Cataclysm or The Nightmare Never Ends has become a favorite low budget movie. I'm generally not interested in devil or demon movies but this has some things going for it that I enjoy, mainly the acting.
It is great seeing Richard Moll play someone who isn't a monster or a stereotypical big dumb guy role. Moll plays an intellectual who seeks to disprove the existence of God. Long time character actor, Marc Lawrence plays two roles. He is the nazi hunter in the beginning and Lt Sterne's partner. Sterne is played by skilled character actor, Cameron Mitchell who is no stranger to low budget horror fans. There performances anchor this movie. Generally the acting is undercut by the dubbed dialogue. Faith Clift's dubbing makes her sound extremely flat.
A few of these same actors appeared in Savage Journey aka Brigham with the same scriptwriter and maybe director. Both were shot in part or all in Utah. Birgham was filmed in the 70s and more commonly released in the early 80s as Savage Journey. That is a low budget movie about early mormon settlements. Quite the departure from this type of movie and another surprising performance by Moll in that film. He got typecasted so often since that seeing him play against how he would be typed is a pleasant surprise.
The movie conveys very heavy atmosphere and the director smartly avoided special effects until the end anyway. I suspect the ending was deliberately made to be as gory as possible to make up for the lack of blood and gore throughout the movie. What happens in each death is mostly explained after the fact but rarely shown.
If you don't think much about low budget movies or if you are the type to hold the same 1 to 10 standard for low budget movies as for major hollywood blockbusters, then you really will hate this. Personally, low budget movies are on a separate scale because low budget is its own genre in my view and has different limitations that don't make them all bad in their own category.
It is great seeing Richard Moll play someone who isn't a monster or a stereotypical big dumb guy role. Moll plays an intellectual who seeks to disprove the existence of God. Long time character actor, Marc Lawrence plays two roles. He is the nazi hunter in the beginning and Lt Sterne's partner. Sterne is played by skilled character actor, Cameron Mitchell who is no stranger to low budget horror fans. There performances anchor this movie. Generally the acting is undercut by the dubbed dialogue. Faith Clift's dubbing makes her sound extremely flat.
A few of these same actors appeared in Savage Journey aka Brigham with the same scriptwriter and maybe director. Both were shot in part or all in Utah. Birgham was filmed in the 70s and more commonly released in the early 80s as Savage Journey. That is a low budget movie about early mormon settlements. Quite the departure from this type of movie and another surprising performance by Moll in that film. He got typecasted so often since that seeing him play against how he would be typed is a pleasant surprise.
The movie conveys very heavy atmosphere and the director smartly avoided special effects until the end anyway. I suspect the ending was deliberately made to be as gory as possible to make up for the lack of blood and gore throughout the movie. What happens in each death is mostly explained after the fact but rarely shown.
If you don't think much about low budget movies or if you are the type to hold the same 1 to 10 standard for low budget movies as for major hollywood blockbusters, then you really will hate this. Personally, low budget movies are on a separate scale because low budget is its own genre in my view and has different limitations that don't make them all bad in their own category.