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Here I am, after shrugging off a few of the most highly regarded films of the past year to sing the praises of a rickety, shoddily hobbled together would-be supernatural slasher from 1984 called ….SATAN’S BLADE. Writer/Director L. Scott Castillo Jr.’s stab at a FRIDAY THE 13th -style body count flick is stuffed with bad acting, questionable dialogue, wall to wall cliches and clunky set-pieces and yet I found it highly entertaining. The snowy setting and woodsy eighties decor is like comforting visual hot cocoa to me ( it’s giving SCREAMS OF A WINTER NIGHT meets DEVIL TIMES FIVE) and the actors though amateurish, are dressed in the finest outfits the decade had to offer. We’re almost edging toward a ski comedy here which is my second favorite genre after horror (HOT DOG…THE MOVIE, SKI PATROL, SKI SCHOOL 1&2, all gems). Surprising, this forgotten wonder even has a nightmare dream sequence dipped in crazy filters and an impressively hideous make-up job that's truly unsettling. If the whole film matched this scene's otherworldly creepiness you’d have an art house staple. Instead, you get some dishwater dull relationship filler to bide your time with before the heads roll. Oh, well.
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We start off with an unconvincing bank robbery and some hastily added nudity to satisfy distributors. Then we meet two couples on a weekend winter outing in Big Bear to celebrate a recent graduation from law school. At the lodge’s reception desk the gang bangs into a gaggle of girls who will be staying in a next door cabin where a few murders took place the night before (!) and an oldster with a broken arm who warns of a curse on the joint. Pranks, jealousies, gossiping, foreboding fishermen, pizza, whiskey a love triangle and multiple murders follow. It’s all very by the book (and Borderline SCOOBY DOO) with a final twist shocking revelation of the killer/culprit and an epilogue promising/threatening more of the same and even an awkward pre-credits coda proclaiming “The Legend Continues!”
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Where has this movie been all my life? Right in front of my face. Truth is, I always foolishly avoided SATAN’S BLADE due to its vague and misleading VHS art which made me think it was some repackaged sword and sorcery flick. Plus, back in the day a rule of thumb I went by was to never make the mistake of renting a big box tape with no images of the actual movie on the back. Oh how many times I was burned! It’s OK though, I like to think movies come into your life when they are supposed to. It’s likely if I watched SATAN’S BLADE earlier I may not have appreciated its charming inadequacies at all. If you happen to dig zero budget homemade backyard horror and a wintry atmosphere this one is worth hunting down (Careful though, the version on YouTube is aggressively edited and missing full scenes). Its not by any means a good movie but it’s odd enough to always be interesting and although flaws abound it’s a hoot and a half and a rather cozy concentration-free early eighties time capsule.
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I swear I had Ski Patrol on VHS around here somewhere. I can't find the blue box anywhere. I'm pretty sure I saw this in theatres because the picture we were going to see was sold out. That's also how I saw Nuns On The Run instead of the first Ninja Turtles movie.
Totally agree, Unk! The acting is highly variable and mostly crummy. The staging is pretty clunky and there are no real gore effects. The writing is stilted and (especially at the end) occasionally baffling. Also, the open-matte framing of the Blu that I watched uncovered a hilarious host of boom mic shots (not the filmmakers fault, I know – but funny nonetheless). It has the feel of at Shot On Video cheapie except it IS shot on film. The film's monotonous soundtrack is a SLIGHT step up from the Casio nightmares adorning the SOV films of the time – but only a slight step up (it'll still drive you crazy). But what the film does have going for it is a wonderful mean streak that keeps you engaged despite its myriad other sins. This thing has a heart as black as night – and I love it for that. Don't get attached to ANY of the characters because literally NO ONE is safe. From the band robbery opening where two tellers are needlessly murdered to the mid-film slaughter that takes out 1/2 of the cast to the dark, dark, DARK final 10-15 minutes, this thing is delightfully bleak. So, yeah, from a filmmaking perspective this things not going to win any awards – but as an attempt to do something a little different with the FRIDAY THE 13TH formula, this was a surprisingly engaging, little scene almost-gem.