SATAN'S BLADE – Slasher films might be the most formulaic of genre product, but quite a few of them, mostly the ones made by regional independent filmmakers, are downright weird. In the last couple of years, Arrow and 88 have revamped many of these eccentrics, films which might be seen by many as being down at the bottom of the slasher barrel – the likes of 'X Ray', 'Blood Rage' etc etc. 'Satan's Blade' looks set to join this illustrious list, for at least a few minutes of its run time anyway. It opens with a bank robbery which segues into a double murder in an isolated cabin. At this point, 'Satan's Blade' is hitting all the right buttons, being creakily made, casually sordid and laughably violent. It looks and feels like a dirty exploitation film with goods to deliver. After the focus shifts onto the escapades of two groups of holiday makers who rent said isolated cabin, things take a bit of a dive. 'Satan's Blade's main problem is that it's really boring. That's a shame, because it's bookended by some good stuff – the opening with the robbers, and the end, which at least delivers some solid slashing, an atmosphere of doom and an absolutely crazy rationale for the killings which almost blasts the film into orbit. But the filling of this sandwich is not good. Some will find sustenance in the bad acting – seriously, there's some really bad acting here, of the kind that seems nearly parodic. It's as if the ensemble have some kind of social co-ordination deficit. This is charming (or, if you're not a fan, distracting and ruinous) for a while, but there's just too much wandering about and irrelevance. People go fishing, get drunk, go on soul searching walks in the snowy woods. You can try to enliven it by concentrating on the bad aesthetics, and there are a couple of effective horror sequences here and there, but it's dull. However, despite being the jaded hack that I am, I've sat through so much shit over the years that sometimes even a glimmer of originality, or a certain image in the right place at the right time, can save a film for me. And so it is with 'Satan's Blade', which certainly wins a few crowns for its bonkers concept – a weapon inhabited by the spirit of a 'giant man' from the mountains that possesses its 'victim', turns them into a slasher, then hops from host to host via a plot device that seems to be based on Arthurian legend. Quite dizzying, and I wish the whole enterprise had lived up to this level of mentalness. As it stands, 'Satan's Blade' will certainly appeal to fans of knackered eighties freakishness, but be prepared for a lengthy trudge midstream.
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