September, 2024 Movie of the Month: Demon Lover Diary (1980)
September, 2024 Movie of the Month: Demon Lover Diary (1980)
When filmmaker Joel DeMott accompanies her cinematographer partner on a Midwestern, low-budget horror movie shoot, she documents big egos, misogyny, and a shocking finale.
“The proud product of a one-woman crew, Demon Lover Diary is not the chronicle of a film falling apart, but of another kind of film being born,” -Patricia Zimmerman
In Demon Lover Diary, Jeff Kreines and Joel DeMott - romantic partners, MIT grads, students of cinéma vérité pioneer Richard Leacock, and future Sundance Film Festival award-winners - travel to Michigan with their friend Mark Rance to help shoot a low-budget horror picture. Simultaneously, DeMott shoots her own blistering “making of” documentary. One of horror documentarian Rodney Ascher’s favorite movies, the film follows Kreines and DeMott through days of boredom, aggravation, misogyny, and ultimately fear on the Demon Lover film set. The co-directors and writers, Donald G. Jackson (who would go on to have a career in B-movies) and Jerry Younkins (who would not make another movie, despite losing his fingers accidentally-on-purpose to finance Demon Lover), make it clear from the time of DeMott’s tardy arrival that her camera (and the female gaze behind it) is unwelcome.
“…the first person filmmaking style of DeMott and Kreines foregrounds their presence, leaving no uncertainty about their relationship to the project,” notes David Schwartz in “First Person Singular, Autobiography in Documentary Film.” Due to DeMott’s openly subjective relationship to her material, her gender cannot be separated from her experience on the Demon Lover set and it’s this unspoken battle of the sexes that stands out to me the most, both the first time I watched the movie and when re-watching it.
Hardly even ten minutes into the documentary, Jackson and Younkins’ red flags pop up long before we find out the latter will co-star with, according to DeMott, a fourteen year-old girl. The duo insists that DeMott stay behind to answer phones while they run to Chicago to pick up equipment. “I’m not going to stay and be the girl who answers phones,” DeMott defends herself. Thankfully, Kreines knows how to be an pally and rallies in solidarity. She “came from Boston not to answer telephones, but to film.”
DeMott juxtaposes scenes of the disorganized, dissonant set of Demon Lover with a professional interview between the filmmakers and a local journalist. Jackson and Younkins’ attitudes towards their movie - the former passionate, the latter self-important - become clear. “We don’t want to make these kinds of movies forever,” Jerry assures her. “This stuff is junk and we know it.” Don leaps in to defend the film and correct Younkins’ faux pas: “When he says ‘junk,’ he means it’s designed as pure entertainment.” Jackson graciously tells the reporter, “The two stars of the movie are really the cameraman and the demon.” Could the same be said for Demon Lover Diary? If so, who’s “the demon”?
Like a proto-reality TV producer, DeMott isn’t afraid to push a little to get some more drama in her movie, making her something of an unreliable narrator. But she’s aware of her interference: “I would disagree that anything is objective,” she argues in an interview with Mary Jane Doherty. When pressuring Rance to make a move on the 18 year-old Carol, she tells the audience, “He can’t stay cool all night, or Carol won’t know he likes her and I won’t have a romance!” When taken aside for a pep talk, Mark explains that he doesn’t want to perform for the camera, but it doesn’t take long before the young couple starts making out. “They’re both pretending they’re doing this because of me!” DeMott complains with a smile in her voice once she gets what she wants.
The film wraps up with an impromptu visit to rock star Ted Nugent’s house, Jackson losing his job (“They’re gonna try to fire me because of the fact that I made a movie” or rather, for taking sick leave and then doing press), and one final night on set that makes the now-infamous Rust set look like an insurance company’s daydream. “I’m proud that movie’s over, because I hate it,” Jackson’s own mother declares. Little does she know, we’ll still be talking about it (or at least the making of it) nearly fifty years later.
I chose this film as September’s Movie of the Month for three reasons: to introduce a documentary into the MotM format, to sing the praises of this “lost” film (no official home video exists), and to spotlight a woman director, because it’s been too long! (Since July of 2022, to be exact!) I enjoyed the refresher when re-watching Demon Lover Diary for this newsletter, but I also learned - through the supplementary materials below - about the history and tenets of “direct cinema,” as well as an old-school case of a documentary subject “blaming it on the edit,” as Mama Ru says.
I also encountered an ethical grey area for film fans: what to do when a movie is only available to watch on a poor-quality, VHS rip on YouTube? It was only after watching Demon Lover Diary in its entirety that I read a YouTube user’s comment (whose username was Jeff Kreines, followed by some numbers) accusing the poster of copyright infringement and asking for them to take the video down. While it’s too late for me to make an informed choice on whether or not to watch the copy on YouTube, I probably still would have. Because I could die tomorrow, y’know? But I’ll be first in line to buy a disc if/when it’s finally available.
Fun fact: Demon Lover cinematographer Jeff Kreines would go on to invent the Kinetta Archival Scanner, used in such film archives as the Library of Congress and the University of Southern California’s Hefner Archive. He even consulted on the scanning of George A. Romero’s once-lost film, The Amusement Park!
Thank you for tuning into this month’s Movie of the Month Club! Read on for a trailer, how to watch Demon Lover Diary, supplementary materials, a double feature recommendation, and spoiler-filled discussion questions!
Trailer:
Courtesy of the Laser Blast Film Society:
How to Watch:
Streaming on YouTube, though also available in a 4K restoration for theatrical screenings.
Supplementary Materials
To Read:
“Donald G. Jackson and the Demon Lover” by Scott Shaw - includes a pre-filled questionnaire about Jackson’s perspective on Demon Lover Diary.
“Diary of a Mad ‘Demon Lover’” by Kevin Thomas for the L.A. Times
“Documentaries on Horror” by Vincent Canby for the N.Y. Times
“Encore: Demon Lover Diary and Seventeen,” by Rob Nelson for Film Comment
“The Female Gaze: 100 Overlooked Films Directed by Women” for Sight & Sound (Demon Lover Diary clocks in at #46)
”First Person Singular, Autobiography in Documentary Film,” by David Schwartz for The Independent
“Focal Lengths and Gravity Waves,” by Mary Jane Doherty - The section “Jeff & Joel” starts on page 30 and is mostly about their second film, Seventeen, but the unedited interview with the documentarians starts on page 47 and delves into the idea of objectivity and exploitation in documentary.
“The Horror, The Horror,” by Paul Cullum for L.A. Weekly
“We’re Making A Masterpiece: Truth And Consequence In Demon Lover Diary” by Joseph A. Ziemba for BleedingSkull.com
Film review from Cinema Sangha - Ends with him noting that DLD is “being restored as we speak with plans for a release later this year or next” - we can only hope, as Film Comment published the same promise in 2008, and L.A. Weekly in 2002:
Jerry Younkins’ artwork at the Detroit Artists Workshop
New York Women in Film & Television - Demon Lover Diary (1980)
To Watch:
Demon Lover (1978), dir. Donald G. Jackson and Jerry Younkins - the completed subject of Demon Lover Diary.
Ricky and Rocky (1972), dir. Jeff Kreines and Tom Palazzolo, the short film that landed Kreines the cinematography gig on Demon Lover.
Seventeen (1983), dir. Joel DeMott and Jeff Kreines - a more accessible documentary from the duo, which won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival. (Also available on DVD.)
To Listen:
“More Documentaries” on the Pure Cinema Podcast - fast forward to 1:30:40 for a brief, glowing mention of Demon Lover Diary; listen to the whole episode for several great doc recommendations.
Double Feature Recommendation:
American Movie (1999), directed by Chris Smith
I know it’s not an original suggestion (the two films are constantly compared to each another in reviews), but Demon Lover Diary makes me extra appreciate the affable subjects of American Movie. A quintessentially American documentary, equal parts touching and goofy, the film follows low-budget filmmaker Mark Borchardt as he attempts to finish shooting his short horror movie with the help of his longtime friend, the late Mike Schank. (Rest in peace.) While similar to Demon Lover’s directing duo in terms of budget and scrappiness, Borchardt’s intentions are pure, fueled by a love for filmmaking, rather than oversized egos. American Movie makes for a lighthearted, though sometimes melancholy, palate cleanser following Demon Lover Diary.
Available to stream on Amazon Prime, Tubi, as well as for rental through major online retailers.
Discussion Questions:
Demon Lover director Donald Jackson insists that DeMott had “an agenda” and was “out to make him look bad” while making Demon Lover Diary. Do you think that’s true? What purpose would that serve?
Do you think Demon Lover Diary remains relevant in today’s indie filmmaking landscape? Why or why not?
In what ways could Demon Lover Diary be considered cinéma vérité or direct cinema? In what ways does the film deviate from these styles?
In what ways has Demon Lover Diary perhaps influenced future films, if at all?