Cataclysm

I had originally seen this on video as The Nightmare Never Ends, and recently watched it on video as Satan's Supper. Evidently these two versions, and the version titled Cataclysm are all slightly different. Additionally, this movie was edited down to form one third of the wretched horror anthology Night Train to Terror.

Night Train to Terror can be found on DVD. Nightmare Never Ends is on DVD in a "Troma Triple B-Header" box with two other movies.

I'm not sure how the versions all differ. Evidently Cataclysm begins with James and Claire Hanson going to Las Vegas, where Claire gets hypnotized and had visions of Nazis killing some musicians at a dinner other Nazis are having. I don't recall if Nightmare Never Ends began that way; Satan's Supper begins without the Vegas trip and with the Nazis, and Claire waking up from it as a nightmare.

A Jewish Nazi hunter sees Mr. Oliver on TV who looks like the head Nazi from Claire's dream. He gets a police detective played by Cameron Mitchell to take him to see the man in person. They must spend ten minutes with the Jewish guy insisting he's found his man, and Mitchell saying the man is too young to be the guy from the photo he was shown. The Nazi hunter is incredibly annoying, the worst sort of Jewish stereotype personified x100. He repeats himself incessantly, stuttering and gesturing like an idiot. Not that Mitchell is on the top of his form here either.

Of course, their bad acting has a lot of company in this movie. Moll is pretty dreadful as James Hanson, and Faith Clift playing his wife is like a lobotomized deer in headlights.

The guy playing Mr. Oliver is pretty awful too. He's evidently Satan himself. The monk who tries to warn Hanson is quite awful as well. A number of these people acted in other movies together, including a movie about Joseph Smith and Brigham Young! I can't imagine the horror! James Hanson has written a book "God is Dead" that took him four years. It's a runaway best seller, and he's even allowed time on TV to pitch his message, which is hardly new. Whole families appear to watch him.

For some reason, Mr. Oliver thinks Hanson would like to work for/serve him. Since an atheist no more believes in the devil than god (as Hanson in fact repeatedly says), this makes not a lick of sense.

The movie is terribly shot, terribly edited, terribly acted, and at the base of it all, terribly scripted. It is a worthless movie. I'm quite curious as to the story behind its making, how it wound up with three directors, and how there came to be so many versions of it.

First off, don't watch this film alone! Don't make the same mistake I did, and be sure to watch "Cataclysm" in the company of at least one good buddy, or preferably a whole group of friends. Not because the film is so petrifying, obviously, but for the complete opposite reason. "Cataclysm" is so dumb, so incoherent and generally "so-bad-it's-good", that it'll make guaranteed entertainment for a bunch of like-minded horror lovers! All the necessary ingredients are there, trust me: horribly bad acting performances, totally absurd storylines and plot twists, cheesy early 80s make-up effects, a washed-up Cameron Mitchell, nonsensical dialogues ("I've been staring at these walls so much that I begin to see swastikas in my oatmeal"), Nazi-orgy flashbacks, wooden disco-dancing moves, and the reincarnation of Satan himself in the shape of an Udo Kier look-alike with a very gay haircut. I had seen bits and pieces of "Cataclysm" before, as they got edited into "Night Train to Terror" for some reason, but the full-length version is definitely worth seeking out. Oh, and it's available on YouTube! What are you waiting for? WhatsApp your friends!

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!

Ah, Cataclysm, The Nightmare Never Ends... a turkey by any other name, Romeo, would gobble just as loudly. And this one's a Thanksgiving feast of epic proportions. It suffers from production values so low you have to go digging in the dirt to find them, from the sound (awful) to picture quality (atrocious) to the acting (Faith Clift saves the rest of the cast; by giving the single worst performance I have ever seen on screen, she almost makes the rest look merely mediocre by comparison). Entire scenes are washed out in a black muddle by some truly godforsaken camera-work, the dialogue is laughable... and so on, runneth the litany of complaints. But, I kinda liked it, and part of the reason I criticize so harshly is to prevent accusations of bad taste. That said, the most startling thing about this movie is that the committed horror fan (you know who you are) will find some truly unsettling moments, some real, honest-to-God creeps. They're few and far between, but they are there, and make the rest of the movie -- let's not say "good", that's a little overboard, but at least *fun*. It's quirky and surreal enough at times to see where a little talent and a vastly reworked script might have resulted in a rare gem. It had the potential to be more Session 9 than Plan 9, and if it failed, it will at least make you nostalgic for the good old days when terrible horror movies had miniscule budgets, rather than unforgivably large ones. (Anyone here see Ghost Ship? My condolences.) Part train wreck and part cubic zirconia in the rough, bad enough to hurt but not without its occasional spark, this is one that every fan of obscure horror needs to hunt down for that late-night viewing with a bag of chips and a six-pack.

"The investigation into the mysterious death of an aging Nazi war criminal hunter brings a surprising revelation to the cop working on the case. It appears the old man was actually following an individual with ties to the Nazis, who seems to have not aged in appearance in spite of the passage of over 30 (sic) years. The policeman and some other individuals decide to track down the mysterious individual to find out his horrifying secret," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

The appropriately named Faith Clift (as Dr. Claire Hansen) and atheist writer husband Richard "Charles" Moll (as James Hanson) go to sinful Las Vegas to see the shows and promote Mr. Moll's book "God Is Dead". Ms. Clift is troubled by nightmarish dreams about Nazis. Meanwhile, Marc Lawrence (as Abraham Weiss), a blathering Jew, has traced Nazi war criminal Robert Bristol (as Mr. Olivier) to Vegas; and, he reports the finding to police lieutenant Cameron Mitchell (as Sterne). At first, Mr. Mitchell won't believe old Mr. Lawrence, because young Mr. Bristol hasn't aged in 35 years.

"Cataclysm" (aka "Satan's Supper" aka "The Nightmare Never Ends") is a classic "so-bad-it's-good" film. Although others try, nobody in the cast can best Clift's supremely awful performance; her effort is astonishing. Also, watch Mitchell ("High Chaparral") defeat Moll ("Night Court") for best artificial hair. Bristol is delightfully devilish; it's too bad he, Maurice Grandmaison (as Papini), Klint Stevenson (as Jim), and Christie Wagner (as Ann) have so few screen credits; their characterizations are perfect.

Films like this hardly ever have good endings; admittedly, it's truly difficult to appropriately end a story as bad as this one -- but writer Philip Yordan and company come up with a real winner; it may make you want to click your heels… or hooves, as the case may be. See it with an open heart, or liver