Cataclysm
Cataclysm
| 01 January 1980 (USA)
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Police detective, Mitchell, investigating the death of a victim of a Nazi concentration camp discovers a nightclubbing playboy who has strange powers over women and is seemingly ageless.

Reviews
ada

the leading man is my tpye

YouHeart

I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

ActuallyGlimmer

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

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Kodie Bird

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

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Paul Andrews

Nobel prize winning novelist James Hanson (Richard Moll as Charles Moll) & his wife Claire (Faith Clift) who is a Doctor and has been suffering from nightmares lately, both set off for a holiday in Las Vegas. While watching some in house entertainment at a casino Claire is hypnotised by an English clairvoyant named Cecil Howard. Claire suffers a vivid hallucination about a sadistic SS officer named Olivier (Robert Bristol) in a Nazi concentration camp. After the show Claire talks with Howard and invites him to supper. Soon after she leaves Howard is killed by what appears to be a red light (don't ask). Meanwhile a old Jewish man named Abraham Weiss (Marc Lawrence) who is a Nazi hunter spots Olivier on a T.V. programme and recognises him as the man he has been after for years. Weiss immediately tells his story to bitter, overworked police officer Lieutenant Sterne (Cameron Mitchell) who lives just across the hall from him. Sterne agrees to look into Weiss's claims but eventually admits there is nothing he can do, especially after Weiss gives him some newspaper cuttings from 1944 which appear to show Olivier but since the paper is over 30 years old and Olivier would now be in his 60' or 70's and the guy on T.V. is still in his 20's & therefore Weiss's story is psychically impossible. That night Weiss is found dead in a parking lot. Lt. Sterne decides to take a personal interest and investigate even further. Claire is starting to lose her mind. Her husband James is about to publish a book called 'God is dead' in which James claims God does not and never has existed. Claire as a stout Catholic is deeply against the book and tries to convince James not to publish it. Olivier, who runs a cult of Satan worshippers, feels James would be a good person to have on board and attempts to convince James to join him and his organisation. A guy with a beard named Papini (Maurice Grandmaison) tries to warn James about Olivier, Satan and his book denouncing God. Various people die including Claire's nephew Jim (Klint Stevenson), Claire decides that she alone must put an end to Olivier and Satan himself. Claire and Jim's girlfriend Ann (Christie Wagner) conduct a bizarre plan that Claire believes will destroy Olivier for good, but will it succeed?According to the IMDb's credit list Cataclysm was directed by three separate people, Phillip Marshak, Tom McGowan & Gregg C. Tallas as Greg Tallas. I am not sure if this information is correct but I don't think I've ever heard of a film directed by three different people and maybe that's why it turned out to be a bit of a jumbled up mess. The script by Philip Yordan tries something different and for that it should get at least an extra point. Even though at the end of the day it's still a mess with the story all over the place. Things just happen for little reason, characters aren't that likable and the dialogue in certain scenes isn't up to much. The story becomes occasionally confusing and unfocused. The script comes across as heavy handed at times with it's religious overtones and story arc. Almost as if Yordan wanted to make a thought provoking horror film with a message, obviously it fails, badly. Cataclysm starts out very interesting and draws the viewer in by not revealing too much, too soon. Unfortunately this decision to try and make the plot more mysterious back fires during the middle third as it gets somewhat boring waiting for something to happen but then things explode into a gore drenched finale. The acting is OK for this type of low budget nonsense, except Cift who seems to speak her lines really slowly compared to everyone else. And it's always nice to see genre veteran Cameron Mitchell. Some characters appear dubbed throughout. There is very little, in fact none, blood or gore in the film until the last 10 minutes or so when the red stuff is splashed everywhere. In this sequence there is some real surgery footage in a blood soaked over the top climax to round the film off. I think the film itself was shot on location rather than studio's and has a generally good feel throughout, the production values were much better than I expected. While not brilliant by any stretch of the imagination the photography, editing, special effects, continuity and music are all reasonable enough and I've sat through a lot worse. I'm sure a lot of people will automatically call this film crap as it's an easy target but for those of us who like this sort of off-beat grade-z low budget horror film from days gone by than this one may interest you and is probably worth tracking down. Just because it dares to try something a little different if for no other reason, it doesn't always succeed but at least those involved tried. Overall I'm glad I watched it, certainly not the best film in the world but then did anyone really expect it to be?

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Vafthrudnir

Ah, Cataclysm, The Nightmare Never Ends... a turkey by any other name, Romeo, would gobble just as loudly. And this one's a Thanksgiving feast of epic proportions. It suffers from production values so low you have to go digging in the dirt to find them, from the sound (awful) to picture quality (atrocious) to the acting (Faith Clift saves the rest of the cast; by giving the single worst performance I have ever seen on screen, she almost makes the rest look merely mediocre by comparison). Entire scenes are washed out in a black muddle by some truly godforsaken camera-work, the dialogue is laughable... and so on, runneth the litany of complaints. But, I kinda liked it, and part of the reason I criticize so harshly is to prevent accusations of bad taste. That said, the most startling thing about this movie is that the committed horror fan (you know who you are) will find some truly unsettling moments, some real, honest-to-God creeps. They're few and far between, but they are there, and make the rest of the movie -- let's not say "good", that's a little overboard, but at least *fun*. It's quirky and surreal enough at times to see where a little talent and a vastly reworked script might have resulted in a rare gem. It had the potential to be more Session 9 than Plan 9, and if it failed, it will at least make you nostalgic for the good old days when terrible horror movies had miniscule budgets, rather than unforgivably large ones. (Anyone here see Ghost Ship? My condolences.) Part train wreck and part cubic zirconia in the rough, bad enough to hurt but not without its occasional spark, this is one that every fan of obscure horror needs to hunt down for that late-night viewing with a bag of chips and a six-pack.

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EyeAskance

An aging Jewish man calls upon a detective to investigate the mystery of an unscrupulous Dorian Gray-style scoundrel who, despite his youthful appearance, may be a notorious Nazi war criminal.In addressing this film, I must begin by saying that it will not be well received by most viewers. If, however, you are an individual of uncommonly provisional aesthetic tastes who yields a willingness to extend impunity to ground-level cinema, then a blink or two of gawkish frivolity may be your accrual with this dicey little three-dollar-bill. That this flick was committed to cheap, ashen filmstock is an immediate indicator of what was certainly an empty-pockets production. Quite simply stated, there's a heedless disorder to the entire mechanical wheel of the film, yet it somehow succeeds in building a shadowy, spectral veneer, and injects a few moments of trashy David Lynchian surrealism. As rumpled and dingy as it may appear, there is the occasional hint of a brain at work in the crux of it all. A page ripped straight from the manual on how to crush a perfectly good prospect. 4/10

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Furet

This is NOT the best movie you'll see in your life, nevertheless, horror fans should find some interesting elements in there that are worth their time. The action may be somewhat slow-paced at times, but, from the opening scene ( the Nazi dream ), the dark and bizarre setting keeps the viewer immersed and makes up for the lack of gore that one would expect with such a title as Satan's Supper. From the mumbling old Jew to the annoyingly bigoted Claire, most of the characters possess an intriguing side that is well-developed enough to give the plot a certain complexity. Especially the fiendish Mr. Olivier. Robert Bristol's performance is probably one of the most charismatic and incarnate acting you'll ever come across in such a low-budget flick. The ending alone is worth waiting an hour and a half to get to. Even though it is not really unexpected, it's original and, most important of all, not happy. There is also a surprising social comment behind the story, mostly about religion and the 2nd World War ( justice, suffering, atrocities... ). Therefore, throughout the movie, a lot of seemingly pointless elements remain unexplained or hazy, forcing the viewer to question the meaning of many scenes. It could have been more subtle, but still, these elements altogether prevent Satan's Supper from falling under the "horrid directionless crap" category and make it a not-so-obvious horror movie that fans of the genre will appreciate.

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