The Devil's Sword

Year releasted: 1984

by Noel Murray
July 26th, 2006

Also known as: Golok Setan

Tagline: "An outrageous journey into a world where sex and magic breed monsters."

Plot: Meteor! An old man working some kind of weird milking machine! The forging of a big-ass sword! A bevy of bottomless water nymphs! A strangely chaste sex ritual! A rock-riding machete-man busting up a wedding! A hero on horseback! A squadron of kickfighting crocodile men! More chaste sex, on a rotating dais surrounded by fire! Glowing mushrooms! That's more or less the first half-hour of The Devil's Sword, a Turkish sword-and-chop-socky epic that people shouldn't watch late at night unless they want to feel like they're already dreaming.

Key scenes: While a circle of villagers surround the machete-man and feign herky-jerky "I may rush you at any minute" moves, he silences the crowd by squeezing his blades around some dude's head and popping it right off. (Though later, a village woman with a twirling umbrella defeats him.) Meanwhile, horseback hero Barry Prima evades the wooden-saw-bearing crocodile-men who jump onto his pontoon boat, and he makes his way to a booby-trapped cave guarded by a Cyclops, so he can retrieve the super-powerful, super-sparkly "devil's sword."

Can easily be distinguished by: A strange kind of sexual reserve that allows its sultry heroines to show their bare behinds, but only if they keep their bikini tops on. Also distinct: overly literalized overdubbed dialogue along the lines of, "It seems that the evil warriors are no longer united. If that is the case, we have no choice but to do battle, as was suggested earlier by our companion."

Sign that it was made in 1984: Though the story is set hundreds of years ago, nearly everyone in it—male and female—looks like Steve Perry on Journey's Frontiers tour.

Timeless message: If you stumble across a machete-wielding maniac terrorizing a wedding party, maybe it's best not to get involved.

Memorable quotes: Prima: "I do get involved, especially when force is used without reasonable cause!" Machete-man: "Bastard!"

 

Available on DVD from Mondo Macabro.