Saturday, October 31, 2015

Satan's Blade (1984)

In celebration of Tony passing the bar, he and Al take their wives to the mountains for the weekend. While they're checking into the ski lodge, a group of women stop in looking for a room.

There happens to be one room that just opened up - due to a murder the night before.  The desk clerk doesn't want to tell them, but the old lady working with him says he can't rent the room due to the murder, and the legend. After everyone agrees they want to hear the story, she tells them about a killer who lives in the woods (or under the lake), and stalks all who come to the mountains.  Both groups decide to stay and end up in cabins next to each other.

I'm not sure if I'd stay there.  Although I must confess that one time I was traveling in a remote area far from home. It was getting late, and we just wanted to find a motel room.  We found a motel off the highway that had tons of customers and they had one room left.

But the desk clerk kept saying, "You want to stay here?... Are you sure you want to stay here?"  We did, but we were totally creeped out by his reaction, especially when we got in the room and there were trap doors in the ceiling and floor.  No idea why it he was confused that we wanted to stay there.  I'm wondering if perhaps it was known for drugs sales or prostitution. But at the time, we wondered if someone was going to kill us as we slept... yet we still took the room because we gambled on the odds of actually being murdered.  So I guess I can't fault the girls for taking the murder room. I mean, what are the chances someone would get murdered in the same cabin a day or two later?

As you can imagine, it was not a good decision to stay in the murder cabin, or to even go to the mountains.  The nearby lake contains Satan's Blade, a knife which glows red when it is first released into the wild, waiting for some poor unsuspecting schlub to come along and grasp it's handle.  Because who wouldn't grab a huge knife stuck into a tree in the middle of nowhere?

The strange thing is that in the extras there is an interview with the director, where he talks about how important continuity is to him. But one of the things that struck me when I watched the movie was that at one point Tony has a flaming torch in his hand. The next minute it's gone.  Since he was standing in the living room, he couldn't have just dropped it. What the hell?

This is not a great movie.  The acting isn't great.  The reactions of the bank tellers when they are shot, is so bad it's funny.  It's definitely a low budget flick and is the first movie made by the director.  In fact according to IMDB, it's the only movie he made. Overall it's fairly slow and mundane, but it might be fun to watch with a group of people.  I didn't hate it, but it doesn't fall into the category of so bad it's good.  It would probably be a great one for the guys from Riff Trax to tackle.


Bad sitcom dialogue with wacky inflections:

Al:  Hey counselor, we almost there yet? I'm starving.
Tony:  I'm driving as fast as I can.
Woman:  A little too fast maybe.
Al:  Ah, give him a break. It isn't every day you pass the bar exam.
Tony:  Listen to this. I'm the lawyer but he's defending me.
Woman:  Well, that's what Al's good for. He'll defend anyone.... especially if it means he gets to eat sooner.

Awkward model pose by blondie
Classic 80s wings 
Faux drunk
If only this were the killer
where the heck did they get the mask?
When there was a murder in your cabin last night, and there is
someone outside your window, don't open the door.
Boom mic alert

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