Cataclysm

When I was a teenager, though I wasn't really big on sitcoms (if I watched TV, I primarily enjoyed crime/police/detective stories), I must admit I loved the occasional episode of 'Night Court', though by no means did I watch it enthusiastically or with any regularity. My favourite actor in it was Richard Moll, who had that unique presence of a Richard Kiel, yet was better both in charisma and comic timing.

A few months ago, I saw a crappy horror portmanteau from the 80's ('Night Train to Terror'), of which directors' Marshak, McGowan and Tallas' segment, 'The Case of Claire Hansen', was by far the most interesting and best realized (thanks to 'Hollie Horror' for the info!), yet in the panoramic jetsam of my mind, in watching 3+ films a day, I wondered why I was getting this strange sense of deja vu. It was neat to see the entire work. Moll's face and voice were very familiar, yet he had a full head of hair (he was bald in 'Night Court', for those who don't remember), and his name was listed as 'Charles Moll' in the credits, so I was a tad confused--perhaps it was a brother?--but it ended up being the same person.

The film itself plays upon the same chord as horrific greats from its preceding decade, such as 'The Exorcist', 'The Omen' and 'The Amityville Horror', in which the classic conflict of good vs. evil is fought, and demons from the underworld are its root cause. For a no-budget film, it has a decent sense of atmosphere and mood, interesting actors and cinematography, and a really outstanding climactic scene. The special effects are uneven: Sometimes they are decent, yet sometimes laughingly bad--probably due to having THREE directors involved--usually NOT a good omen for a film, if simply one story is being presented (too many cooks DO spoil the broth, at least cinematically). One exceedingly bad aspect was Faith Clift as the female protagonist, Claire Hansen. Though for her age she was beautiful, her monotone voice was dreadful.

I recommend the film wholeheartedly and with no reservations, if you like horror films and want a good time some evening for 94 minutes.

This film has good intentions. There is something lacking, but I't hard to put one's finger on it. This tells the tale of a Satanic figure who passes through time by recreating himself. An Nobel author, played by Richard Moll, Bull from "Night Court" of all people, has written a kind of Scientology book about God being dead. It has received much attention and he becomes of interest to the Satanic figure. The movie starts out with a Nazi hunter engaging the police to help him capture the man who was responsible for the deaths of his family members during the Holocaust. The thing that is always in the way is that if Satan is so powerful, why does he need to do much of anything. If there are people who threaten him (which they obviously can't), why doesn't he just kill them outright. I know he is searching for souls and all that, but his invulnerability makes him relatively uninteresting in this film. He does some things that don't make much sense in the world of the film. The ending is kind of fun, I guess.

What can be said about THE NIGHTMARE NEVER ENDS? Well, it's NOT a quality film. Everything about it is bad: acting, dialogue, script, cast, cinematography, etc, are all way below average. It's a truly wretched film of cataclysmic proportions. For instance, take the dialogue: Cameron Mitchell says at one point, "I see swastikas swimming in my oatmeal!' which had me rolling on the floor. It's my new all time favorite line of dialogue. In another scene, a vigilante sorts named Papini wants the Nazi war criminal killed. He's been stalking a doctor (played by Faith Clift) and wants her to kill the criminal. One day, Papini storms in her office without her permission and asks her why she didn't kill him when she had the chance. So how does she answer? "I'm a doctor, I cannot kill." That's it. No anger or anything. It's priceless. Faith Clift is the worst actress of all time.

With that being said, the film is totally unforgettable, not just because it's so wonderfully bad but because there are some truly effective moments in it. Yes, even with its staggeringly inept quality there are several moments that elicit real horror or shock. More so than any horror film made these days. The state of horror films today is truly sad when a disaster like this is more effective than 90% of all horrors films made today.

The effective moments come out of nowhere: when someone takes his shoe off...didn't expect that! A nightmare inducing scene; the nightmare sequences are so bizarre and weirdly shot that they're oddly effective; the discotheque is...eh, weird. It makes me more uncomfortable than anything else in the film; the actor who plays the Nazi war criminal is just weird; and last but not least the ending which has to be seen to be believed. My jaw was on the floor.

Needless to say even with those effective moments the film is still crap. Well worth watching if you're a fan of obscure horror flicks or "so bad it's good" movies. Everyone else should abstain.

Cataclysm ranks among those weird el cheapo horror movies that boomed during the 70s and 80s when independent film-making had became common due to lower prices in movie equipments. Often with interesting stories these small movie productions tried to create cinematic moments which their small budget's barely could handle without leaving a bad taste afterwards. But, if you can look beyond the cheap impressions of these movies and understand their intentions and what they tried to achieve with a very small budget, you can appreciate the result anyway. As I use to say, as long as there is an honest intention, thought and an interesting story, movies like this one can be appreciated. It's easy to laugh about though, but one must know that these filmmakers often experimented with ideas that would probably not have seen the light if it was produced by Hollywood.

Anyhow, back to this movie. The story is quite simple actually. An old man hunts a young man who seems to have been in all kind of wars many years back in time, but this guy hasn't aged a bit since. We learn that this man is Satan or at least is a very powerful evil spirit. The old man lost his whole family in the WW2 where this evil fellow was a nazi commander. A policeman gets involved in the drama and continues the hunt after the old man dies mysteriously trying to attack the evil dude. The movie ends with the evil fellow escaping the hospital where he's been brought by a Christian woman who tries to kill him. It's pretty logical because only God can kill Satan and the evil will continue as long as God accepts this. What's more illogical is that these people tries to kill this evil man, albeit he's impossible to kill, failing one by one.

The movie itself offers a lot of wooden acting and only a few scares which actually isn't that scary. You rarely see any gruesome scenes and much of the horror is more like indications of horror. For example you see the evil man's goat leg which will have you to believe that he really is a demon or Satan himself. Things like that occurs all through the movie and it's probably because the budget was so low. So, would I recommend this rarely seen movie to anyone? Heck yeah! If you like strange horror movies, obscure occult stuff that isn't too over the top but makes you think a bit, then yeah look this one up. This review refers to the VHS release. I've seen this movie released on DVD under the name 'The Nightmare Never Ends'.

Add this one to you horror collection, in the obscure section that is!

"The investigation into the mysterious death of an aging Nazi war criminal hunter brings a surprising revelation to the cop working on the case. It appears the old man was actually following an individual with ties to the Nazis, who seems to have not aged in appearance in spite of the passage of over 30 (sic) years. The policeman and some other individuals decide to track down the mysterious individual to find out his horrifying secret," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

The appropriately named Faith Clift (as Dr. Claire Hansen) and atheist writer husband Richard "Charles" Moll (as James Hanson) go to sinful Las Vegas to see the shows and promote Mr. Moll's book "God Is Dead". Ms. Clift is troubled by nightmarish dreams about Nazis. Meanwhile, Marc Lawrence (as Abraham Weiss), a blathering Jew, has traced Nazi war criminal Robert Bristol (as Mr. Olivier) to Vegas; and, he reports the finding to police lieutenant Cameron Mitchell (as Sterne). At first, Mr. Mitchell won't believe old Mr. Lawrence, because young Mr. Bristol hasn't aged in 35 years.

"Cataclysm" (aka "Satan's Supper" aka "The Nightmare Never Ends") is a classic "so-bad-it's-good" film. Although others try, nobody in the cast can best Clift's supremely awful performance; her effort is astonishing. Also, watch Mitchell ("High Chaparral") defeat Moll ("Night Court") for best artificial hair. Bristol is delightfully devilish; it's too bad he, Maurice Grandmaison (as Papini), Klint Stevenson (as Jim), and Christie Wagner (as Ann) have so few screen credits; their characterizations are perfect.

Films like this hardly ever have good endings; admittedly, it's truly difficult to appropriately end a story as bad as this one -- but writer Philip Yordan and company come up with a real winner; it may make you want to click your heels… or hooves, as the case may be. See it with an open heart, or liver