Natas: The Reflection

Being a lifelong avid collector/fan of obscure, oft-neglected 80s horror it is always a delight to document a hitherto neglected title that had slipped under the radar. Jack Dunlaps's quixotic 'Natas: The Reflection' is strongly jazzed with a sinfully strident synthesized score as our handsome, clean-cut Everyman reporter Steve (Randy Mulkey) lets his imagination and innate curiosity run wild with his fanciful hope of finally discovering the terrifying truth behind the ancient myth of the desert-obscured 'Natas Tower', and the fabled phantasmal spirits that lurk within its ensorcelled, demon-protected depths!

During sleek-limbed Steve's Stoic fact-finding exodus into the unforgiving heat, will-sapping dehydration of the ostensibly barren desert, his openly doubtful girlfriend and her no less incredulous TV crew very soon weirdly encounter a B-Movie smorgasbord of Shaman-forewarned frights and frightfulness; including terrifying tinned lizards, rancorous rotten gizzards, shambling Ghost Town ghouls, cadaverous cowboys, rotten-hearted lynch mobs and there's even time for hunky Jay (Craig Hensley) to take a risqué roll in the hay with his righteous-looking squeeze while the grisly green-faced fiends play!

Maverick 'one-time' horror film director Jack Dunlap certainly wasn't afraid to obliterate B-Movie moulds by putting wildly circuitous narrative kinks into his heroically hokey hallucinatory home-spun horror show, with its bravura mishmash of sensationalist Lo-fi shamanistic shock tactics, perfidious plethora of spectral snakes, grave-rotted gunslingers, mountain-trapped entities and ,finally, Old Nick himself grimly guarding the mystic madness of Natas Tower! On reflection, I can say with only little hyperbole that low budget schlock maestro Dunlap's beautifully bizarre, peyote-infused desert trip is one of the more blisteringly strange examples of gonzo independent horror that is so unrepentantly silly that it remains enormous fun to watch. Besides, any feature film with a specific credit for 'Ghost Town Zombies' cannot by definition be all bad!

Just great! The stupidest film ever made. At least "Plan 9" was funny in an off-beat way. This is hilariously bad! Why isn't this a cult film amongst the terminally stoned?

Early '80's, video nasties, banned films, horror films popular, adult films decreasing in popularity; MONEY TO BE MADE! A good few former Porn stars and film-makers started making "Horror" films to cash in. Not that this has any sex in it, but all of the actors (and acting) - particularly the lead man with his fashionable neckerchief, looks strangely 70's shag-fest material.

If you are an aspiring film maker, and even if it's your parent's cheap camcorder, watch this and you will be inspired. Because of it's greatness? Not quite. It's just that it's so bad that even a lamp-post could make a better film. Worst film of all time, bar none.

Has been many years since I've seen it, but I clearly remember the scene at the petrol pump where the lead asks a petrol attendant for the location of a town. All I remember is rolling around on the floor laughing, the acting was SOOOOO bad... The effects were even funnier. I recommend this film, not for being a spoof (quite the opposite, it takes itself wonderfully seriously) but to show how even total junk can get released! I must look for this on DVD...

Young newspaper reporter Randy Mulkey is determined to prove the existence of an obscure Indian legend. He trundles off to a mountain cave in search of a "living spirit" to tell him where to find Natas, the evil one of the desert mountains who imprisoned 100 souls back in the wild-west days.

On the way, he wanders into a ghost town populated by blackened, shuffling zombies in ten-gallon hats, and sees his face on a "wanted" poster. Before these chatty creatures can hang him, he escapes and runs smack into "109-year-old" Nino Cochise, the living spirit (who rides a white horse). Cochise gives him a wooden peace-symbol necklace as protection against the evil spirits, and says, "Beware the serpent" before vanishing in a puff of smoke.

Mulkey returns to Tucson, Arizona and alerts his girlfriend, a TV newswoman who has had it up to here with talk of Natas. They return to the ghost town with a camera crew and all hell breaks loose. One fellow is staked through the neck by a ghost, another is decapitated by a flying scythe, and a naked woman crawls into bed to find a decayed but lively, murderous zombie waiting for her.

Having endured these improprieties, Mulkey and his girlfriend head up the mountain and encounter Natas -- that's "Satan" spelled backwards -- a weird-looking bat-like beast that takes one look at the reporter and spikes him with a red, electrical force ray. No one's looking when Mulkey's girlfriend shines a mirror in Natas' face, which sends him back to the wherever. In a stupid ending, the ghost town vanishes and Mulkey's dead friends come back to life, unable to remember that they all died.

Overall, NATAS--THE REFLECTION mixes equal parts of the ridiculous and genuinely eerie. The net effect doesn't add up, but the early scenes in the ghost town and Natas' anti-climactic appearance make the rest of it tolerable. The 16mm photography is very dark.

The only reason i am adding a comment is to warn anyone that this is without doubt the WORST film it has ever been my misfortune to hire, god i must have been bored that night.... Only a pity we cannot give minus scores. I know sometimes films are so bad you end up quite liking them!! but never this one!!

Hired this on VHS for £0.50 over 10 years ago. Very hard to recommend this to anyone. I can't believe how long they took to work out the title clue!

NATAS - The Reflection - noitcelfeR ehT - SATAN.