Based on a script that had been floating around Hollywood for years, Demon Knight isn't a typical Crypt offering insofar as the main story isn't terminally jokey. It also has a solid cast and good, stylish direction from long-time Spike Lee cinematographer Ernest Dickerson.
It also seems refreshingly colour-blind in its casting. While protagonist William Sadler and demon antagonist Billy Zane are both white, the remainder of the cast is a very mixed bunch -- and its most heroic members are all African- or Native American.
Demon Knight also takes advantage of Billy Zane's always slightly off presence, slightly off whenever he's played a hero (as in The Phantom or even Twin Peaks). He's much better as a villain than he ever was as a hero.
A young Jada Pinkett Not Yet Smith is spunky, William Sadler is his always good self as a long-lived warrior for good nearing The Final Round-up, and CCH Pounder, John Schuck, Dick Miller, and Gary Farmer all do what they can with a few lines of dialogue and a whole lotta shooting and exploding.
Indeed, if only they'd cut the jokey, punny Cryptkeeper frame story from the film and let it stand on its own, it might find more of an audience even now. It breaks the knee-jerk racism of Hollywood casting just enough to be more interesting and involving than the sum of its parts would suggest. But Jesus, the Cryptkeeper is the worst. Recommended.
