A legendary insane film which has become almost mythical in status, this is probably THE weirdest, most bizarre film ever to come from the Philippines. Pete Tombs' invaluable tome Mondo Macabro states that the film was made in 1974 whereas most internet resources claim it was nine years later. I'm inclined to believe the latter guys, especially considering that the (primitive) level of special effects in the movie would have been incredibly advanced for the Filipino guys if this was indeed made in the early '70s. Legends persist of a longer cut of the movie containing so-called "snuff footage" which I find hard to believe, but any version is a classic of so-bad-it's-good cinema. After a slow, uneven start, the film picks up speed to offer a blistering second half of cheesy action, even cheesier effects, and a total lack of coherence and cohesion all round.
The basic storyline consists of an overweight guy in a red jump-suit calling himself the "Prince of Magic" who does evil things like spinning people's heads around like they're Linda Blair. The village elders are powerless against himself and only one man, Lando, can defeat the baddie. Lando is played by Filipino leading man Ramon Revilla who is marginally less wooden than the rest of the cast, although he's no one's idea of an action hero, possessing neither good looks or muscles. I guess the only reason he was cast so often as the hero was because he was kind of tall. Anyway, Lando is having a bad time of it, suffering unintentionally hilarious nightmares in which he witnesses his uncle getting crushed to a pulp by a huge boulder - a special effect which reaches new lows of "special".
After some bad dialogue, worse dubbing, and lots of to-ing and fro-ing between bizarre characters, including a mute kid, his god-like dad and Lando's hottie wife, Lando finds himself meeting the waterlogged corpse of his dead uncle (who jumps up out of the sea on to his boat like Jason in Friday the 13th) and inheriting his magical abilities which involve shooting laser beams from his hands and healing wounds with blue lights (?). He then joins up with a swarthy chum to venture into an underground chasm and fight the Prince of Magic, as you would I'm sure given the same situation. From here on the film doesn't let up in its steady stream of rubbishy effects and insane action. Lando must battle a horde of jumping snakes (he ties one up in a scene guaranteed to offend animal lovers) and sexy snake-women, cat-women, and even dog-women! A bunch of sweating, half-naked karate guys run around in Hell and attempt to beat up Lando but he manages to kill them all, then moving on to engage the Prince of Magic's black-clad henchmen with lots of cheap and cheesy magic laser beam battles and explosions.
People are lifted into the air and spun around with extraordinarily bad special effects work whilst a man has his face torn off in a graphically gruesome moment. A caged of totally naked Filipino women is included into the plot just to add to the exploitation value that little bit more. Lando learns the art of super-invisibility and single-handedly destroys the Prince and his men. Then, of course, comes the showdown everybody has been waiting for, in which Lando battles ol' Mr Scratch himself, Satan, decked out in traditional horns and suit and even carrying a trident. The ensuing battle is as cheap and tacky as you could ever hope for. Finally, the movie finishes with real-life gale force footage, a natural event which just suddenly seems to have sprung up, prompting the cameramen to point and shoot and worry about inserting it into the film at a choice moment later on. A crazy moment which just adds to the sheer wackiness of this production, which is a must for all bad movie lovers and an incomprehensible mess for everyone else.
The basic storyline consists of an overweight guy in a red jump-suit calling himself the "Prince of Magic" who does evil things like spinning people's heads around like they're Linda Blair. The village elders are powerless against himself and only one man, Lando, can defeat the baddie. Lando is played by Filipino leading man Ramon Revilla who is marginally less wooden than the rest of the cast, although he's no one's idea of an action hero, possessing neither good looks or muscles. I guess the only reason he was cast so often as the hero was because he was kind of tall. Anyway, Lando is having a bad time of it, suffering unintentionally hilarious nightmares in which he witnesses his uncle getting crushed to a pulp by a huge boulder - a special effect which reaches new lows of "special".
After some bad dialogue, worse dubbing, and lots of to-ing and fro-ing between bizarre characters, including a mute kid, his god-like dad and Lando's hottie wife, Lando finds himself meeting the waterlogged corpse of his dead uncle (who jumps up out of the sea on to his boat like Jason in Friday the 13th) and inheriting his magical abilities which involve shooting laser beams from his hands and healing wounds with blue lights (?). He then joins up with a swarthy chum to venture into an underground chasm and fight the Prince of Magic, as you would I'm sure given the same situation. From here on the film doesn't let up in its steady stream of rubbishy effects and insane action. Lando must battle a horde of jumping snakes (he ties one up in a scene guaranteed to offend animal lovers) and sexy snake-women, cat-women, and even dog-women! A bunch of sweating, half-naked karate guys run around in Hell and attempt to beat up Lando but he manages to kill them all, then moving on to engage the Prince of Magic's black-clad henchmen with lots of cheap and cheesy magic laser beam battles and explosions.
People are lifted into the air and spun around with extraordinarily bad special effects work whilst a man has his face torn off in a graphically gruesome moment. A caged of totally naked Filipino women is included into the plot just to add to the exploitation value that little bit more. Lando learns the art of super-invisibility and single-handedly destroys the Prince and his men. Then, of course, comes the showdown everybody has been waiting for, in which Lando battles ol' Mr Scratch himself, Satan, decked out in traditional horns and suit and even carrying a trident. The ensuing battle is as cheap and tacky as you could ever hope for. Finally, the movie finishes with real-life gale force footage, a natural event which just suddenly seems to have sprung up, prompting the cameramen to point and shoot and worry about inserting it into the film at a choice moment later on. A crazy moment which just adds to the sheer wackiness of this production, which is a must for all bad movie lovers and an incomprehensible mess for everyone else.