Monday, January 11, 2010

There ain't no foolin' Satan

Beast of the Yellow Night (1971)
Starring: John Ashley, Mary Wilcox, Eddie Garcia, Vic Diaz, and Ken Metcalfe
Director: Eddie Romero
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Joseph Langdon (Ashley) sells his soul to Satan (Diaz) and receives a new life as Phillip Rogers, a successful American businessman living in the Phillipines, with the express instructions to tempt those he encounters to commit corrupt and evil acts. However, he cannot bring himself to destroy Rogers' loving wife, Julia (Wilcox), nor his honorable best friend, Earl (Metcalfe). Whenever he rebels, however, he is transformed into a murderous demon and remains in his form until he has eaten the flesh of a human being. Will Langdon be able to break his deal with Satan before the transformations become permanent... and before Julia falls beneath the claws of the Beast?


"Beast of the Yellow Night" is a decent low-budget chiller. The acting and camera work is mostly pedestrian and the pace is a little slow, but there are some nice flourishes when Langdon is conversing with Satan. A great weakness of the film, however, is that it hardly shows any of Langdon's efforts to fulfill his pact with Satan. (There are some vague hints, but I'm certain that someone who is as evil as Langdon seems to be at the beginning of the film would be working merrily toward his goal... at least until he encountered the truly decent Julia and Earl.)

This is by no means a spectacular film, but it's watchable.

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