And here we have proof it doesn’t have to be a great film to be entertaining. Poor acting, simplistic plot, shoddy camera work…fun time!
Night of the Bastard is basically about a young woman who seeks shelter with a hermit in the desert after her boyfriend and another friend are killed by satanists. The satanists then descend on the house and repeatedly attempt to get at the young woman and her unlikely protector.
There isn’t much here that hasn’t been done before, except maybe in ritual scene near the end, at which point my wife and I exclaimed “What the fuck?” and “Oh shit!” Despite the oversimplified, if not clichéd plot, the film holds your attention with gore, nudity, and dialogue that is, I think, unintentionally hilarious.
The acting is atrocious across pretty much the entire cast. Only Hannah Pierce, playing Claire, who is basically naked through the majority of the film, displays any talent for acting. But, as with the simple story, it doesn’t matter. Like with many Troma films, the poor acting only makes the experience more enjoyable. And for you rock fans, London May, drummer for Danzig’s Samhain, is the lead actor, the hermit Reed. He’s clearly trying to channel his inner Bill Mosley for the role.
While much the poor qualities didn’t matter, some actually did. The camera work, for one, is really bad. It gets so shaky at times that it’s distracting. I’m assuming the filmmakers were going for a realism/found footage look, but it doesn’t succeed in that regard. There are also these fade-to-black scene breaks that don’t make any sense. It’s like when you used to rent a made-for-TV movie from the video store and there would still be the pauses in the film where commercials were supposed to be, only without the commercials. I can’t imagine why they chose to split up scenes that way.
But I enjoyed the hell out of this movie. The opening scene is bloody and wicked. There’s multiple heads being blown or smashed apart. There’s blood and sex and nudity. There’s the absurdity of repairing wounds with a carpenter's stapler and pouring mead over it as a disinfectant. Good times!
PC3’s Horror and Exploitation Movie Scale of Awesomeness!
Gore - 6
Special Effects - 4
Nudity/Sexuality - 8
Wow Factor - 5
Acting - 2
Fear Factor - 2
Story/Plot/Originality - 3
Cinematography - 2
Sound/Music - 5
Fun Factor - 9
Night of the Bastard doesn’t soar to the top of the PHEMSA chart with an overall score of 44, but its Fun Factor alone should make you consider watching it. Plus, it’s less than ninety minutes. You won’t waste away over two hours of your life like I did with Impuratus.