The Killing of Satan (1983)

The coolest thing with The Killing of Satan is the poster, or DVD-cover. It's to cool almost. A perfect example how to make a cheap exploitation movie interesting. But the nicest thing with this movie is that it's quite good. It's wacko of course, not to mention weird and naive. But it's one hell of a ride. I bought the Substance bootleg-DVD much because of the cover, so... I'm guilty to being a dead fish ("döda fiskar flyter med strömmen" as we say in Sweden).

Storywise it's just a revenge thriller that quickly evolves into a fantasy-horror-action-hybrid wich involved Satan himself (no surprise really), snake people, some minor but nice cheapo-gore, primitive visual effects, magic, religion and a manly mustasche-hero, Lando (played by nowdays Senator Ramon Revilla, who where attacking Alec Baldwin recently because of some joke he made about mail-order brides from The Philippines!). There's something special with these very local movies, they feel extremly exotic, and especially mixing religion and traditional beliefs into the story. I felt the same thing, but stronger, with Queen of Black Magic. This is something that never could have been done these asian countries.

The Substance-release was better than I thought and boasts a good VHS-rip that still shows some of the amazing colors and (most of the time) great cinematography. The visual effects is primitive, but works better than some of the stuff I seen in other movies from this time. The elbow/arm-shield is quite cool. Acting is... yeah, it's okey. Seen worse. The hero is a bit stiff sometimes, but but handles the action well.

It's nothing wrong with naive movies, as long as they are made with love. Here we have Satan, dressed in red and with horns and black widows peak. He's played by a young man, but sometimes he's also acted by an older man. The first incarnation of Satan is quite creepy, if you try to look beyond the silly costume.

I guess we'll never seen a proper release of this cool movie...