| For those of you who don’t know me, let me explain something – I’ve seen some bad movies. Lots of ’em. It’s a bizarrely satisfying addiction for me, so when I heard that Mondo Macabro (www.mondomacabrodvd.com) was giving camp travesty The Devil’s Sword (1983) a proper DVD release this week, I had to check it out. And I have to tell you – I don’t think normal human beings are ready for this movie.
When Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Conan the Barbarian (1982) came out, it opened up the sluices for a flood of ludicrous sword-and-sorcery epics like Deathstalker (1983), Barbarian Master (1983) and Ator the Fighting Eagle (1982). None of these cinematic atrocities prepared me for The Devil’s Sword, which the DVD sleeve describes as "the closest thing to a legal hallucinogen ever invented." What we’ve got here is an Indonesian sword-and-sorcery epic that makes one pine for the comparatively high production values of Lionman II: The Witchqueen (1979). It feels like this movie threw my brain into a box full of rock salt and shook it. I’m still groggy from the experience.
First off, there’s the evil villainess of the film – the perpetually horny Crocodile Queen. She lives in a vast paper-bag cavern under the sea, and is constantly rounding up more men for her harem. Crocodile Queen (CQ for short) wears a bikini made out of tinsel and chandelier parts, and would be a pretty hot babe if she weren’t constantly bugging her eyes out like Marty Feldman. She keeps having dreadful sex scenes where everybody keeps their clothes on and clumps around Her Reptilian Majesty, who at this point is only visible as a hand that pokes out of a cluster of he-concubines. The last guy to show up gets to awkwardly stroke this hand, while vainly trying to look at his sweetie through the pile of vest-and-headband attired bozos atop her.
Despite all this male attention, CQ sends her best henchman out to procure another sex slave for her (I guess there was a square inch on her body that was still unkissed). The henchman hops onto a flying rock (!) and crashes (into) a wedding, where he swordfights the entire wedding party by himself, a la John Cleese in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). Evil Henchman Guy has two curved swords, which he can hook together into garden shears for easy decapitation attacks. Most of the wedding guests are pretty useless as fighters, except for the bride herself, who uses a parasol to throw a hurricane at Two-Sword Guy.
Finally, the movie’s hero, played by Barry Prima, shows up. Unfortunately, Two-Sword guy whistles up a squadron of ridiculous "Crocodile Men" out of the ground to keep Barry busy while he kidnaps the groom for Crocodile Bitch. The Groom becomes another hypnotized toyboy in CQ’s harem, and the Bride joins forces with Barry to get him back. Along the way, they have to prevent Two-Sword Guy from unearthing the legendary "Devil’s Sword," which could spell doom for mankind if it fell into the wrong hands, or something.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention all of the standing around that occurs in this movie. The producer hired lots of extras to give the film the appearance of having higher production values. However, nobody could think of anything for all these people to do, so they just stand around and stare into space. This is particularly true in the Queen’s undersea cavern, which is packed to the rafters with bored extras standing around in goofy costumes waiting for the harem wrangler to dismiss them by tapping his cane on the floor. The villagers stand around, the monsters stand around… if you made a documentary about standing around, it would have less standing around in it than The Devil’s Sword. Viewers would be put into a trance were the movie not livened up by so much weirdness and insanity.
The action in The Devil’s Sword actually manages to be frantic and inert at the same time. Everybody fights like they’re afraid to move at all, but there are so many bizarre battle tactics that you won’t mind. When one guy gets punched, he gets hoisted slowly into the air on a visible wire and everybody just stands there waiting for him to land before resuming the battle. An evil witch carries a weapon that looks like a wicker mop, and continues to fight even after she gets cut in half at the waist.
Barry and Two-Sword Guy suddenly fire laser-beams from their hands, only to quickly abandon this tactic and never use it again. The Queen’s lair is protected by a gold crocodile statue that pivots on its base, firing lasers from its mouth. I think the crocodile statue is supposed to be scary, but its immobile little teddy bear arms make it look like its asking for a hug. Still, it’s a heck of a lot more impressive than the Cyclops monster that has a car headlamp for an eye, or the "Crocodile Men" costumes that look different in every scene.
Definitely not for beginners. Schlock addicts prepare yourselves for an unbelievable experience. |
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