“The Killing of Satan” (1983) – Philippine Exploitation/ Horror

You know how truly weird the films of Indonesia got waaay back in the late 70’s and early 80’s….. Well apparently the Philippine movies from that same period also had some seriously strange stuff going on too… as witnessed by this lil’ piece of cinematography. Neko found this one totally by accident, and when I found out it had black magic, crazy bad “special” effects, snake women, chubby ol’ Satan himself, and a hero who looked like a Mexican heavy from an old episode of “CHIP’s” you just know I had to give it a try….

The synopsis for it reads: “The Killing of Satan” is a Filipino-made horror-fantasy movie about a man who is chosen by his dead uncle to battle the forces of evil. He fights a man called “The Prince of Magic,” who shoots ray beams from his hands, makes heads spin around and hypnotizes people. Eventually, he finally faces Satan himself and engages him in a battle of magic for the soul of his virgin daughter, the pledged Bride of Darkness.”

Yep…. it’s got it all…. but is is “Craptacular” enough to join the “So Bad It’s Good Club”? Let’s all find out…..

We start this one out with a small village somewhere in the Philippines, (you know that part of the Philippines that looks a lot like like the Wastelands of the “Planet of the Apes”)…. and the villagers are plagued by a group of evil thugs who steal all their prettiest young women for their master, the “Prince of Magic”. During a big showdown the village headman gets hurt by the evil sorcery of the Prince, and knowing that he is no match for them, he names his ex-con nephew Lando as his successor… Lando’s a good guy, despite having whacked a guy and gone to prison for it, he’s out now and trying to make a new start with his loving family. But his past come back to haunt him in the form of the vengeful brother of the guy he killed….. The brother shows up one night and in the frantic shootout, kills Lando’s son and pops a cap in old Lando’s noggin’ too even as Lando guns him down. Ordinarily this would make for a real short movie, but luckily along with naming him as successor, his uncle ends up mystically taking the bullet for Lando and dying instead of him. Good for Lando….bad for Uncle Miguel….

Without Uncle Miguel to stave off the attacks from the Prince, the villagers end up having to summon Lando to their island using some sort of magical Christian magic to take up the battle as the new “Chosen One”. It seems to send him a goofy dream about his Uncle jumping in front of a fake looking Styrofoam bolder and gettin’ crushed up but good. Nice……

After a bit of missing footage (I think)… Lando jumps in his ol’ catamaran with his wife and daughter and sail off to the island to ask Uncle exactly why Lando has risen from the dead… Upon their arrival they meet Uncle’s daughter and the guy who loves her, but before even getting comfy, they get attacked by the Prince’s men…. Here we get to see some amazingly bad superimposed ray beam action and Lando discovers that his Left Elbow possesses the ability to shoot out waves that make him bulletproof. Wait a minute? Left elbow? Yep…that’s right, Lando possesses the “Holy Elbow of God”….. don’t know why, but he does. Despite this, his beloved wife still gets her face brutally smashed off by a thug, and his and Uncle’s daughters get carried away……..

Lando catches another lucky break…. seems his left hand can also heal things like a badly smashed face… (Darn convenient…and ever so useful) So after fixing up his wife, Lando and the village hero are off to the lair of the evil ones for some rescuing action…. (Cue more boat riding….and some more travels through the Forbidden Zone) At the Lair… the girls get chucked into a cage full of naked women who are now the Brides of Evil to await the same fate while the prince confers with a sexy snake woman that also works for Satan as to what’s going to happen next in their evil plot. We don’t find out a whole lot as Lando shows up and fights the Prince (dressed in his best evil wardrobe, borrowed from Ming the Merciless…..), blows it badly and gets chucked off a waterfall. The village hero ducks that fate and soldiers on to find his beloved…. Unfortunately she’s already been molested by the Princes’ gang, and has had the “Evil Black Ribbon of Satan” placed around her neck… (You just know that isn’t good…) She gets saved, but then rips of her fiance’s face with her fingernails and blows up killing them both….. Ooops. Guess we need another hero…

However, all is not lost…. Lando wakes up in a deserted church where an wizened old guy and a little deaf mute kid give him a magic cane to fight the Prince 0f Magic. The clue him in that the Prince serves none other than the Prince of Darkness, Satan himself, and that Lando is the only one who can fight him to the death and end all the troubles. Yep…. they’re not just a crazy hermit and some kid, but the Almighty and his famous son in disguise.

The magic cane lets him thrash the Prince and his minions pretty well, but then Lando runs afoul of the snake woman, in disguise as an old lady in distress. She tricks him into taking her home, where some other shapechanging sluts first try to put the moves on Lando, and then kill him. (More missing footage…. and somewhere Lando loses the Magic Cane but escapes the evil women.. at least that what I think happens) Then it’s back to the Wasteland, above Satan’s secret underground Lair, just as his daughter is being initiated into the “Black Ribbon Wearing Brides of Satan Club”.Lando is unable to break in, but insults the Devil into coming out to battle him, “Mano Y Mano”. Surprisingly… this actually works. The battle doesn’t really go well at first, but mute lil’ Jesus shows up with the Magic Cane (or a reasonable replacement), the battle gets on and naturally ol’ Satan gets what’s coming to him. He rescues the daughter, frees her from the spell, and it’s back in the catamaran for the trip home and loving family reunion… Cue Credits!!

Whew!! Even Neko’s quick plot outline can’t really do this one justice…. There’s so much crazy stuff in here that they probably could have done another movie with it all. There’s Uncle Miguel’s zombie… the snake midgets…. a secret attack that spins a guy around like a top till he passes out…. all the “drawn on the film” effects that were right out of early silent films…. This is one goofy movie. So what do I think of it?

Well… it’s certainly “Craptacular”. The DVD I saw was Full screen, grainy, badly dubbed into English, and had multiple places where footage was just plain missing, but all in all it was a fun 90 minute film that did make me laugh myself nearly unconscious at times. This is the sort of movie you proudly “boast” of having seen… despite being warned. Hehehehe!! Neko gives it a 3 “Meows” out of 5, but cautions you….it’s no classic, and is more worth a rental than a buy if you can find it.

And surprisingly….Neko even found a Trailer for this one… (Thanks to our blogging friend Bill at Uranium Cafe) You must witness the “Craptacular” spectacle for yourself, that is…. “The Killing of Satan”… Hehehehe!!!