A Espada do Diabo

Fairly incompetent martial arts scenes unite with fantastical cheese sfx in what feels like an Indonesian version of Lucio Fulci's Conquest. The sinister synth score is easily the highlight of the picture, while not exactly fitting the milieu (save for perhaps the Crocodile Queen's sex lair). The Devil's Sword is worth a look for its trippier moments, although there's nothing here you won't find done better and wilder in Hong Kong psychotronic masterpieces like The Boxer's Omen and Five Element Ninjas, from the latter of which, you'll notice, the makers of this film blatantly lifted a detail or two.

There was a time back in the early 80's when sword and sorcery action flicks were all the rage. The Devil's Sword is part of that phenomenon. But, in truth, it is probably unlike most you may have seen. It's more similar to the Japanese series Monkey than Conan the Barbarian at times. This is partially due to the hokey special effects but just as much to its East Asian origins. Really, its Indonesian flavour is what makes it most interesting. It's exotic and bizarre in ways that are a result of the culture that produced it. For any fan of weird cinema from around the globe, this makes it quite fascinating.

It's about a nymphomaniac crocodile queen who lives in a cavern under the earth. She sends out her evil minions to capture men, whom she puts to use as sex slaves. The wife of one of these 'unfortunate' men teams up with a warrior and together they set out on a quest to find a magic sword that will help them defeat the forces of evil.

This film is quite simply insane. Its chock full of action, which consists of lots of fights and lots of gore. There are crocodile men, a Cyclops, a laughing man travelling on a flying rock and cannibal slaves. It features a couple of extended fights involving a trio of evil warriors. They all have their own individual skills and weaponry – one is a granny with a brush and another appears to have a helmet on a piece of rope. It's that kind of film. It's utterly delirious.

Greetings And Salutations, and welcome to my review of The Devil's Sword; here's the breakdown of my ratings:

Story: 1.25 Direction: 1.25 Pace: 1.25 Acting: 1.00 Enjoyment: 1.50

TOTAL: 6.25 out of 10.00

The Devil's Sword has to be one of the most enjoyable, though thoroughly awful, movies ever made. Should anybody not understand the appeal and draw of a B-Movie, then look no further than this one - It is the quintessential representative of the sub-genre.

The story tells of a village's curse. For the hamlet to prosper, they must elect a strapping young man to become the "Husband" of the Invisible Crocodile Queen. Husband is a loose term for a courtesan whose only job is to satisfy her carnal desires. Should he fail his Queen, he's swiftly fed to her cannibal pets, kept under lock and key in a bamboo cage. However, the nymphomaniac Queen's insatiability is too strong to control, and she dispatches her faithful warrior to rustle up her next Husband. This over-eagerness doesn't go down well with the villagers, especially the real wife of the newly Queen-selected Husband. And the fight between good and evil begins. Riding out of the hills to the sound of conflict comes our hero, Mandala. No sooner does he arrive in the blood-splattered town square than he realises this fight is personal. His combatant is his brother in training Banyunjaga, who abandoned the teachings of their master for fame and fortune. Not only does Banyunjaga serve the Crocodile Queen, but he also aspires to possess the Devil's Sword and be the greatest villain in history. Iman Tantowi, who wrote this epic, packs the tale with everything but the kitchen sink. Because he stuffs so much in, it sustains the viewers' attention and interest from fully waining.

And that would have been great, but then Ratno Timoer takes the director's chair. For the most part, he's not too bad a director. He has some decent ideas, and his cinematography is above average. Regretfully, the incidental elements render the movie inferior to its Asian counterparts: Like the farcical facial make-up, which consists of bad wigs, awful fake eyebrows, moustaches, beards, scars, and dirt. One rogue possesses the worst bald head I've seen, and it's not a latex cap like most effects teams use. It's a thick helmet of some variety, complete with false hair draped below it. You can see the actor's ears bent under its weight. Then we get to the aforementioned martial arts. For one thing, they needed better choreography and better fighters. There are too many missed hits and kicks that have devastating effects. However, they try to redress the action with absurd over-the-top special effects. Heads pop off like pop bottle tops after being agitated too much. And halfway through the picture, Timoer must have realised the action was too slow as he takes to speeding up the frames. Everybody ends up running around like hyper Speedy Gonzales. Arriba, Arriba, Andale, Andale. It looks ridiculous, but it brought a smile to my lips and a laugh to my voice, so it's all good.

The cast is passable for a movie such as The Devil's Sword. Nobody's winning an Oscar soon, but they will entertain you - even if it's for the wrong reasons. And I will state at this juncture that Barry Prima, who plays Mandala, is one of the best martial arts actors in the film. His acting isn't too terrible either.

All in all, The Devil's Sword is a tremendously fun and entertainingly bad B-Movie. I would passionately recommend it to anyone who loves B-movies and is having a bad day. This flick should elevate you above the drudgery of everyday life.

Step Away From The Crocodile Queen and come take a look-see at my Obsidian Dreams, Holding Out For A Hero, and Guilty Pleasures lists to see where I ranked The Devil's Sword.

Take Care & Stay Well.

Berry Prima. Witches and warlocks. Monsters. Lush jungle locales. In-camera special effects. Pastel parasols that kill people. "The story of THE DEVIL'S SWORD makes absolutely no sense, the acting is often appalling and the special effects a re a no-budget riot." Pete Tombs, Mondo Macabro. No argument there, pal, but this film aside from MYSTICS IN BALI is what I love about Indo films in the first place. Nonstop, colorful nonsense that recalls Italian muscleman peplum at its most indulgent. A one-eyed Cyclops whose eye is a very obvious car headlight is just one of the many bizarre delights offered. The dismal musical score that sounds like the backdrop of an outdated video game just adds to the appeal.

Production note: Why are we treated to a male swimmer's anus in one shot?

Bottom line: "Movies are so rarely fine art, that unless we cultivate an appreciation for great trash, there really is no reason in going." -- Pauline Kael

There exist only two types of conditions and circumstances under which I'm willing to watch a movie like "The Devil's Sword", and that's either together with a group of friends completely intoxicated by alcohol or other (slightly more illegal) drugs OR at a special type of themed festival in a ramshackle theater surrounded by a crowed of equally over-enthusiast genre fanatics! In this case, it was option number two, as the Belgian Off-Screen festival scheduled a crazy Indonesian 80s double-feature with "Lady Terminator" and this "The Devil's Sword". Now I already knew that the former was guaranteed entertainment; a completely bonkers and shameless "The Terminator" rip-off starring an unknown beauty (Barbara Anne Constable) as the reincarnation of a mythical Indonesian sea-queen on a relentless killing spree. I didn't know anything about "The Devil's Sword" yet, but the plot description and still looked equally amusing. Like "Lady Terminator", the film is also based on national heritage (legends, comic books…) but still grabs every possible opportunity to blatantly imitate the biggest Hollywood blockbusters. They really must have worshiped Arnold Swarzenegger in Indonesia back then because here the main inspiration comes from the Fantasy/Sword & Sorcery classic "Conan the Barbarian". The story is senseless and I won't bother too much to summarize, just keep in mind the following key words: atrocious acting, laughable dubbing, silly crocodile costumes, flying rocks, badly choreographed swashbuckling and chopped off heads. However, in sheer contrast to "Lady Terminator", which is truly a masterpiece in its own and very secluded league, "The Devil's Sword" quickly gets dull, repetitive and uninteresting. Around halfway through the film, I really had difficulties staying awake and even the cheerful crowd had tempered down. The long and tedious samurai/swashbuckling fights are supposed to cover up that the plot is weak and substantially void, but that naturally only works for about half an hour. Therefore the first 30 minutes are hilarious, with a crazily yelling freaks flying down a mountain on a piece of rock, only to interrupt a small town's wedding, claim that the husband is property of the subterranean Crocodile Queen and then subsequently slaughter the entire community. The only person that fights back more or less decently is the bride, whereas the broom cowardly hides behind his father-in-law. 5/10. Half of the points because I was entertained for about half of the film.

The most interesting part of the night was actually the introduction. For these two screenings, the festival's organization had invited one of the founders of the Mondo Macabro DVD-label that specializes in fancily releasing this type of globally neglected cinematic trash. This person, and I sadly forgot his name, shared a couple of lovely trivia facts with the audience. For example, Barbara Anne Constable was furious when she discovered via her 14- year-old daughter that "Lady Terminator" was released by the DVD label, because she hoped that the movie would never be shown outside of Indonesia. Another story was about the lead star of "The Devil's Sword", Barry Prima, who was quite a big star in Indonesia during the 1980s, but allegedly hated acting and particularly loathed the films he starred in. During an interview with the label, he stated that he only came to the interview to see the idiots that want to put the rubbish that were his films on DVD.