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.
