Satan's Blade Blu-ray+DVD

The malefically named 'Satan's Blade' was an ice cool, low budget, snow-bound Slasher shot in 1980 which sadly only enjoyed an all too limited home video release in '84, now meritoriously resurrected on a beauteous Blu-ray by Arrow Video in 2016, so stab-happy slasher freaks can finally experience one of the more idiosyncratic mountaintop massacres since fellow iconoclast Edwin Scott Brown's no less loopy-Lou 'The Prey' in '84! No one will ever claim indie director L. Scott Castillo, Jr. Of having spawned an unheralded, blood-spattered, Drive-In disaster-piece with his brimstone-born 'Satan's Blade' but it's undeniably wacked-out charm, earnest filmmaking pluck and truly bizarre opening gambit making it more personable than so many other hackneyed backwoods B-movie barnstormers of the time. Taking a winter break high in the picturesque, Californian snow-capped mountains, straight shooter Tony (Tom Bongiorno) and his boisterous pal Al (Thomas Cue) hire a lakeside cabin to stay along with their wives, all hoping to enjoy all the scenic, albeit chilly amenities available to them. Not long after being ominously told about the grisly legend concerning an indigenous mountain madman that the vacationing couples and the bodacious B-girl's in the adjacent shack succumb to the pulpy narrative of vengeful, lake-languishing spirit as some unseen, knife-wielding wack job zealously stalks the glamorous gash before the inevitably bloody, cabin raiding slash! The 'performances' vary quixotically from monotonous line-readings to delightfully dotty drunk aunt at the Xmas party and therein lies 'Satan's Blade' indomitable charm and much of its glistering lure for frequent watchability, bluntly put, this is the real deal folks, not merely some cynical, retrograde cash grab, since the director, while plainly inexperienced, clearly aimed to make a 'serious movie' joyfully wins you over with his sheer, bravura enthusiasm, while it's an outrageously dumb, occasionally static movie, it's also frequently fabulous, both intentionally, the dream sequence is an especially potent pulse-quickening shocker and the plethora of unintentional gaffes and absurd dialogue elevate 'Satan's Blade' to that of a seminal, idiot savant slasher classic.