Our story begins with quite possibly the worst bank robbery scene ever put on film. This scene was a total head scratcher. Dude had to be smoking weed when he wrote the scene, smoking hash when he filmed it, and smoking dog shit when he was editing and decided to leave it in as the opening to his magnum opus. During the bank robbery, the two bank tellers, or whoever they were suppose to be, are gunned down just because the robbers are sadistic and crazy. One of the victims goes through a somewhat extensive death scene that seems to take its cues from Bugs Bunny's famous "you got me" death scenes in the classic Looney Tunes cartoons. It is outrageously bad, and lets us know right away what we can be expecting from this long forgotten treasure.
After the robbery, our two would be John Dillingers make a hasty retreat to a ski resort to hide out, where they are suppose to meet their partner. At this point we finally see the faces of the bank robbers for the first time and discover they are both women. So, for no apparent reason, within thirty seconds of arriving at their hideout, one of them strips down to her underwear and begins to draw some bathwater. I mean, I'm not a professional screenwriter, but this puppy maybe could have used one more edit before the filming started, but I digress. Okay, bank robber chick one decides she doesn't wanna share the loot (fifty large in a shaving kit they hide in the heating duct) with bank robber chick two, so she guns her ass down in a topless fury on the bathroom floor. Bank robber chick one then starts dragging the bullet ridden and topless covered in blood bank robber chick number two by the ankles and is planning on tossing her in the lake. She doesn't even make it out the front door before a shadowy figure appears and stabs her to death.
The next morning, two cops just happen to be walking by the door and find the two mostly naked girls in a pile on the floor. During this scene, one of the cops is wearing either white high top tennis shoes or some kind of leftover 70's era white disco boots with his cop uniform. It went by fast so I couldn't identify it exactly, and I wasn't about to rewind it to double check, but it was odd. At least in later scenes he seemed to be wearing appropriate cop footwear.
The next scene is even stranger. The two cops are talking to the owners of the ski resort and tell them they can go ahead and rent the room out. Yes, just hours before, there was an apparent double homicide with multiple gunshot wounds, multiple stab wounds, naked bodies, blood everywhere, and some sort of ritualistic symbol written in the blood of the victims on the wall ala Helter Skelter. But go ahead and rent the room out TODAY. Why not? Just then our true main characters come into our lives. It's two married couples that are out for a nice getaway weekend of fun at the ski resort. At the same time we are introduced to a group of supposed college girls that arrive and are given the murder room to stay in, with most of the blood still visible on the wall. And you know what the resort owners are concerned about? They warn the college girls not to be partying til all hours of the night. That's right, there was a Manson Family style killing in this same room less than twelve hours ago, and that's apparently okay, just don't be partying all night. Good God.
Our victims, I mean characters, are told a legend by the lady that owns the resort. A legend about a mysterious giant man with a magic weapon that roams around killing people that come to his mountain. I kind of wished he would have offed this lady before the movie even started.
I have to speed this along now. There are some weird interactions between the married couples and the college girls. There is a bizarre dream sequence that is very strange. Parts of this movie seem almost art house style at times. Really weird stuff. About this time of course is when everyone starts getting picked off one by one. Nothing really special in the kills. Straight up stabbings by an unseen assailant. Evidently this is the Satan's Blade, a mystical weapon that possesses the soul of the person that wields it. I guess.
One thing of note is the score. Throughout the last half of the movie there is a near nonstop piano and synthesizer score that is obviously going for a John Carpenter type of a vibe, and it doesn't fail at this. It's rather monotonous but overall it probably helps build the tension a bit as we head for the homestretch of our film. At times the piano reminds me of the music from the 70's Incredible Hulk show with Bill Bixby. That music when he is walking out of town at the end of the episodes. Not bad.
Who lives? Who dies? Who cares? What the hell is even happening? I'm not sure.
To finish this up I must say that for all the crap I have been writing about Satan's Blade, I actually enjoyed this movie. It's horribly written, really frickin' weird and crappy, yet it has its charms. Out of the dozen or so actors in this movie, a couple of them are actually not that bad, which is a plus. I liked this lemon, but would only recommend it to similarly demented folks. Oh, and as far as "Satan's Blade" goes, it seems to have little to nothing to do with Satan whatsoever. Just a cool title. I actually own this thing on Blu-Ray. Wow.
nice review...
ReplyDeleteI like it