The Killing of Satan: Video Oddities #5, page 2

VIDEO ODDITIES, or VHS: Video House Safari

john cribbs

THE KILLING OF SATAN

page 2

PART 2: REBORN

Unless of course you're at all familiar with a little book called The Bible. A resurrected hero named Jesus? Satan and his army ultimately being defeated by the angel Michael (read: Miguel) in the Book of Revelation? A chapter where the warrior is brought back to life by his uncle, whose body ends up looking like Wile E Coyote's after being run over by a steamroller? Any of that ring a bell? Actually that last one was just to fool you Bible-ignorant philistines - it doesn't happen in the Good Book, but it happens in this Awesome Movie. While the desperate groupies continue chanting, a dying Miguel transports his soul to some dreamlike "other" realm. Lando is there (in jean jacket, of course), walking near some rocky hills when a giant boulder rolls straight towards him. In aching slow motion Miguel rushes to his nephew's rescue, throwing his body between a frozen Lando and the giant rock, allowing himself to be squished in Lando's place. The boulder rolls away harmlessly, leaving Miguel as a head on a cartoonishly-flattened body. "Lando - hold back that rock!" he instructs. The opening sequence was great, but this is the first scene that really set me up for the rest of the movie's nutty take on innovation. The slow boulder, the hilariously paper-thin body supporting the full-sized head of Miguel - it's indefensibly silly stuff, but it's not regular-goofy, it's dream-goofy. This is the sort of dream I can imagine having, and explaining to my wife after I woke up. It's better than dream depictions in recent arty movies like, say, Shutter Island.

As Miguel passes away on the island, the bullet hole in Lando's head disappears and he sits up in bed to the great joy of his wife and daughter. No such luck for his son however...he stays dead, no boulder dream/flattened body resurrection in his future. Lando laments, but then realizes he must go on in the name of his fallen son (whatever his name was.) He heeds the orders of his uncle and the chanting chorus and travels across the water to the wartorn archipelago in a catamaran, the remains of his family tagging along. They're assailed by multiple supernatural threats: first a windstorm at sea that nearly prevents their arrival on the shore, then a sudden avalanche as soon as they're safe on land that almost flattens all three (presumably to paper-thin husks with giant heads), and finally Lando is attacked by a decaying corpse that leaps out of the water and tries to pull his arm off. Of course all these dangers are a little hollow. That's the trouble with killing off your main character 10 minutes into the movie and bringing him drastically back to life: you have to figure anything that happens to him from this point on would be pretty anti-climatic. Why resurrect him just to kill him all over? (I guess it would be funny if he kept getting killed and the chant gang had to keep bringing him back to life: "Ok seriously Lando, this is the last time we're doing this, we are almost out of candles for one thing. Also people are sick of being flattened by a boulder just to magically heal your fatal wounds. You gonna take care of business this time or what?")

The family reaches the village and are greeted by Miguel's friends including Renzo, a friendly sort of guy who informs Lando of his uncle's death and the threat to their people by "evil forces." And we all know how Lando feels about threats against somebody's people - he's against it. No sooner have the family unpacked than the evil gang in question turns up at the village to wage telepathic war on the villagers, engaging in what could either be described as an epic battle forged on the remote boundaries of the psychic plane or a "goofiest expression" competition. Warriors from both sides scrunch their faces like Scanners as a steady sonic bass blares on the soundtrack, typically resulting in the loser being thrown back a couple feet. Then they break out the lasers - not from futuristic guns, from their hands! Left and right, good and bad guys are zapping each other with sonic rays emitting from various appendages in an all-out, wildly animated laser war. The villainous henchmen appear to have more powerful zapping skills and soon Lando is backed up against some trees by a gang of baddies. Undaunted however, he holds his fist up in a "righteous" gesture and sends colorful beams spiraling out of his elbow at his opponents, who shrink back in terror. It seems that, in addition to granting him life, Uncle Miguel has transmigrated his own abilities to Lando and he is in full Scott Baio-in-Zapped mode using his left hand and the sacred words "Sanctos...Sanctine Christo!" Renzo tells Lando that he is the Proud One, possessing great psychic power and protected by the strength of Goodness. Lando doesn't high five Renzo right there on the spot, but doesn't look like he'd be opposed to the idea.

While Lando and the others are distracted, one of the evil henchmen lays out his wife with a dishonorable punch to the face (no gentle psychic nudging for the lady?) and the gang kidnaps both their daughter and Renzo's girlfriend. As if being resurrecting from the dead and psychically paged to travel to a far-off island and receive laser powers and personal endorsement from the strength of Goodness with which to challenge evil wasn't enough incentive for him to take up arms against the bad guys, Lando now has to journey to their evil lair and rescue his daughter. Shoving people around with your mind is one thing, making off with the village women like a bunch of Mexican banditos is another. Clearly it's time for Lando to do to these bastards what he did to that guy's face before he went to prison, this time with a little Goodness and laser power thrown in! Renzo knows where the kidnappers are headed, and offers to show Lando the way so he can bring back their women and end the evil once and for all.

PART 3: SOUTH OF HEAVEN

Their destination is the deep bowels of a giant caravan, where the Prince of Magic sits content on his throne. This image immediately made me suspicious - is he the "Satan" of the title? It's entirely possible that whatever country produced the film created as their protagonist a paunchy, demonic being who wears red tights and practices the black arts, and the American distributor came up with the brilliant idea to call this guy "Satan" and market the movie as his final stand against humanity. It's entirely possible, I realize, and start to get bummed out. This Prince of Magic struts around like he's the head honcho, making his way to an oversized cage (the bars of which are electrified, by magic I suppose) occupied by two dozen hypnotized naked women staring forward blankly in standing formation, each wearing a black ribbon around her neck. Holy hellish harem, Batman! Has this been the Prince's plan all along, to collect the island's innocent daughters and corrupt them? The only uncaged (and clothed) female is a woman wearing a leathery dominatrix get-up who fades into the cave out of thin air. She must be the transparent witch-looking gal on the front cover - but does the fact that she's hanging out with the PoM, who is not featured on the cover, mean that he's her boss? Not just the Prince of Magic but the Prince of Darkness? Apparently not: she talks to him like he's just another one of the guys and singles out Lando's daughter as the perfect bride for their master, "the Evil One." Ahhhhh...

Lando and Renzo make their way in through the entrance of the cave (they were going to go through an opening in the side but Lando decided against it) and part ways in a weirdly awkward cadence of dialogue: "Take care now." "Take it easy." "Good luck." "See ya." Lando continues down the tunnel, and is assaulted by flying snakes who turn out to actually be oily sexless midgets who leap off the walls of the cave. Lando hoists one such creature up by the neck until it dies and drops to the ground, back in snake form. Another one shoots at Lando, but he grabs it midair, bitchslaps it twice across the face and ties it in a knot (warning to PETA members: this is clearly a real live snake the actor does this to). Sadly, the snake does not transform back into a midget with a giant fleshy knot in his midriff. Pretty soon Lando is up to his ears in oily midget boxers and other half-dressed cave dwellers, and I started to notice how different he looked from one shot to another. 'Jeez, couldn't they find a stunt double who at least had a mustache?' I thought to myself. Then I realized the director was cutting back and forth between two different fights: one between a scaly hissing midget and Lando, and another between a scaly hissing midget and Renzo. I guess I got confused when Renzo said "I'm leaving the caves, Lando - goodbye!" and left. It was never really established that he was still there. Why didn't they just stick together?

They really should have, because things start to go downhill for the good guys. Renzo finds his girlfriend, apparently escaped from the slave cage, but as he's starting to tell her how much he missed her she rips the right side of his face off. He grabs the loose flesh hanging off his cheek, a good effect which strongly resembles lasagna, and looks at her with sad, betrayed eyes. Apparently unable to take his pained expression, her stomach explodes. She and Ol' Lasagna Face die together. Lando exits the cave through a passage that leads him to the waterfalls they had passed on the way in (I thought it was funny that he had earlier rejected this side entrance/short cut, which it turns out would have saved he and Renzo being attacked by scaly snake midgets). Blood flows down the water and the Prince of Magic's posse turns up. The Prince is immune to Lando's laser assault and spins him around like a top by a simple wave of the hand. I took this scene as proof that this is a totally competent story - we've reached the end of act two where everything seems to be going wrong. The Prince of Magic's cohorts take up the utterly defeated Lando and throw his body over the side of the waterfall and it looks like it's all over, with our hero mortally wounded and ready to meet his maker. And he does.

We were expecting Satan, but who knew the Big Man himself would make an entrance? Lando is fished out of the river by a mute boy named Niño and shepherded to the remains of an old Catholic church where he meets an old man named God. Well they don't say it, but who else could he be - gray beard, sense of playfulness and self-importance? God gives Lando a staff that he explains is the key weapon in defeating...and we hear it for the first time in the movie...SATAN!

That's right: one solid hour into the movie, Satan finally appears like it's a surprise. But I guess it kind of was a surprise, considering I was genuinely worried the horny bastard was never going to actually show. With the dominatrix and Prince of Magic at this throne, the devil pops up in a flash of smoke and lighting effects. He's a skinny, young-looking, dancer type with red makeup all over his face, tights that look more comfortable on him than they do the heavier set Prince of Magic, a set of horns, and a really long tail sitting right between his legs that doesn't look like a tail in the long shot, if you know what I mean. He cryptically instructs his lieutenants to prepare for the final stage of his plan before cackling madly and disappearing as dramatically as he arrived.

There's no ambiguity now: Satan is the enemy, the one pulling the strings, and Lando's task is to kill him. With some kind of Level Four Power Staff. And his laser hand abilities and the strength of Goodness. And his mustache.

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