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!
