THE KILLING OF SATAN (1983, PHILIPPINES) a.k.a LUMABAN KA, SATANAS
Dir. Efren C. Pinon
Written by: Joe Mari Avellana
A
RECOMMENDATION
By
JUSTIN HUGH DICKINSON
One of the more imaginative Filipino Action/Fantasy/Exploitation films out there concerns Lando, a simple, mild-mannered guy who
had been in prison for killing a man that threatened his village. Now raising a family, Lando is receiving messages in his dreams from his
Holy Man Uncle Miguel who, along with his followers, has dedicated his life to fight The Prince of Magic and Satan.
When three goons come into the village looking to kill Lando, they manage to shoot him, but they also inadvertently kill his young son.
While Lando is laid to rest in bed, a bullet wound in his head, miles away on another island, Uncle Miguel is lying in bed as well, meditating.
As he is doing this he mentally absorbs Lando's mortal wounds into his own head saving Lando in the process.
Lando is drawn to the island by the chanting of his Uncle's devout followers. He, his wife, and his daughter Louisa set forth across the
short distance of sea. Heavy, foreboding winds pick up out of nowhere, trying to impede their progress. They make it to the beach and are
met by a strange, mute child who leads them across rocky terrain. The top of a cliff explodes, showering boulders. The family takes cover.
When the dust clears and they come out, the child has vanished.
Lando and family are greeted at the village and he is told by Renzo (the second most powerful Magician in the village) that his Uncle has died from a bullet wound but he had not been shot.
Renzo shows Lando where his Uncle was buried at sea. Lando rows out there and stops, grasping his head in pain from some sort of psionic attack. He shakes it off and continues on. A piece of driftwood bumps the boat. He pushes it away. It floats back. When Lando reaches for it this time, a rotten, grey-skinned hand grabs his arm, and a decomposed corpse bursts out of the water and says in a horrifying voice, "I am your Uncle Miguel!" Then it disappears back into the water. It is a pretty jolting scene.
Renzo and Lando are still at the shore when the Prince of Magic and his underlings raid the village for girls. They use their hypno-wheel, magic hand blasts and psionic staring contests to take down the men and carry off the women including Louisa. Lando and Renzo enter they village while there are a few baddies left. Renzo tells Lando to use his hitherto unknown powers. Lando creates a swirling force field from his arm to deflect bullets as well as becoming invincible to the underlings' fisticuffs while his punches do damage them.
He also discovers he can use his newfound powers to heal the injuries his wife sustained when the village was attacked.
Now, Lando and Renzo must travel to where the Prince of Magic dwells and serves Satan to rescue Louisa who is being held captive in a cave in an electrified cage full of naked women. Lando fights off the Snake Man and lower henchmen of the cave and meets up with the Prince of Magic. He is overtaken before he can activate his powers and is thrown off a waterfall by the Minions.
Lando floats unconscious down a river until he reaches a riverbank where the little boy from earlier (Nino) is waiting. Nino leads him to a small, crumbling stone church where there is an old man (God ?) with long white hair and a beard. He gives Lando a magic staff that, along with Lando's own powers, will be able to destroy Satan.
With that, Lando treks back to the cave to fight the Prince of Magic, temptation used by Ava, the Sexy Snake Woman; and finally Satan himself, to save his daughter.
THE KILLING OF SATAN is one fun film. It is a horror cartoon come to life with sufficient f/x, goofy costumes, and some cool/surreal images i.e. the aforementioned corpse popping out of the water, clear waterfalls turning into blood, the pulsar shields and firing of magic energy from one's hands, and most notably the sequence where a character is completely rolled over by a boulder revealing his body to be a red, pulpy mess only for his head to go right on talking. With all this going on how could you not like this movie?
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