Abominable Advent Calendar Day 21: The Devil’s Sword (1984)
Crapsterpiece Category: AnythingSploitation
Heads up: nudity, violence, special defects
Like the team that created 1981’s Mystics in Bali, the makers of 1984’s The Devil’s Sword took full advantage of the relaxed rules on exploitation cinema during Indonesia’s New Order Era to create an extravaganza of violence, gore, sex, martial arts, magic, and monsters. And like Mystics in Bali, The Devil’s Sword is both bonkers and a hell of a lot of fun.
The gorgeous Alligator Queen is bored with her many boy toys in her underwater grotto, so she sends one of her warriors to kidnap a man from his own wedding. The warrior crashes the wedding and dispatches half the village, grabbing the groom. Our hero, famous Indonesian martial arts action star Barry Prima, teams up with the bride (who is pretty decent at martial arts herself) to find the Devil’s Sword, which will allow them to overthrow the Alligator Queen and rescue the groom. The Queen is also after the sword, and so are four magicians in a side plot that seems unnecessary but is highly entertaining.
The Devil’s Sword is loaded with fights, blood, gore, and cheap but lovingly designed special defects. This is another film where the makers didn’t have a lot of money, but they were creative and did the most with what they had. There’s a cyclops whose eye is obviously a car headlight; plenty of trademark Indonesian exploitation flying guillotines; crocodile men that make the ones in Alligator People look like Jurassic Park; a witch who is cut in half and puts herself together again before blowing up; decapitations and flying limbs galore; magic mushrooms; a Charon-like skeleton boatman; booby traps, including dragon statues with laser eyes; a guy flying on a rock; and all sorts of other crazy stuff. In other words, it’s full of schlock-and-awe moments, it’s one of the more fun Barry Prima films, and it’s utterly bonkers.
