Cataclysm (aka The Nightmare Never Ends and Satan’s Supper) is a 1980 American-made horror film, starring Cameron Mitchell, Marc Lawrence and Richard Moll. The film was directed by Phillip Marshak (here spelling his Christian name with only one ‘l’), also known for Dracula Sucks. Made on a very low budget, the film has many of the hallmarks seen in low budget American cinema of the period, scant on quality and script but featuring at least one recognisable actor to help sell the film. Such is the fractured nature of Cataclysm that a brutally edited version appeared as just one of the segments of the Night Train to Terror anthology, also the work of Marshak.
Author James Hanson (an alarmingly coiffured Richard Moll from Evilspeak and House) has written a book firmly nailing his personal views – God does not exist. Less than supportive is his shrewish, Catholic wife, Claire (Faith Clift, ironically from another train-based horror film, Horror Express) who moans ineffectively throughout the film. Elsewhere, Lieutenant Stern (the impossible to avoid Cameron Mitchell, Blood & Black Lace, The Toolbox Murders) reluctantly agrees to help his friend Mr Weiss (Marc Lawrence whose packed career stretched from the early 1930′s until From Dusk ‘Til Dawn), an aged Holocaust survivor, now hunting Nazis, who is sure he’s spotted one of his Nazi persecutors from the War recently, not having changed a bit. Indeed, the chap in question, Olivier (Robert Bristol), has been around for centuries…as he’s the Devil.
Odd then, that much of the action takes place in a disco – a film understanding of what a disco is/was – modest sound levels, people going crazy for clearly rotten songs, everyone getting a good six feet of space to dance in. They should make a disco-based film where no-one can here a word anyone says and spends half the time throwing up. Anyway, a disco is where Olivier sees fit to run his operation, a surprisingly low-scale affair that sees him sat on a grand chair surrounded by lovelies – not at all threatening. This is at odds with Lt.Stern who along with Weiss actually spend some time acting. Like much of the film, the two worlds don’t marry together at all well but despite the almost universal derision for the film, all the elements are individually quite intriguing, perhaps because for a movie of such small financial backing, the ideas are quite grand, whilst mixing in the very real atrocities of the Nazis.
The killings, which are few, are mostly referred to than seen, the idea of someone having their face ripped off is far more ghoulish than the effects we are left with – admittedly brief flashes and popping eyes and the synthesised throbs which accompanying them are effective enough but, again, more fitting in an entirely different film. Little in the film makes much sense, plot-wise; a stalking monk regularly walks onto set, though serves no meaningful purpose; the coupling of a devout Catholic and an atheist husband may be a good device but adds no credibility; the film’s Devil is one of the most ineffective threats in any film (though clippings of him in a variety of historical massacres is a nice touch which would have worked well if developed further).
The frantic end to the film rather leaves you with a satisfying taste in the mouth that is in truth little deserved. It is fascinating though overall badly acted, shot and most especially edited. This messy film can best be exemplified by the fact that the rotten camera and editorial work is by Bruce Markoe, now one of the post-production editors on the current wave of Marvel superhero movies and the script is by Philip Yorda, famous for the screenplays of films such as El Cid and Battle of the Bulge. There’s probably a decent film in there somewhere.
Daz Lawrence
