Lumaban ka, Satanas

THE KILLING OF Satan was the first recommendation by this clerk at a brand new offbeat video store in my neighborhood and I fell in love with the movie and the store after that. I told him I felt I had seen everything horror-wise that was good and that I had also seen all the so bad it's good horror/trash stuff - like Ed Wood, Al Adamson, Skip Milligan, Albert Pyun, etc. so they recommend this little opus and my pals and I were laughing our heads off - the special effects and acting are atrocious - the scene where a large boulder crushes someone is so inept and badly done that Wily Coyote would smirk - the boulder looks like a large wad of newspaper, the actor is out of position for the "boulder" to crush him so he literally flings himself in front of it and then after he is crushed they reveal the actor's head sticking up out of the ground and a paper doll outline of his body with some ketchup on it. After that, we were hooked. The fights are bad, the music is bad and yet there are also some really creepy things it - in fact, there was this mute cave boy that totally freaked out my friend - there are scenes with LOTS of real snakes - I mean, this is the Phillipines, I'm sure the film crew just hired some locals to bag snakes and they came back with tons - in one scene - the lead hero is just smashing and tying real LIVE snakes in knots - the finale between Lando the hero and Satan himself has to be seen to be believed. THE KILLING OF Satan is an amazingly bad movie for lovers of great bad International cheese.

A jean-jacket-wearing champion named Lando must travel to a cave to rescue his daughter from the forces of evil. A Filippino amalgam of Christianity and other religions appears to be the basis for this bizarre fantasy adventure. It has a budget as low as Geek Maggot Bingo and acting that makes William Shatner look like a candidate for knighthood. Guys zap each other with magical rays that appear to have been drawn on the film with crayons. Rubber snakes turn into naked people. Nudity, gore and implied rape co-exist quite happily with a child-like innocence that's at the story's heart...I don't have the cultural background to process this film properly, I'm sure, which is what makes it so damn entertaining. I am now hanging my head in shame and questioning my own gratuitous use of the phrase "WTF" up to this point, because this film is clearly what it was meant for all along.

See it.

The Killing of Satan is a terrible movie with an awful lot of charm because of it, the best kind! If you are into the "so bad it's good" mentality this film is definitely a must see. In a movie production sense this film is criminally woeful, with one of the worst plots and some of the tackiest editing, acting and costumes you will ever see. Despite this, it is highly entertaining with a strong camp appeal. Lando, a 30 something average looking man with an awesome gay porn mustache is the protagonist and the sheer ludicrousness of his plight is enough to have you in stitches. This is only the tip of the iceberg however, get this movie for a rainy day.

When the Devil's minions begin to terrorise his village and kidnap his daughter, a powerful magician's nephew decides to take action and discovers that he has inherited his uncle's gift of magic in this decidedly offbeat horror film from the Philippines. True to the title, the protagonist does eventually find himself fighting against Satan incarnate, but his minion battles are actually the highlight here as he has to fend off shape-shifting snakes, minions who kill by staring cross-eyed at their victims and the list goes on. Amusing as all this might sound, 'The Killing of Satan' remains a rather mixed bag overall. The first half-hour is actually pretty dry cut with only a single nightmare involving a boulder death standing out. The special effects are also incredibly cheesy and unrealistic to the point that the film is never all that scary and there are some irritating silly sound effects too, not mention many ridiculous costumes. There remains, however, something quite appealing about the filmmakers taking such an uncanny premise and running with it. The dialogue is not exactly first rate, however, the film is played straight (not as a comedy) and while never all that frightening, there are some genuinely unsettling moments to be had - plus where else can one find a film in which its hero defeats a snake by tying it into a knot and throwing it over a pile of rocks?

Efren C. Pinon's Philippine film Killing of Satan must be one of the worst films I've ever seen! It stars bunch of amateurs without even a small ability to act, and the whole film is so ridiculous. The "story" is something about some people travelling to some island, where strange things happen, and soon Satan himself appears there!! I really cannot tell plenty about the plot since it all is very confusing and I found myself laughing for most of the time. This film is so laughably bad it's enjoyable!

How can this kind of people ever appear in film? Especially the main character Lando is so wooden, boring and un-charismatic, it is total miracle he was chosen as an actor for this "film!" The acting is of course non existent by all the actors, and everyting else sucks, too. The effects are as ridiculous as possible, as guys shoot funny laser beams from their arms, which make funny noises as the beams fly! I almost killed myself because the laugh-o-meter was so high! World absolutely needs these trash movies since sometimes it is great to relax and enjoy these non-sense turkeys! This was without a doubt intended as serious adventure/horror film, but it fails horribly. The Satan is played by two different actors, and the other one is very fat while the other ain't! The costumes of Satan and other characters are so laughable and they probably found them from some local flea market. The film was without a doubt shot at someone's backyard and the total budget was perhaps less than a ten year old's week money. There is some blood and one fairly cool face ripping, but that's all there is in the "horror department" and I really don't know what the other reviewer means by talking something about some "snuff" scenes in this film!! I watched this smut back on Dutch VHS which is without a doubt the uncut version.

The funniest thing about all this is that I didn't know what kind of film this is, and I expected this to be some serious foreign horror film with some merits as a genre film. You can imagine what was my amazement like when the first laser rays and pair of tricot appeared! I'm happy this film was bad in a way that I managed to enjoy it since if it was so bad it's unenjoyable, I definitely wouldn't have been able to sit through this. Now the film runs 90 minutes, and is pure nonsense whole time, but due to its unintentional comic status this was so much fun, but one has to appreciate trash in order to "enjoy" stuff like Killing of Satan. One part of me hates this film for the reason it wasn't a serious horror as I thought, and another part loves this for same reasons and the film being so stupid and funny.

It is impossible to rate this film, since this is so full of trash and nonsense, others just love it and others hate. I think that due to the fact that this managed to make me laugh a lot, I'll give this 2/10 and that's still pretty much! The director is definitely a genius!