in Spider-Man 3).
Brayker bursts into their rundown but cosy little world, and hot on his
heels comes The Collector – plus some local constabulary. Turns
out Brayker has something The Collector wants – an old key, which
doubles as a bottle for some strange red liquid. This being a Tales From
The Crypt movie, it doesn’t take long to
reveal that Brayker is the good guy, The Collector is a demonic bad guy
and the key contains the blood of Christ and thus holds the secret to
Hell’s dominion over Earth.
The sheriff gets his head punched off and before you can say “Assault
on Precinct 13”, everyone is trapped in the church-turned-motel,
and held under siege by The Collector and his infernal minions. In the
ensuing splatterific carnage limbs get ripped off, innards are exposed
and eaten and the humans are reduced in number slowly but surely.
Jeryline turns out to be the heroine of the tale, accepting the mantle
of custodian of the key from a mortally wounded Brayker.
Naturally, this
entails her stripping down to her knickers, dousing herself in the blood
of our Lord and Saviour, and spitting it in The Collector’s face.
This makes him fall apart in a suitably grisly manner, making a real
mess of the carpet. The movie ends with Jeryline boarding a bus, bound
for a new life, and the ominous sight of a new Collector already on her
tail.
Hey, who says Christianity has to be boring?
Need to know: Demon Knight was directed by Ernest Dickerson, who worked
as Spike Lee’s cinematographer from She’s Gotta Have It in
1986 all the way up to Malcolm X in 1992. Like the Tales From The Crypt
TV show, it was produced by a veritable pantheon of Hollywood heavyweights,
including Joel Silver (Die Hard, The Matrix), Richard Donner (Superman,
Lethal Weapon), Robert Zemeckis (Back To The Future), Walter Hill (48Hrs)
and David Giler (Alien). A second Crypt movie, Bordello of Blood, followed
in 1996. The planned third movie never happened, and many of the producers
went on to form Dark Castle, the company behind the remakes of
House on Haunted Hill, 13 Ghosts and House of Wax.
Availability: Demon Knight is available in a DVD double bill with Bordello
of Blood.
