Original subtitles

And welcome to this Arrow video commentary for Satan's Blades, where the

hysteria continues. My name's Justin Kurzweil.

I'm the author of Teenage Wasteland, the slasher movie uncut, and also the kind

of host or co -host of the hysteria continues.

And I'm here with my fellow co -hosts, Eric, Mason, and Joseph. So how are you

doing, guys?

Very good. Very good.

Excellent. Quite well.

Great. Good to hear. We're doing this. It's a transatlantic podcast.

So I'm in the UK, Eric's in Ireland, and Joseph and Nathan are in Tennessee in

the States. So we're hoping that the Skype gods will be kind to us. They

are touch wood when we do these commentaries. But we're very excited to

this commentary for Satan's Blade.

It's kind of a film that kind of more or less disappeared from, well, from the

canon of slasher movies, the recognizable canon of slasher movies.

recent years.

It's a film that I found on VHS and on all Mogul PAL release, a boot fair about

15 years ago.

It's a film that I've kind of grown to love. I didn't love it originally, but

I've certainly grown to love it now. So I'm excited to be talking about it. How

about you guys?

Very much so, yeah. I too discovered it on the Mogul VHS release, probably.

25 years ago, I'd say at this stage, probably the very early 90s. I'd never

heard of it again being pre -internet, pre -DVD and Blu -ray days.

But yeah, it was a title I was unfamiliar with and I was sold

cover art, which is quite spectacular on the UK release back in the day.

The Scott Life figure with the steel gauntlet holding the blade aloft.

Absolutely. Just quickly, just an interjection. That guy you've just seen

walking out of the bank is Martin Jackish, who provides the score for

Blade, the kind of piano -driven score. And he also, I think, was the editor on

the film. So that's his little cameo in it.

But how about you guys? Nathan, how did you come across Satan's Blade?

I think I read about it in, you know, before the Internet, there was the

uh, movie books, like the all movie guide, I know.

Um, and I read about it in there. So I had to search this one because I

couldn't know it. None of my local video stores had it. So it took me a little

while to find it. It wasn't as easy to find these movies like pre -internet

days.

Yeah, no, absolutely. What about you, Joseph?

Um, I believe around 95, 96, right before the Internet kind

of took off as this you -can -find -anything sort of deal, I was in a shop

called Grumpy's, and they basically sold a lot of these old movies for dirt

cheap. And I'd never actually heard of Satan's Blade, and I saw the box with

the, I guess it's the devil -looking thing holding the knife, which

is the same artwork they used for another movie called Satan's Blood.

Anyway, I saw that, and it was like $2 .50 American.

And, you know, I like the cover art, so I picked it up and I watched the film. I

wasn't a big fan of it, but, you know, like you, Justin, it's something that

I've kind of grown to love over the years.

If I'm honest, I haven't watched it a lot, but I have watched it a few times

recently. So it's definitely got its...

Low -budget charm, I'd say. And this opening scene actually reminds me a bit

another kind of 70s grindhouse film called Axe, or California Axe Massacre.

But that's my story, as it were.

That's one of my favorite opening sequences, actually.

Justin, did you get a chance to watch the old UK VHS release? Because I had a

quick scan through it last night, and I was surprised to learn that it's cut by

3 minutes and 35 seconds by the BBFC.

Including this sequence here in the bank, all these extended shots of the

bank clerks being killed have been removed.

It's not a film that I would obviously think needed to be censored because it's

not terribly graphic, I wouldn't think, but it just shows how insane the

censorship laws were back in 1987.

No, absolutely.

I mean, you could be forgiven for watching this opening sequence thinking

watching a film by Doris Wishman with all the feet.

That's harsh.

Well, no, I mean, but she had a penchant for showing people's feet walking

around. But, of course, it becomes clear shortly why they've done that. And I

think it's quite an effective twist to actually. It's not something you would

expect in any movie, really, let alone a slasher movie, to have a kind of clever

twist at this point.

But I think the mindset, because I've got the old VHS, still got it, but it

the one that was put out, well, has the BBFC 18 certificate, which is probably

the one that was cut. But I think it did come out on a pre -cert before that,

whether or not that was cut, I don't know.

And we'll talk a little bit more about the video releases a little bit later

But the beginning bit here is you've got what is revealed to be two female bank

robbers, which is kind of surprising given the kind of sexploitation angle

you saw there, isn't it, with the knife.

not explicitly saying that they're lesbian lovers, but it's certainly kind

hinting at that. So it's quite kind of a clever sort of start to the film.

Satan's Blade, breaking the gender barriers.

Well, absolutely, absolutely.

I think the two actresses here, I think, is kind of Meg Green and Mary Seaman,

who play Trish and Ruth.

I think they were... This is their only credit. So, I mean, it's one of those

films where...

Not many people in it, certainly in front of the camera, went on to do a

massive amount extra, certainly as far as filmmaking films goes.

So it's not going to be one of those commentaries where we can talk endlessly

about other people's credits.

And obviously some people behind the camera have gone on to do other things.

But again, I think this is kind of very effective. It kind of reminds me of the

kind of throwback to this exploitation film. films of the mid -70s, like The

Centrifold Girls or The Single Girls, those kind of films where you've got the

kind of cynical gunplay and sort of, you know, exploitation and violence.

But, yeah, it's a very effective little opening.

You never hide the money in an air conditioning vent. That always leads to

trouble in these films.

Are we supposed to believe that their act of murder and stealing has

the evil in the mountains? Is this why after 100 years the blade is getting

even?

Kind of the gist of what I understand is that this thing that's been buried, I

guess it's in the lake, is kind of reawakened by kind of outside non

forces kind of bringing it to the forefront.

That's the gist of what I got. So I think you're on the right path there,

I think it's one of those things where I think they possibly thought up the

tagline without watching the movie, though, because I think later on when

police turn up, they sort of say there have been murders at the cabins more

recently than that, hadn't there? Yeah.

But yes, it's one of those films that is kind of talking about the

legend. I think when I first saw this, there's so many similarities between

film. and Friday 13th, that I just presumed this was a Friday 13th rip

want of a better term.

And actually, it's one of those films that was made, actually, I think before,

well, probably in tandem with Friday 13th. I think Friday 13th got released

sort of June, sort of 1980, and this was filmed...

Well, it had a very kind of fractured kind of filming schedule. I think the

majority of it was filmed in spring 1980.

So similarities between Friday the 13th and this film are kind of limited.

Although I imagine that the director, Scott Casilla Jr., has been very honest

about the fact that he made this because horror movies made money. They're a

great way of breaking into the industry.

And so, sorry.

Oh, I was just going to say, see, I never found that it had any at least

similarities to Friday the 13th. I mean, it does have the body count, obviously,

but it just feels like a different movie to me. It does. I was getting a vibe.

There's no thematic link.

storyline link or anything but i was getting hints of the redeemer you know

late 70s yeah that's the movie i would you know most liking it too although i

don't think satan's blade is quite as malicious and mean -spirited as uh the

redeemer well definitely or class reunion massacre as it's known over here

the states yeah

I think part of the reason, I think, well, the similarities with things like

Crazy Ralph character, which you've got the fisherman who comes up a little bit

later, and also the fantastic scene which is coming up with the lodge owner

his mother, his elderly mother.

Well, yeah.

Which are kind of those kind of Crazy Ralph. And, of course, there's a scene

later which you could be tempted to say, I wonder if...

if the makers of Friday the 13th Part II actually ripped off that, which is the

final girl played by Stephanie Steele, is hiding under the bed,

very much like Amy Steele's character in Friday the 13th Part II.

But, of course, I mean, as I mentioned, the film itself, I think it was shot

around about spring, well, during spring 1980, and some of the cast say that

they were very worried about the snow melting. In fact, they had to shovel

to actually, because the snow started melting. during shooting, so there's

shovel snow to keep the wintry look.

But apparently the film was completed in 1981 and was post -production in 1982,

and there was a cast screening somewhere called Kent Cinema in September 1982.

Surprisingly, well, surprisingly and unsurprisingly, the film didn't get

up because I think probably elsewhere on the disc, I believe that the director

is going to be talking about the film, but he mentions about showing it to

Warner Brothers and, you know, with a view of them picking it up for

distribution. Now, of course, at this time, I mean, putting it into historical

context, at this time in 1980, with the success of Friday the 13th, you would

have thought this time would have been ripe for a film like this to be picked

up.

and put out by a distributor, certainly many slasher movies from this time were

negative pick -ups by independents that were put out by majors all looking to

get a slice of the action, for what I better term, obviously Paramount Friday

the 13th, and some majors were making slasher movies themselves.

But as much as I like Satan's Blade, it's not... It probably... I can see why

major didn't pick this up and put money behind it. It's not...

It doesn't have that polished veneer.

I don't know if many people would say that about Friday the 13th, but it is

compared to Satan's Blade.

And this is another, I guess you'd call it a twist in the tale of a double

cross. I guess they're just throwing one thick here to get the film started.

I'll give you this, Justin. The girls in pants thing is very Friday the 13th.

Well, yes. I mean, there's an awful lot of nudity as well. I mean, I think, you

know, certainly a lot topless. And it seems, from my understanding, as many of

the cast were hired and were encouraged to go topless as soon as they basically

got into the casting office.

So the director...

again isn't shy about the fact that um this was uh you know it's a flash a

horror movie it was made um to capitalize on probably more so obviously

friday 13th but certainly halloween um and i think the supernatural angle is

probably inspired by by halloween um uh this kind of idea of the boogeyman uh

coming to to get the uh get the kids and surprisingly i mean i always always

thought originally quite surprising that um

that the slash movie boom took quite a while to go after the success of

Halloween. But, of course, Halloween...

was released late in 1978, and the way that films were released back in the day

in the States was that they were on kind of regional rollouts quite often. And

so Halloween didn't really build up ahead of steam until into 1979.

So by the time it became a major, major independent hit, the filmmakers started

to take notice. So the kind of real boom time for slash movies was like the

1980s.

making a movie in 1979 through 1980 and reaching a saturation point by 1981,

which is part of the reason why films like Satan's Blade possibly didn't get

release that they possibly hoped for because there was such a glut and

saturation point to slash movies by this time.

So it didn't get... My understanding, it got...

It didn't get a cinema release in the United States, but it got translated, or

dubbed, I believe, into Spanish and Yugoslavian, of all things.

And apparently, one of the actors in an interview I've seen said that the film

was released to Yugoslavian drive -ins. Now, I didn't even know that Yugoslavia

had drive -ins, but maybe they do.

But I've seen a poster, the Spanish or possibly Mexican or South American

poster, for Satan's Blade in Spanish, and it quite shamelessly rips off, well,

it rips off, just uses the famous artwork for the 1980 slasher Maniac.

of the killer holding the scalped woman with the bulge and the blade.

So the film itself kind of disappeared into obscurity pretty much in the

although it did get a release on, I think, Prism video in 1984, and they

put out something like 15 ,000 copies.

It was the Prism label here in the States. Now, my understanding is that

did see a small, a very small drive -in release in the States.

Not very many, but I do know that it was released in Puerto Rico of all

places. I believe they were using, I'm not sure if you've seen the art, but

basically a hand coming out of the water holding a knife.

I saw that on an ad bill a few years back.

Okay, interesting.

Thank you.

Here's the sort of mother and son owning the lodge, mother with a broken arm

that goes unexplained, which is one of the many quirks of low -budget

filmmaking.

It's also The Sun. Well, he's listed as Richard Taker. No, sorry, not

Richard Taker, as Duncan Mackler in the credits.

But from the interview, I've read with Richard Taker, who was hired to be...

the editor assistant.

He also plays the troll killer coming up later in the... The dream sequence.

Yes, this is him. So that's what he says in his interview. So that's why I'm

taking possibly they just used a different name on the credits to make

look bigger.

But this is one of the joys of early 80s slasher movies, or even later 80s

slasher movies, these kind of old ladies in places, giving slightly

bizarre performances.

Definitely a Nailgun Massacre or The Mutilator type.

Yeah, I was getting a Mutilator vibe off of the old lady in the grocery shop.

Yeah, because you're a big fan of those as well, aren't you, Nathan?

Oh, yes.

I was thinking Noggin Massacre before Joseph mentioned it, but I think you're

right about the mutilator too.

Yeah.

And it always makes me laugh, this, because it's kind of like the worst

platter in the world, isn't it? It doesn't deter the customers, though. I

these girls are quite willing to move into the murder cabin the day after the

murders. Surely it would be taped off by the police, surely.

She's sort of the, I guess you'd call her the George Kennedy from just before

dawn here. Like, don't go in there.

There's murders happening here. And they're like, eh, who cares? We're going

have fun anyway.

Yeah. It's a half -arsed attempt to scrape the blood off the wall. What

typically happens in these types of movies.

Well, it is funny, isn't it? Especially as they were kind of, not only were they

bank robbers, they were murderers as well. So they killed two women at the

and they were murdered themselves.

But, you know, this is a slasher movie. It reminds me also of Honeymoon Horror a

little bit. That idea of couples checking into a resort and then being

off one by one by a killer.

There is a recent... series of films that came out not too long ago.

The names escape me. The sequel was called Bereavement, and the first one,

it Malevolence?

Okay, yeah.

They used sort of a similar thing with thieves going to a house and then

murdered. It always reminded me of Satan's Blade a little bit.

Yeah, yeah. I can see that, definitely.

This guy playing Al, by the way, sorry, Justin, is it Thomas Q is his name? The

actor with the mustache?

Yeah. And he's also co -wrote the script.

So, yeah, everyone on the film had sort of four or five functions or roles in

putting the film together, obviously. Which is typical for low -budget films.

Yeah. Actors hold boom mics and other actors go fetch coffee, et cetera, et

cetera. The magic behind it.

Well, I think one of the kind of the quirks, well, not the quirks, but I

many of the people that have been interviewed about Sessions Blade said

Scott Castillo is an enigma, I think is possibly a good way of putting it, as a

possibly slightly eccentric character. But he was a very shrewd businessman and

one of, obviously, it's a stroke of genius, this idea of hiring cabins in

mountains where you're not going to be disturbed and what you do is you double

up the location as a place. for all the actors and crew to sleep in as well.

So it's a great, great way of doing that. And I think it was all shot, well,

without any interference, you know, out in the middle of nowhere. I think it was

Big Bear, wasn't it, in California?

I think the majority of it was filmed.

Apparently there were some pickup shots in other places, but it was filmed in

and around kind of Los Angeles or outside Los Angeles.

Kind of trailblazing there. I know a lot of independent films today do that.

Our friends who did The Dismembering Christmas, I believe they rented a cabin

and basically... the cast and crew slept in it and filmed on it as well.

Well, that's what Tommy Faircloth did with Crinoline Head, the original.

It's a good way to save money.

Absolutely. I'm assuming the two cabins, like cabin number three and cabin

number four, are the same set, just redressed, because they do look

Yeah.

I mean, we have here, which is very much the classic shot of the van

full of...

Well, these aren't really teenagers, are they? This is kind of where it's

setting them apart. They're kind of college age, although I think Stephanie

Steele was only 19 when she made this, and we've already seen her with her

fairly... She's the only one, really, out of her group of friends, the five or

six girls or women who distinguish in any way, shape or form, really. The

don't. There's no real attempts to paint any personalities or...

But having said that, what you do have with the two couples here, you have...

And this is where I think the film possibly falls down in some ways,

never stays too dull for too long. Sometimes it overplays the

dramatics, the soap opera dramatics between the two couples, especially

Tom Biagioni, if that's how I pronounce his name, and his slightly dowdy wife

and grumpy wife, at the expense of actually... fleshing out the characters

the other cabin.

It's kind of a rare example of a film that uses padding, but it sort of works.

I mean, this is not a very long movie, but it's obvious that a lot of this is

padding with the couple just kind of wandering around, and when you get to

like the dream sequences, it's obvious padding, but for some reason it kind of

lends this film the charm that it has, in my opinion.

Yeah, no, no, absolutely. I mean, it's also interesting to see a film that has

kind of what is kind of older characters in it.

Certainly, you know, many of the films that followed the success of Halloween

and Friday the 13th were very much kind of the late older teenagers.

Although obviously there is a kind of the cliche of the overage, you know, 30

year old playing an 18 year old in slash movies.

Now that you mention it, Justin, this kind of also has a feel like The Slayer,

where it has the older characters.

It has that kind of feel to it as well.

No, absolutely.

I mean, my understanding is most of the cast were from, they all knew each other

from, I think it was Mesa College, which I presume is in California somewhere.

Because the film, unlike many slasher movies at the time, was shot on 35mm.

which was many of the cast and crew, you know, I've had a friend of mine

called Lunchmeat has interviewed a number of them on my Hysteria Lives

and they all thought, they were all actually attracted to the project partly

because it's 35mm, so they kind of expected it to be this kind of big

movie because they thought that nobody in their right mind would shoot a low

-budget snasher movie on 35mm.

You know, they didn't think...

So a lot of the money for the movie must have gone on the expense of shooting on

35mm.

To be honest, although this Blu -ray looks fantastic and it's going to be the

best movie ever looks, I'm sure, I don't know if I can really tell if it was

shot on 35mm as opposed to 16mm.

What about you guys?

It looks like it was possibly shot on 16 and processed to 35.

Because, I mean, you know, it carries with it a lot of the pops and cracks and

grains that would, you know, happen with that kind of, you know, blowing it up

like that.

I mean, the lighting in certain scenes in the interiors, it can be quite

lifeless and dull, which doesn't give it a 35mm feel.

A lot of overexposure on the snow and the sunlight.

I mean, it almost doesn't match something standard,

rich 35mm to me.

Having said that, I mean, some of the exteriors are spectacular looking.

I mean, it's a nice advert for Big Bear Lake, wherever that is.

It's sort of in the Los Angeles area, I know. But, yeah, they've got a great

location there.

I was going to say, this character, well, this actor's called Paul Batson,

like, this kind of reminds me of the Crazy Ralph character, although he's not

crazy as such in this.

But he obviously gives in the mornings. Now, he was a make -up, he did the make

-up on the film.

And he had his own maker company, Wuchi Industries. Apparently, he made lots of

prosthetic rubber noses and scars and such.

Apparently, he passed away a few years back.

But it was his troll mask they used in the dream sequence a little bit later

Yeah, I quite like that makeup, actually. It reminds me a tiny bit of

Eastman makeup in Anthropophagus, the Joe D 'Amato movie from 1980.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

I mean, it's cheap and effective, isn't it? I mean, this is one of the things

that I've seen time and time again people say about Satan's Blade, is

for all its shortcomings, I mean, there are quite a few, it still quite actually

has quite disturbing patches, and the sequence coming up with the first murder

sequence was kind of designed really, I mean, you could say cynically, to kill

off...

to get a double stabbing, as it were, for killing off the girls once and then

doing it again later in the movie.

But as a nightmare sequence, it's actually quite chilling.

And certainly the murders, when they come, eventually are quite brutal. I

you could argue it may be better off spacing the murders out a little bit

as you did in, say, something like Friday the 13th. But again, this film

made... In tandem with Friday the 13th, and certainly one of the joys for me is

watching some of these movies before the whole kind of

clichés are being set in place.

The programme and everything is kind of like, because sometimes these films

don't do what you expect them to do, and that's why they can still catch you off

guard.

No, structurally... Sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead, Eric. I was just going to say,

structurally, it follows the template of probably the burning more closely in

that the burning takes a long time to get going and then kills off loads of

characters in one fell swoop, which is kind of what Satan's Blade does here.

I mean, the burning is another film that possibly could do with spacing out the

killings a bit more.

Yeah.

One thing I was going to bring up, obviously before this Blu -ray was being

released, this movie was very rare, and VHS copies were kind of few and far in

between.

I do know that a few years back it would sell quite well on eBay and

Amazon.

Nathan, I think you had this on VHS at one point.

Obviously,

if you had it, you sold it. Did you get a decent price for it?

Yeah, I did. I don't remember exactly how much I got, but it was maybe about

Wow.

I spent one whole pound for my VHF puppy.

Well, I was about to say, when I paid for mine, I got it for like five bucks.

So I turned a very good profit on it.

I was going to mention the sequence with the drinking, the Jack Daniels.

I think both actors have got quite a lot of charisma, and I think they were very

good friends during the cast of this film.

But apparently, as a little bit of trivia, it's not actually whiskey in

What they did was they decanted the whiskey into another jar and filled it

with tea.

So to make it look like they were knocking back lots of whiskey.

They're very good at pretending to drink.

Well, no, absolutely.

But apparently this was one of the sequences which wasn't shot, according

to some of the interviews I've read, that wasn't shot with the director.

I think Terry Camp, who did the cinematography on the film, did a second

directing, I guess.

And apparently this was one that was...

improvised.

So it was kind of, you know, he said he helped out the director quite a lot. And

apparently Scott Casillo was the, you know, talk about him a little bit here

that, you know, the genesis of this film was that he really wanted to make a

film. I think he'd made eight millimeter movies. And he, as I said before, knew

like many, many other people.

I think it's Roger Corman once said the best way to break into the movie

business. I think it's Roger Corman.

somebody along that ilk, the best way to break into the movie business is to get

a load of teenagers into a house and bump them off one by one.

It's a great way of doing that, and many people have done that and seen it as a

stepping stone into bigger and better things, although obviously I don't say

that because obviously I'm a fan of the slasher movies, so the more the merrier.

But apparently he persuaded a friend of his who just inherited quite a lot of

money.

to invest in the film and apparently his friends had just bought an expensive

car and he persuaded him to send it back and they used that money to get the

film going.

But I imagine there's many, many stories like that with low -budget fashion

movies where, I mean, you hear about filmmakers today who just get loads of

credit cards and max them out just to get their film made.

And I'm glad he did, because otherwise, if he hadn't, we wouldn't have Satan's

Blade today. So, obviously, that's good.

I like these interiors here with the sort of brick walls. It makes it look

they're in a basement or in a shed or something.

They probably were, yeah.

Well, they are.

But, yes, I kind of wonder. Again, there's a kind of hint there potentially

going to be some lesbian sex.

And, of course, the kind of...

I'm not suggesting they should be, but this is kind of filling you up. And I

wonder if that was kind of doing that as a kind of teaser to hint that would

come, as it were, but it never did.

Justin, in your old Hysteria Lives review for Satan's Blade, you mentioned,

you make the little quip that...

There was mention of a possible sequel to Satan's Blade that never

I haven't done much reading on it. Do you know anything else about it?

Well, the film ends, doesn't it? I can't remember exactly what it says until we

see it. The legend continues.

The legend continues.

Didn't they shoot some sort of... I read somewhere that... The director shot...

Apparently there's two Satan's Blade 2 trailers out there. A fan made one and

one that the director made himself as well.

but there's no actual film to go with it.

He says in an interview, I think it was last year or the year before, that he

was thinking of doing a crowdfunding campaign to try and raise funds for

Blade 2, but I don't think that ever materialized.

Apparently, according to him, although it hasn't appeared, as far as I know, on

any of the special editions, it may well be on this Arrow edition, because

obviously we're recording this ahead of time for obvious reasons, that he claims

he shot seven minutes worth of promo footage for a sequel with the existing

cast, although it's quite difficult to see how, and that not many of them

survive, obviously given that it's a slasher movie.

None of them survive.

How they would have appeared in a sequel unless it's all in flashback. But

again, this scene here of the troll killings, as it's been dubbed, the dream

troll killings, is very effective, I think.

It's genuinely nightmarish.

It's shot through this strange filter, isn't it? It's kind of like with that

kind of...

kind of haze around the things.

I like the trick of showing the shadow on the wall of the

troll killer stabbing. It's a good trick to use when you don't have the money to

invest in special effects. You show the pantomime on the wall, and it actually

makes a very good startling effect.

Absolutely. And here we've got the old trick, which was utilised in, I mean,

many slasher movies have you used?

Well, this always reminds me of the sorority house massacre or slumber party

massacre or any massacre of any kind where boys scare girls by peering in

through the window with a mask on. And the girls all run around in their

nightwear and scream.

Absolutely, and here they're obviously pretending to be some kind of yeti

monster. The woman in the lodge who gave the very long, rambling

story of the giant man who was driven up into the mountains by people

moving onto his territory.

He's obviously pretending to be that.

Apparently, I was reading, again, they had a great time filming this, and they

said...

Wasn't it cold when you were out running around in your negligee? But they said

they were so young and so excited to be making a movie that they just had a wild

time.

And I imagine you could probably make a really interesting, fun, affectionate

little movie about shooting a flash movie in 1980 with all the fun and

must have gone on behind the scenes with, like, you know, teenagers and

-somethings all together in the cabin.

It's not a bad idea. It's not a bad idea for a slasher.

People going out to locations from 80s slasher films to document it and then

up getting killed in various ways, like in the same films.

Well, there you go. Let's copyright that.

Yeah. You heard it here first.

Yeah.

But, yeah, it's kind of another masterstroke, really. The idea of

here was kind of, you know, although there's some limitations with the camera

work, you can't fail to be wowed by the snowy exterior.

I mean, it's pretty spectacular, isn't it?

And I'm just going to mention talking about some of the cast and crew.

I mean, I think this guy, apparently Al, he looked a bit like Tom Selleck,

didn't he? I think I heard someone quip.

Or Sam Elliott.

Or Sam Elliott, yes.

And Tom Piaggioni.

here, who's kind of his best friend in this, he thought that they obviously had

a good time together. And Tom, if you're joining, I don't know if you know that

he went on to be a Neil Diamond impersonator for 12 years. Yes, I read

you can totally see it, particularly in the hair.

Absolutely, yeah. So he was kind of, I think I've read in the interview that

I've got on my site from Lunchmeat, he sort of says that, again, he went to see

this film when it, probably at the showing in 1982, and he said he left, he

walked out before the credits rolled. He was kind of, obviously wasn't that

pleased with it. He said there were some...

Shots that were used in this, according to him, there were shots of some nudity

which the actresses were told weren't going to be used.

However, that's the case. I mean, it's well over 30 years ago that he would

seen this.

But he said he hadn't seen it since he didn't even realise it got a release.

And then he had said some of his friends phoned him up.

And we're laughing down the phone and calling him Tony, and he realised that

they'd seen the film, and he went out and found a copy in a video store and

rented it and took it home and pretended he lost it so he could keep a copy of

it.

So, as I say, many of the cast and crew didn't realise.

I mean, the film sat on the shelf for four years, basically, pretty much, from

the start of shooting to actually being released on video.

Apart from, as you say, Joseph, it may have got a very, very limited kind of

drive in release at some point.

But yes, I read an interview.

It was a review slash interview where I don't remember who it was, but he said

that he had sold a copy to five or six.

separate drive -in locations across the states. And I think it got like, like a

one night showing a couple of them. Uh, it was double billed with, um, I can't

remember the film off the top of my head, but, uh, he said that.

It was not in theaters, but just at drive -ins in particular.

But whether or not that's true, I don't know, because it may have just been an

actor. I don't know if it was like an official capacity, like a producer or

anything. And this has been years since I've read that, but I do remember that.

One thing I was wondering as well, if it's true, I don't know, Justin, if you

can clarify this, is that the shooting schedule was 33 days, which seems quite

long for a film of Satan's Blade's ilk.

I mean, that would be more of a Friday the 13th type shooting schedule, I would

think, no?

Yeah, you would have thought so. I mean, I read that they only, I think the

director himself said they only had one day off.

Yeah, it was Easter or something, yeah.

Well, I mean, a lot of these movies with the low budget, you know, they'll film,

you know, a whole straight day and run out of money and they'll have to like

basically it's kind of like living paycheck to paycheck you have to wait

next paycheck to come in so you can you know get more supplies so that that

could have been the reason why it had such a long shooting schedule yeah i

suppose a good example of that would be something like the evil dead which again

like satan's blade had a very long protracted production history before it

finally got released i mean they were filming for you know on and off for two

three years for that one yeah I think Tom Biagiorno said that he never saw

than 100 pages of the script at a time.

And he said that the scenes were written on the day.

100 pages is quite a lot. 100 pages?

It's like two minutes per page.

Is it two minutes per page or one minute per page? It's usually like a minute to

two minutes per page.

That should be like two whole scripts right there. That's like a Quentin

Tarantino movie.

Quentin Tarantino, Satan's Blade.

Well, maybe things got changed along the way, but he said, or maybe his memory's

a bit hazy, but he said that he got the impression that Scott had a vague idea

of what he wanted the film to be like and scenes were being written on the

which is possibly why it took quite a long time to film it.

He said that maybe there was a completed script somewhere, but he never saw it.

And the reason he remembers that, he said he would have kept the script

he always kept completed scripts when he worked on them, and he said he never

had one for Satan's Blade.

He also mentioned that most of the night sequences were shot night for day,

which certainly isn't unusual for a low -budget slasher movie or any kind of low

-budget movie.

Night for day or day for night? Oh, day for night, sorry.

Night for day would be difficult, wouldn't it?

Yeah, it would.

I mean, actually, I don't think they do too bad a job in this because I've seen

some films, like some of the old Hammer films, which look very clearly...

their night sequences, you can very clearly see that they are actually shot

during the day. So I don't think it does too badly at all in this.

No.

This sequence here, what I find unusual about the, I suppose you can call her

the final girl, Stephanie, is that she's normally the type of girl who'd be

killed first because she's quite sexually assertive and she wants to be a

homewrecker, for want of a better word.

She's trying to lure this married man away from his wife.

And yet she ends up being the final girl, which, again, is very much going

against the grain of the traditional slasher movie victims and heroines.

Absolutely. I mean, there's a little bit more about her. The actress, Stephanie

Leithfield, is another person that Lunchmeet interviewed on my website. I

she says she got involved with Satan's Blade, which was an Adam newspaper open

casting for a movie.

And it was actually Method City College. It was in San Diego.

And she'd been majoring in drama and obviously knew she wanted to be an

And I think she was 19 years old at the time, so she was very excited.

She stipulated she wouldn't do any nudity for the film, which is obviously

we don't see any nudity from her.

She actually said that Tom Q, the guy who wrote the screenplay, she actually

fell in love with him, and they were in a relationship during the shoot. So,

again, it goes to show their kind of romantic involvement on these kind of

films, and they kind of ended up in a relationship for quite a long time,

although she said they'd kind of since lost touch.

But she acted until about the age of 25, and she became sort of disillusioned,

like I imagine many young actresses do in Los Angeles.

She said she didn't want to be at waiting tables until she was 70.

So she moved to Minnesota with her husband and became a full -time mom. And

was what she's doing now. I'm not entirely sure. I mean, that interview

coming up for 10 years old.

But now, at the time, she had claimed fame, but she plays and teaches

Scrabble.

I didn't even know you'd play tournaments, Gravel. I didn't know. And

living off of it. That's interesting.

Yeah. But I think she's really good in this.

She is, and her character is likable, even though, as I said, she's a non

-traditional final girl. I think she is a likable character.

Yeah.

She's, I'd say, human.

You don't get a lot of that in these films. They're kind of exaggerated.

It feels kind of down home and down to earth, sort of.

Yeah. She's not painted as the sort of the goody two -shoes like Laurie Strode

or as much as I love Laurie Strode.

I've often criticized – I don't criticize the flasher film for it, but I

said that I find the side characters a lot more interesting than the main girls

because the main girls, like you said, are usually just kind of too goody

and all that stuff. But I like her that she's kind of flawed.

Now, in this scene, they're talking about the previous crime that, Justin,

were mentioning earlier. It was maybe 10 or 15 years ago, and the older cop says

that it was his first case and he'd been here for five months. So are we to

assume that he was possessed by the spirit of the woods and he was the one

the killing back then?

Yeah, I don't know. To mirror what's happening now with the younger cop?

I mean, very possibly.

I mean, whether or not, again, whether or not that was thought through.

I, you know, whether or not the, say, if the script was being rewritten during

filming, whether or not they'd even decided who the killer was at the

you know, when they started the film, I don't know. I don't know.

But I think it's kind of an interesting possibility, isn't it? Which would lead

it, well, lend itself open to a sequel, wouldn't it?

Definitely, yeah.

What were we, 37 years? 37 years? God, is it? No, 27, 37?

36. 36 years later from when the film was made, you know, obviously most,

as you say, all the cast and crew, well, not cast and crew, most of the cast

characters are dead, so you wouldn't see them returning. But I think it would be

quite fun to go back to the mountains.

Especially as the director mentions that I think, because there were two special

knives that they had produced for this, the two essentially Satan's blades, and

one of them went missing, which, as they enigmatically say, means it's still on

the mountain somewhere.

This atmosphere, the snow, reminds me a lot of another slasher film from a

similar time frame, Ghost Keeper. You've seen it, right? Yeah, it's a Canadian

film.

Yeah. It's quite an unusual one, yeah.

Yeah.

I think it kind of pre -empts... I mean, I think going back to the kind of

Stephanie Lee Stills character is, again, they have the reason partly that

kind of reminds me of Amy Stills in Friday the 13th Part 2, and it goes all

coincidentally is that Amy Stills and Adrian King, actually, in the original

Friday the 13th, when neither of them were Laurie Strode's, were they? They

both kind of sort of...

sexually, not precocious, but they were more almost like male characters,

weren't they?

But it's insinuated that they're both having relationships with the head camp

counsellor in both movies.

Yeah, so it's kind of interesting to see how they use her character as being

sexually, not aggressive, but certainly she's not shy of stepping forward,

really.

But, yeah, it also kind of preempts possibly another film that, you know,

snowy film like Sandy Kubrick's The Shining, the Stephen King adaptation.

And no way am I suggesting The Satan's Blade. I'm going to have to pull you up

on that one, I'm afraid.

No, but I think the idea of having a kind of a snowy wasteland, which

is. Without getting too symbolic about it, everything is dead and cold, isn't

it? Everything is kind of frozen and cold.

Although they actually say they're only about a mile away from town, and they

actually walk to town, don't they, at some point. So to be honest, they could

run away.

But the idea of isolation in a snowy cabin is the perfect setup for a

slasher movie, definitely.

It's one that really doesn't get utilized as much as it should.

Well, there was rumors that a possible sequel idea to the Friday the 13th

from 2009 was to set it in a snowy landscape. Wasn't there? Yeah, fans have

always been clamoring for a Jason in the snow, and I'm really shocked they

haven't done that. They've sent him to space, to hell.

Why not let him trudge through the snow for one film?

For some reason, I had a flashback or, you know, suddenly my head was just

Mariah Carey doing that Christmas single.

I don't know why.

Well, I went for Christmas with you. Yeah, but Jason instead of Mariah Carey.

That would be fun.

But, yeah, I mean, there's plenty. I mean, there's films like, I know,

you love Iced, don't you?

Oh, I'm a huge fan of Iced.

Lisa Loring.

Yeah. I can't believe I didn't remember that one. That's another Snowbound

slasher. Yeah. I mean, that goes into... Although very tonally different from

Satan's Blade.

Yeah, Satan's Blade is, although, you know, there's joy in the kind of some

acting. I mean, there's some good acting in this and there's some quite, you

know, nothing quite approaching Jodie Drakey in House on Sorority Row. But

of the incidental kind of female characters in it who don't have much to

apart from take the tops off, unfortunately, are certainly not

actresses in the world.

But, you know, there's certainly a joy.

in all of that. But yeah, by the time you got to ICE, which I think was it,

Nathan? 89, I think. I think it was 88.

Okay, well, it's late 80s. Yeah, it's late 80s for sure.

For some reason, I thought it was 87, but... Well, yeah, now that I think of

it's wall -to -wall mullets in ICE, which would suggest 87, probably.

Because by that point, you see, in this kind of film, they've still got that

kind of 70s, not 70s hangover, but it's kind of like there's a serious nature to

it, although it's quite cheesy in a charming kind of way. By the time you

Iced, the filmmakers are very much aware of the clichés and the tropes of the

slasher movie.

And then, of course, you get into films like Jack Frost, don't you, like Killer

Snowman and all those. In Iced, you have the killer hidden inside a snowman.

I was going to mention that.

Satan's Blade may approach some hamminess from time to time, but I don't

it ever reaches the height of the killer using a snowman as a hiding spot.

No, what was that one, the early 2000s one, the one with the snow... Shredder?

Shredder, that was it, yes. That was another one that was very similar to

Not a bad film either. I don't think anything will approach the cheesiness of

1985's Blood Tracks, though, for Snowbound. Oh, yeah, that's another good

Slasher movies, which is a hair metal band shooting a video in Sweden, is it?

Yeah. And coming face -to -face with a clan of cannibals.

Yes, I would love Arrow to pick that up. That would be a great one to do a

commentary for, wouldn't it? It would be amazing. I love blood tracks.

There's just so many levels of love for blood tracks.

I can't even begin to describe them.

I think this is where the film, for me, gets bogged down a little bit in the

soap opera, you know, like these two characters kind of repairing their

marriage, and it's kind of like, well...

You know, that's all very well, but it's kind of this is a slasher movie, and by

this point, and we're now well over halfway through, you would have expected

to be kicking into gear now with the slasher.

Well, don't you feel sad that, you know, they're working on repairing their

marriage only to end up dead?

Well, there's a certain pathos to that, but... I'm totem -osh.

Well, that's the point in these films. You want to see them die.

You don't want to feel sad for their marriage.

I like sometimes when they flesh them out.

Nathan's got a heart of gold.

There was one time I was watching Sleepaway Camp Part 3, and I've

on the podcast before, and I was watching Angela, you know, kill these

and it just suddenly dawned on me, you know, like, that's somebody's daughter.

Like, that's somebody that, you know, people care about, and now they're going

to be dead.

You do realize you're the only person in the history of everything, everywhere

in the entire universe who's had that reaction to Sleepaway Camp Part 3.

Well, and I think he makes a pretty good point. He makes a pretty good point,

actually, because a lot of these films are critic -bashed because, oh, these

characters are stock assembly characters, but Nathan makes a good

these are people.

One of the best examples is The Dormant Dirtblood.

um, Daphne Zuniga's character, like her grandmother is in the hospital and her

family is going to visit her and the killer basically massacres the whole

family. And I just can't imagine what the grandma felt when the grandma was

basically told, Oh, none of your family's showing up. They're all dead.

Yeah. And, and not to mention that Daphne Zuniga's family had nothing to do

anything. They just showed up just to die.

Yeah, I mean, not to spoil the movie, and I'm not going to spoil anything, but

when you find out the motive, there was no need to kill any of them.

You show a lot more empathy for these people than I do. I mean, I can well up

Carrie or maybe the very last scene in Prom Night, but when it comes to

Sleepaway Camp Part 3, I'm kind of, I have a heart of stone, I'm afraid.

I would say it must be exhausting watching slasher movies, Nathan, if you

empathize with the characters that much.

Yeah. I just put my all into them.

Okay. I guess people get different things out of these films.

So they do work on not just a cellular level.

That's not to say I can't – I mean, I love slasher movies. It's my favorite.

every once in a while, I feel like I just get in this mood where I'm just

thinking, oh, man, like beyond the movie, I guess.

Yeah, fair enough. Well, let's talk a bit, the other thing I was going to

mention, another example.

coming back to Satan's Blade and its comparison to other films. And again, I

keep on coming back to these comparisons for Friday the 13th, and I know they're

incidental, but one of the interesting things about Satan's Blade is it's,

although we now know who the killer is, and I think we've already spoiled it, so

hopefully you've already watched the film and you know the film before

to the commentary, is it's a mystery, isn't it? It's essentially you don't

So if you're watching fresh for the first time...

You're having to guess who the killer is. It's Toyah?

It could be Toyah. Well, we know it's not Toyah. But is it this hulking

man? Is it the supernatural legend? Or is it somebody who's much more earthly?

Is it one of the other characters?

And what you get, again, coming back to the stylistic borrowing from

Halloween, is the point -of -view shot, which gets used a lot more

later on in the film. Although, as we said many, many times before, Halloween

itself wasn't... The Flash movie didn't start...

start with halloween um you know it was many films came into the melting pot

that kind of made halloween essentially and the pov shot that was um so much

recognized and so much um signifies uh kind of the early 80s fashion movie was

kind of used right back from robert siddermark's kind of spiral staircase

know probably even before that stuff like peeping tom as well exactly exactly

but certainly um i'm under no illusions the reason that satan's blade was made,

and again, going back to what Scott Costello Jr. said, it was made because

wanted to make money, and it was a surefire way to make money, although

or not the film ever did make money, I honestly don't know.

I mean, one of the interesting things when I talked about the Halloween,

my review is still up, and it's still...

it's still kind of disparaging by saying, you know, that basically it

Friday the 13th. And obviously now I acknowledge publicly that it didn't.

But I did get an email from the director's daughter several years ago

telling me in no uncertain terms it didn't rip off Friday the 13th. But

certainly...

It borrows a lot. And it had an eye on the financial cash cow that was

Halloween, which is fair enough, let's face it.

Movies are not made, most movies are not made as art.

They're not made to lose money, they're made to make money.

And I find joy, and I know we all do collectively in the early 80s slasher

boom, there's something to be loved in pretty much every early 80s slasher

movie, be they good, bad or ugly.

And I would say, you know, Satan's Blade definitely has grown on me, and I think

it really does ramp up the action towards the end, doesn't it? I say, or

back to the fact that I would prefer it, I think it would be a better film if it

was more, if it was paced more evenly, and you had, you know, like many fashion

movies at the time would employ the kind of trick of so -and -so's gone out to

fix the generator and doesn't come back, and so -and -so doesn't do this and

doesn't come back.

But what you have in this is several kind of mini -massacres, don't you,

which I think is just one that's coming up now.

And then you do get the chase scene towards the end.

Well, if this was filmed in early 1980, I suggested, then the template hadn't

been set in stone at this stage. So, you know, they really didn't know what

formula to follow if they were trying to cash in on the slasher movies.

Well, the one thing that I really appreciate about Satan's Blade and a lot

slasher films in particular, and obviously you three know this about me,

I always like the technical stuff, how a lot of these films share a lot of

similar tricks, and certainly Satan's Blade does that as well.

I think they kind of go above and beyond, you know, just the general

photography, you know, especially pertaining to the outdoor scenes. I

know, as low budget as this film is, some of the, you know, exteriors are

of the most beautiful I've seen in any film. And, you know, this being such a

low budget, that's kind of a marvel.

Even in something like Don't Go in the Woods Alone, they've got some great

exterior shots. Oh, yes.

I definitely agree there.

because they have just the most spectacular backdrop in which to set

Yeah.

At this point, when you've got the killer's now moved, well, he's kind of

into the cabin with all the girlfriends.

Again, you don't know who this person is, do you, at this point? I mean, if

you're watching the film afresh, it's still a mystery.

And I kind of guess, I wonder if it was set up to be, you know, for us to think

it was either, you know, Tom Giorgione's Buongiorno.

Just call him Tom. I'll call him Tom.

Very bad.

I'm learning Spanish at the moment.

I love the shot of the, I think it's the best shot in the movie, actually, of

the dead, the woman who's been killed and washing up. It's a split diopter, it

looks like shot, because they're both in focus and she's in the background and

she's in the foreground.

I never noticed that before. It's a very good shot. The actress does a good job

of not blinking. I always keep my eyes on her to see.

Do you remember the blinking corpse at the start of Zombie Holocaust, which

causes much merriment?

Oh, yes. Don't shoot me, but that shot was very Brian De Palma.

Kind of nice.

Oh, come on, Sue, really.

The film's already been declared as... The Shining.

Influencing The Shining, so you might as well call it a big influence on Brian

De Palma as well. Yeah.

I didn't say it influenced The Shining. I just said it shared a similar locale.

But, yeah, fair enough. But I think also that kind of split -screen thing with

the focus was very much used in Happy Birthday to Me as well. Yeah, Halloween

did it as well with the old man sitting in a chair and the woman in the kitchen

in the beginning.

Now, this whole sequence here is severely truncated on the VHS release

have, like this woman writhing on the bed after being stabbed is gone

completely. And, you know, huge chunks of the sequence are gone, which is, you

know, amounts much of the from much of the three minutes, 35 seconds that was

cut, which I'm still astonished by. I know it was 1987, but I'm still

that that much was cut from the movie.

Well, back in the time, back in those days, they were censoring video covers,

weren't they? Right up until relatively recently.

But, yeah, no, they were just cutting everything out. I think it was Burial

Ground, the Italian zombie movie, I think was released like a 40 -minute

or something ridiculous like that on video because so much was cut out.

I do. I remember renting City of the Living Dead, the Fulci movie, on a label

called Elephant, and it was about an hour long, I think, and it's a 90

movie.

It's kind of a good joke I heard. I don't remember where I heard it, but

about censorship and scenes like this, getting cut, people writhing and being

stabbed, you always kind of wonder if it would be kind of neat if the censors

were just kind of like smarmy assholes. Instead of cutting out the gore, they're

like, you know, I don't like this character and this goes on too long.

that and just focus on the gore instead. I thought that would be kind of funny.

Well, I think one of the other problems, I suppose, is that the victims are all

scantily clad and or naked.

So that was a big no -no back in the day.

Yeah, I was just saying the censors should have went after the plotting

of the gore.

Yeah, they should have cut out the repairing the marriage scenes.

I think that one of the big no -nos back in the time was the blood on breasts as

well. Yeah, which we've just seen. The BBFC said it was a rape trigger, in

words, quite how they worked that out, I don't know.

But again, that scene with the killer closing in on the woman in the corner is

quite cruel, but it's effective.

But again, I don't know, I can't help but compare it to the scene in Friday

13th Part 2, isn't there, with the woman being, she's cowering in the corner

with Jason kind of...

walk slowly towards her.

I suppose there's only so many set -ups, isn't there, in a slasher movie,

ultimately.

But now we know that pretty much all the... Where is Stephanie?

I think she's gone out for a moody stroll because she can't get her man.

A moody stroll, that's a good...

I like – I'm sorry. I was just going to say I like it when films kind of – they

manage to kill off a lot of people, but the main portion, the main cast, I like

it when they don't really – they're not really aware that they're in danger

until towards the end of the film. It kind of gives it that sense of dread

almost. That for me is the classic slasher movie formula is where the

sort of unaware of the massacre until sort of the final 10, 15 minutes.

Yeah. I mean, it also cuts down on a lot of stupid character decisions because

if they find out in the first five minutes, they could easily just run

So I kind of like that they save it for, I guess, as the punchline toward the

end, as it were.

Although these girls were warned there was a murder just the night before, or

two murders the night before in their cabin. So they only have themselves to

blame. Yeah, but at this rate, they're getting the cabin. It's worth it.

True.

So from this point onwards, the last 10, 15 minutes, the film definitely ramps

up the action, doesn't it? It does, yeah. I think it's very, very effective.

So now we've got, again, the old classic of finding the...

all the friends dead which of course is what happened with Jamie Lee Curtis is

Laurie Strode in Halloween isn't it but in this case she does run next door and

she actually gets in whereas in Halloween Laurie Strode is everyone

so I didn't copy that bit but I always thought that was a really kind of

effective but cruel moment in Halloween

where everyone thinks it's a halloween prank but in fact she's actually being

chased by michael myers i think the one thing this film is missing and i think i

think eric would probably agree is that um because i know he he has a particular

love for this type of thing is uh you know they show the killer just his hand

mostly i think this film's missing like uh i guess a good costume or a mask yeah

i love i do love a masked killer i think it just makes it more eerie

I guess they threw that in with the troll killer in the dream sequence, but

could have had that killer throughout.

I guess the whole idea in some ways is keeping the mystery angle,

isn't it? Because at this point, you don't know whether or not the two guys

next door are involved in this or who it is. Although, I guess now...

Well, coming back, they've been out, haven't they? So it kind of rules them

But it's still operating as a mystery up until this point.

That tapestry there that looks like a giant X is also under the stairs in the

cabin next door. I don't know if they went and bought them en masse from Ikea

something. They probably just moved it between shots.

Yeah, yeah.

I did see, because I was looking to see if this film had any AKAs, also known

as, and apparently I read somewhere that it was shot under the title The Devil's

Mountain.

I don't know if that's the case, because certainly we're talking a little bit

about how the cast and crew didn't know this film had even got released, because

there are certain films like Savage Water that we've done a commentary for.

which never got released in the United States. There's other slasher movies

Hanging Heart that never got released, that was made in Los Angeles, never got

released in the U .S., just got releases in, well, not obscure, but countries

like Brazil and Poland and places like that.

But if you go to IMDb and look at the message board for Satan's Blade, it goes

back now, because obviously the Internet's been around now for a good

years. It goes back to the early 2000s, and there's some of the cast and crew

chatting about the film, swapping stories, trying to get in touch with

other, and just amazed that anyone had

even heard of this film.

And I know that Stephanie Lee Steele, she

said that she hired the video and she watched it with her three children, and

they all had a good laugh.

Sorry,

she was saying it was a cringy experience.

I love when they always block the doors with stuff that's easily moved.

Especially against somebody of the might of Jason, which happens a lot.

It reminds me, not to keep talking about different films, but it reminds me of

the movie Scream, also known as The Outing, where he props the two -by

just lays it against the door, doesn't even wedge it under the doorknob or

anything.

That 2x4 will stop that invisible killer.

Well, how about placing some runestones in a circle to stop Michael Myers in

Halloween 6?

The less sad about that film, the better.

And one thing...

Justin, did you watch that interview with the director where he says that the

shot of the blade glowing when it's stuck in the tree was done by an

Industrial Light and Magic?

And they spent $3 ,000 on it?

I did.

Do we believe? Is that true or is that just a false memory?

I don't know. I don't know. I guess we have to believe the director. I have to

believe the director, but apparently the glowing effect of the blade in the tree

was done by somebody at Industrial Light and Magic for $3 ,000.

$3 ,000 is a lot of money for just what is essentially just a matte effect or

something. Yeah, I know. It's all 10 seconds to render.

Exactly, which makes me question it.

Gosh, he looks like Sadako from Ringu there.

There's no TV behind her.

Yeah.

So we're kind of getting down to the kind of nitty gritty now, aren't we?

of the, you know, bumping off the cost one by one in kind of classic.

I assume everyone has watched the movie at this stage, but it is surprising that

Stephanie gets killed at the end.

I mean, it looks like she's just managed to escape. She put the stab wound to

the stomach, but then she's chased.

Spoiler, Eric.

No, but it is. I mean, there are a number of slasher movies. I probably

shouldn't mention them because that would be a spoiler, but there are a

of slasher movies out there where the person you think is going to be the

girl gets killed in the end.

I think Nathan has a hatred for the final girl dying.

No, not necessarily.

What I hate more than anything is when a girl survives one movie only to get

killed in the sequel.

That's what I really hate.

Adrienne King.

She's alive, so that's all I can say about that.

Okay. Nathan is firmly in the opinion that the opening sequence of Friday the

13th Part II is just a dream.

Yep. And Laurie Strode is still alive.

I imagine if you're listening to this commentary you probably know that fact

already.

I would think so.

This is despite the fact that in Friday the 13th, Part 2, you see a corpse at

the Mrs. Voorhees Temple altar with a screwdriver in it. That was a lookalike.

That was somebody else. That was somebody else. That was somebody else.

He's doing a lot of mental gymnastics. Jason was sleepwalking is what was

happening. He was sleepwalking, and he dreamed that he killed Alice, but he

really killed somebody else.

Yeah, Sue.

He killed Sue.

He killed Sue, yeah, poor Sue.

So just out of interest, I mean, do you think, I mean, with a film like this sat

on the shelf and disappeared into all but obscurity, I mean, back in the day

when you could collect videos, it was finding these movies before the

I mean, literally, you know, you couldn't find anything out about them at

which was part of the fun, I kind of guess, and certainly with Satan's Blade,

it's trying to find out stuff. I think I read in my review, I could find nothing

about this movie.

And since I found out, you know, a fair bit about it.

And, you know, who would believe that a film, well, any film of this kind of low

budget film from the early 1980s, even the director was kind of kind of wowed

the fact that people putting it on Blu -ray and the Arrow was lavish. Arrow did

a spectacular Blu -ray release last year of Blood Rage, which is a film I would

never imagine would get such lavish treatment.

I mean, it's a slightly higher profile.

Well, it is a higher profile release than Satan's Blade. But still, it's

that movies like that and The Mutilator as well would be another one that are

getting the Blu -ray treatment.

And they look spectacular.

I mean, they're movies that you see on VHS growing up and you think, oh,

just, you know, they were made for tuppence. But actually, when you see

restored, they're really, really nice to look at.

Absolutely.

And I think that's one of the things is when back in the day watching some of

these videos and they would be...

you know, full screen.

And like I mentioned this before, but I used to watch Luccio Fulci movies on Pan

and Scan VHS back in the day. And not only were they cut, there was lots of

zooming in on the bridges of noses because...

because he wasn't doing that himself.

We used to laugh at that, thinking, my God, what on earth is he doing? But, of

course, forgetting that these were beautiful widescreen, very well

composition films.

And so, again, having lived with a VHS copy of Seconds Played for

many years, to actually see it restored like this, although...

It's not going to win any awards.

It works even better when you can actually see everything. And in fact,

the limitations, and I think the cast were saying there weren't many lights

they used, and I could see that, especially in this scene. I mean, you're

much going by the light of the torch.

It's still pretty well shot, isn't it?

And the fact is you can, on old muddy VHS copies, sometimes a scene like this,

you wouldn't be able to tell what was going on.

And for those of us who lived back in the day when you had to swap videos

because many of them were illegal and you would have the nth generation ones,

sometimes it would be so muddy, all you could hear is grunting and shapes, kind

of abstract shapes moving around and it becomes like a muddy soup on screen. So

to see them restored like this is a dream come true for many genre fans like

ourselves. A lot of purists, you know, they prefer VHS because of the

And I do love VHS.

I love the vibe. gone days of collecting them but let's just face it vhs you

know quickly just degrades with each watch rather quickly and that's the good

thing about digital is they take you know this original print and then it'll

last forever so you know it's well as i said i was watching my vhs copy of

satan's blade from the few vhs copies i still have i sold off most of my

collection but The quality on it is appalling. I mean, it is like, as Justin

said, it's an original copy, but it's like an nth generation dupe.

Just the quality on it is really bad. I mean, it's nice to have as an artifact

because the artwork is nice.

It has a nice retro feel, but VHS wouldn't be something I could go back to

the same way that I've gone back to vinyl.

It's such a stark contrast.

You watch this on VHS, and you're like, what's going on? And then Arrow does

such a good job here of restoring it. You're like, wow, this is like a...

completely different movie almost.

Absolutely. I mean, talking of the cinematography, as we mentioned before,

Terry Kempf who did, I think, quite a lot of second unit directing on this.

He's one of the few people, but people who've gone on to do other things. And

although I think this is only credit to the cinematographer, I think he works in

the art department now and he's got lots of credits. In fact, he's actually, I

think his latest one, he's working on the new Independence Day movie.

Oh. So from small beginnings. Yeah.

Again, and here we go back to yet another comparison with Friday the 13th

with Amy still under the bed and you've got Stephanie still under the bed. And

then when her... No rat though, no rat.

That bit is like something in Wrong Turn. There's a similar scene where a

died.

Biting your hand just to keep quiet.

Yeah, or in Michele Suave's stage fright. There's a similar scene where

hiding in the shower cubicle and she can see her friend being killed.

It does make you wonder if they hired out the

cabins the next day after this.

Probably did. I told you not to hide the money.

Don't hide the money in the vent because it always gets found.

So this is the killer taking the money out, I assume, and was that his sole

reason for killing everyone?

I think it's just an added bonus.

Yeah.

I'm rich.

I avenged Satan's will. Now I'm going to go spend some money. Satan's cash.

Yeah.

Tithe. Tithe to Satan.

It's a little bit odd there here, is it? Because it looks like it was daylight

outside, and now it looks like it's nighttime outside, although I might be

wrong. But it does, unless all the curtains are drawn.

But she's done the sensible thing, hasn't she? Hide under the bed until the

killer has gone, or has he? We'll soon find out. Hard to escape, you know,

loud clodhoppers she's wearing.

Poor Neil Diamond.

I think it's funny, because ever since I've been doing hysteria, I never

imagined, I've spoken about this before, about people in these movies 30 years

ago searching themselves, but they do, people do, of course everyone searches

themselves, and my favourite one, so I mentioned it before, was the woman from

The Nurse from The Last Lumber Party, who I said looked like she was on horse

tranquilizers.

Thankfully, she laughed. And then there was the woman from... Movie House

Massacre? Movie House Massacre, who thanked me for smashing her breasts all

the internet.

So it's kind of like, you know, there's some disconnect there, but hopefully

most of them realise that it all comes from a place of love.

But unfortunately, this is the end for Stephanie.

And here we find out that the killer is...

I think somebody compared him a bit to Dewey in the Scream series. Yeah, very

much so, isn't he?

Yeah. So you don't expect the policeman to be the killer. And in fact, actually,

it's one of the rare early 80s fashion movies doesn't have a fat policeman.

Because you've usually got the fat sheriff, haven't you? Yeah. The

sheriff. Yeah, it's missing that element.

The smoking the bandit sheriff, yeah.

Yeah. Now, Justin, your opinion obviously has changed since you wrote

review for History of Lives about Satan's Blade.

I think you gave it one out of five for this?

Yeah, one and a half out of five.

But again, at the time when I started doing the website, I was doing

reviews. I was comparing everything.

See, that's the problem I had as well, yeah.

And now that I've watched all these movies and I've gone back to them, I get

from them in a different way.

And I kind of judge them on their own merits. And of course, the Flash movie

very...

You know, by its very nature, it's kind of cannibalistic. It kind of feeds off

itself and off the tropes and everything. But there's a lot to be

Satan's Blade.

You know, it's not the perfect movie, as we said, but there's a lot to like in

it.

And I would certainly rate it higher now than I did. How about you guys? What

about you, Nathan?

Oh,

I love Satan's Blade.

I mean, I would rate it extremely high.

I would give it maybe like four out of five stars.

Okay. Well, Nathan does have a reputation for liking certain types of

You probably all would like Satan's Blade, but my reaction would be similar

yours, Justin. When I bought this VHS and not knowing anything about it, I

it when I got home to watch it. Now, it was censored and it was an awful print

with awful sound, so that didn't help matters really at all.

But, you know, my...

horror movie viewing habits back then were much the same. I wanted everything

be glossy and Friday the 13th -ish. And if it wasn't, then I didn't like it.

But, you know, I've done a complete 180 on loads of these movies since.

I mean, there was a time when I didn't like Pieces or Bloody Moon, which are

two of my favourite films of all time.

So, you know, my opinions do change. And there are reviews I've done for your

website where I would like to go back and revisit them. And because my opinion

has changed, it's like, why was I so harsh on Sorority House Massacre? It's

actually kind of fun.

Maybe I can get you to re -watch Crazy Fat Ethel 2.

I'm washing my hair.

Oh, well, darn.

How about you, Joseph?

Yeah, it's similar.

I'd find a lot of these films in old video shops or resale shops, and I would

compare them to the higher budget films, especially in the mid-'90s when the

screen boom was out and everything was all glossy.

You'd be like, this is terrible, but it's really no way to judge a film. You

need to judge it on its own merits, and certainly with this restoration.

that Arrow is done to Satan's Blade, you actually get to see and hear what's

going on as it's meant to be in it. It really is, I mean, it's a low -budget

film.

It's old hat, but it's really well shot.

It's, you know, for the most part, pretty well acted.

It's edited well.

I mean, I'd say it's a decent to good movie, you know, maybe three out of five

stars for me.

Cool. Okay. Well, we're coming up to the end of the movie, although we're not

quite there yet. I mean, if there was a sequel to Satan's Blade, I mean, I know

the director said that he was hoping there would be one at some point, or he

hoping to do one.

What would your ideas for it be?

What would you like to see? I'd call it Jesus' Blade.

My version would be a group of people come up the day after this massacre,

the cabins, The massacre continues.

Yeah.

Would it be a different killer or the same killer?

I'd have somebody else find the blade.

Yeah. I think maybe a – I'm not super fond of remakes, but if they were to

remake something like this and call it Satan's Blade, maybe the killer dressed

as a gaudy -looking Satan kind of character would be interesting.

Because I'm not sure, are there any allusions whatsoever to the actual

tale of Satan or the character of Satan? I mean, or is that

just the title? I mean, has anyone ever mentioned Satan at all? I don't think

Satan does get mentioned in the movie.

I guess just an evocative title to use maybe? Yeah, exactly.

I mean, it's really just the tale, isn't it, that the old woman tells in the

lodge at reception that kind of hints that it's some kind of demonic presence,

some kind of boogeyman, sort of like Yeti or like a Madman Mars -style kind

character. And again, it almost kind of hints back to films increasingly.

Through the early 80s, when looking to make slightly more fantastical films

this, taking the lead from Halloween and less so, say, from Friday the 13th,

although arguably you could say that that goes forward, but films like Ghost

Dance that use Indian legends and films like that, increasingly throughout the

80s, there was more of a supernatural bent.

And then, of course, you're coming up here now for the, not a big reveal, but

your kind of carry moment, which is kind of your scores of...

Sort of Excalibur. That was the hand out of the water. That's the poster that I

think they did for the Puerto Rican drive -in that I saw in the

ad bill I was talking about earlier.

And there's the expensive special effects.

$3 ,000.

Wow. Well spent. Well spent.

Well, they got to use it twice in the movie. And this fisherman coming down

hill now is the director, Scott Castillo Jr.

So use it twice at least it paid for itself.

Yeah. True.

Yeah, didn't he say, I read that he threw the blade and had to run down the

really fast and then walk up all in one shot, which is very well done.

Yeah.

Yes.

But, yes, well, I hope you've enjoyed that, well, our commentary for Satan's

Blade for the Arrow release.

We are collectively The Hysteria Continues, as the film continues

if you've enjoyed what we said, then please join us every other week, more or

less. We're up to about 121 episodes now, and we choose a slasher movie each

time. You can find us on iTunes. Just search for Hysteria Continues or

And, yes, we've enjoyed covering it. And the legend continues, or does it? You

know, will we see? Hopefully Arrow's release will be such a success that the

legend will indeed continue.

But I hope you guys have enjoyed talking about Saints Play today. Loved it,

yeah. Big fan of early 80s slasher movies. Oh, it's amazing.

Well, there you go. What better recommendation could you get? So I'm not

sure how long these credits go on, but we will bid you a fond adieu now.

And yeah, enjoy the rest of Extras on Clayton's Blade.