Satan’s Blade is a 1984 slasher film from writer/director L. Scott Castillo Jr. It’s the only film written and/or directed by Castillo. Take that last bit of information as you will.

Although completed in 1984, Satan’s Blade was reportedly shot a few years earlier, possibly as early as 1980. The film was released to home video (VHS) by Prism Entertainment the same year, with a release from Canadian distributor Galaxy Video following in 1985. Satan’s Blade also received a reissue in 1989 from “budget” home video distributor StarMaker Entertainment in 1989. After being relatively lost to obscurity for some years, the film received a 30th-anniversary Blu-ray release in May of 2015 from Slasher//Video, a short-lived sub-label of the also-now-defunct Olive Films.

I first reviewed Satan’s Blade upon its blu-ray release. I’ve deleted that review as I’ve always considered it to be very poorly written. More so than this review. While I did tend to focus more on plot points than anything else in that review, the general opinion was that I was not particularly impressed with the film and could understand why there had not been much conversation regarding it for the previous 30 years. Simply put, there are multiple slasher films that released during the era that were either better made or, for whatever reasons, far more memorable and are generally much more discussed and dissected.

Not the killer

In the film, various travelers find misfortune and death waiting for them at the cabins of a small mountainside resort. Local legend speaks of an ancient mountain man who, angered by the encroachment of the civilized world upon his land, sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for a knife with which to seek his revenge. Not sure why he couldn’t just use a normal knife, but that approach doesn’t make for quite as interesting storytelling. It’s said that he became cursed by the knife, killing not only the incoming settlers, but also his own family and, eventually, himself… which doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense, but we’ll just go with it.

However, despite this premise, Satan’s Blade actually opens with a bank robbery. Two armed assailants sexually assault and murder a pair of female bank tellers before retreating to their cabin resort hideaway. In a somewhat surprising twist, the robbers are revealed to also be women. This choice proves to be primarily for exploitative reasons as both women soon find themselves discussing the heist while nude or in their underwear. One betrays the other, gunning her down in the cabin’s bathroom, but is soon killed herself after being knifed in the back by an unseen attacker.

Police are called in, which is where the viewer learns that a similar crime took place in the same area some years back. Yet, the crime scene is never actually closed off. In fact, it’s not even all that cleaned up as there is still a large blood stain on the wall when the cabin is rented out to the next group of vacationers that show up. In this case, a group of young college-aged women. Also checking in at the resort are two married couples out to celebrate one of the husbands having recently passed the bar exam. However, he quickly angers his wife by being a little too flirty with one of these women, which ensures that he will be doing little celebrating on this trip.

Despite being seen as a slasher, the kills don’t resume until about an hour in. Instead, Satan’s Blade spends the bulk of its runtime focusing on one couple’s insecurities. Mostly, it’s one whiney wife’s insecurities, but as this younger woman is indeed trying to get into her man’s pants, there is some validity to her worries. When our still unseen killer does finally return, the film takes another “sexploitative” turn befitting of its era, featuring the girls in varying states of undress as their number is thinned out. However, slasher fans will probably be disappointed to discover that these sequences are quite tame, somewhat drawn-out, and generally over-acted. As mentioned in my original review for the film, Satan’s Blade also uses this moment to emulate a much better made and better regarded slasher film, 1978’s Halloween, by filming the majority these murders from the killer’s perspective.

Satan’s Blade concludes with something of a supernatural tilt as it exposes its killer. The approach is much more akin to TV’s “Friday the 13th: The Series” than it is that film franchise, but it works quite well here. There’s a closing scene featuring a lake that does bare some similarities to the ending of the original Friday the 13th film, but feels more inspired by the legend of Excalibur than it is the legend of Jason Voorhees. Then again, I could easily be wrong. 

All in all, Satan’s Blade is nothing more than an amateurish effort to cash in on the earliest days of the “slasher film” craze. Acting is pretty weak and unconvincing across the board, there’s not much of a plot, and horror fans are sure to be disappointed waiting an hour between a few fairly bloodless kill scenes. There’s a piano and synth-driven score, but it too lacks polish and occasionally comes off as droning. The boom mic also makes numerous appearances, possibly garnering more screen time than any of the actors, which I found to be highly amusing and something of a mild blessing.

However, Satan’s Blade’s most egregious flaw is found in its editing… or apparent lack there of. Shots tend to linger on awkwardly longer than they should, and there seems to be an almost obsessive level of attention spent on trivial aspects, such as the two riveting sequences of an air conditioning vent being removed and replaced. This sense of “padding” especially applies to the film’s exorbitant number of exterior driving shots.

Satan’s Blade does leave the door open for a sequel with end credit text exclaiming that “The Legend Continues”. Thankfully, the legend did not continue and a sequel was never produced. As Satan’s Blade was pretty much forgotten about for 30 years and barely talked about now, it’s probably safer to say that the “legend” never truly began.

As I stated in the closing of my original review of Satan’s Blade more than a decade ago, “Hardcore slasher devotees may find something of interest, as might fans of obscure/forgotten films. I can not recommend this one enough to fans of boom mics. However, casual fans will most likely be bored… if they aren’t scared off by the atrocious acting.” 11 years later, my opinion hasn’t changed.Â