A strange bit of Film History is finally seen by me, thanks, again to Rifftrax. This one sure is strange...
Somewhere in Southeast Asia (they never clarify) in 1946, a bad man is running in the Woods from the Authorities.
He's greeted near death by a strange man who is clearly the Devil. Satan sure looks more like that dead Hawaiian guy who covered Somewhere Over the Rainbow than I would have guessed!
After the smoke-filled credits, a man in the present (1971) is awakened from a coma and the sight of his face causes his Doctor to die of shock!
They don't ever address this, but do explain that he's the man from before, only now in a new body.
The Movie never *quite* explains it well, but Satan is using him to inspire fear and hate. As such, he can't die until his service is over.
Also he turns into a monster sometimes.
The monster parts are the most interesting, but they inevitably take a backseat to the main Plot involving him trying to find salvation and escape his fate.
Things look down as he realizes that he's immortal as long as Satan needs him. 'Thankfully,' Religion steps in...to kill him.
In this case, it's kind of a happy ending. I guess. The End.
It's not quite camp, not quite class. The Film tries to be interesting and be taken seriously. It wants to make you think of something deeper than you actually get. 'Satan' monologues and says weird things. Our Hero mopes and overacts. Our Supporting Cast is never quite clear what is going on. The Plot kind of just meanders for about 80 minutes. The brief bits of the monster are clearly the best part. The actual Plot is just too dense to be fun, but also too much fluff to be taken as serious and/or arty. It is a big part of Film History as it was the first Film released and distributed by Roger Corman's New World Pictures. On top of that, it led him to filming in the region. That, in turn, led to many, many other Films being shot there. The fact that a Documentary just about shooting Films in The Philippines exists says it all. It's not a great start for a trend, but is the actual start of it. Aside from a decent monster mask and this dayglo, that's about all the Film has going for it...
A dense (in a bad way) Film that tries to be more than it can muster. With Rifftrax, it's a much easier watch and quite enjoyable though.
They don't ever address this, but do explain that he's the man from before, only now in a new body.
Also he turns into a monster sometimes.
In this case, it's kind of a happy ending. I guess. The End.
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