Let’s Watch: Demons of Ludlow (1983)

American Sniper Piano.

*Every week, the While Rome Burns crew gathers ‘round to watch a film of questionable content and give their two cents as it unfolds. This is a collection of the best pennies from those sessions for you.*

POV: It’s Christmas in Wisconsin and you are the raw hamburger next to the cocktail rye bread.

The Film We Watched:

“Have you noticed that people have moved away from Ludlow kind of sudden?”

What They Say This Movie Is About:

A murderous demon lurks inside an antique piano in a picturesque coastal town.

What This Movie Is Actually About:

A bad town with a bad past gets its reckoning and a mentally ill adult gets eaten by ghosts. Because that’s how ghosts work, you see. They can touch you when they’re hungry.

Why This Movie Is Actually Good:

If you like Bill Rebane’s previous works in The Giant Spider Invasion and The Alpha Incident, well, you’ll like this by association. I can’t say it had any particularly redeeming qualities.

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Plot Points By Point, With The Gang:

The movie takes place in a town called Ludlow (hence the name), and the townspeople are celebrating their bicentennial of the town’s existence.

[slaps paintbrush soaked with blood repeatedly on easel leg]

During part of the festivities, a piano is gifted to the town. Except the piano…bleeds?

And somehow that house is still [just barely] standing.

Oh well that’s because it’s cursed, you see. There’s a demon living in that piano. And as a result, spooky events start happening around town.

POV: It’s Thanksgiving and you’re watching your kid fight eating any more bites of the food you spent all day preparing, so that they can go eat snacks in the living room instead.

And the townspeople mainly brush it off because the town is more or less isolated from the rest of the world.

For years we’ve been telling Kev to come visit Wisconsin. We’ll keep telling him.

People dying, ghosts appearing and eating people? Well, the townspeople figure that they all just had it coming.

To be fair, most of them had good points. I am not above self-reflection!

A local minister and a writer figure out that the cursed piano is responsible so they work to destroy the piano before anyone else dies. If you want to see how they fared, Rifftrax has you covered per the trailer above!

“But ma’am, the piano really did bleed!”

Should You Watch This Film?

Only if you’re a fan of Bill Rebane’s other works. It’s largely forgettable and the film’s pretty grungy in its appearance. You’re watching it for love of the game if nothing else.

Best Out Of Context Riff Of The Night:

Accurate. Even with context.