Fantasia 2024: ‘The Old Man and the Demon Sword’ Review
Stars: Antonio da Luz, Luís Aleluia, Tania Bento, Paulo Espírito Santo, Marlon Fontes, Sara Fernandes Fontes | Written and Directed by Fabio Powers
This one from this year’s Fantasia Festival had me at its title. How could you not want to watch a film called The Old Man and the Demon Sword!? Thankfully, it delivers, pretty much, what I’d expect given the title.
Initially we see a monk wielding the demon sword, and he’s actually good at using it to kill off various odd-looking enemies. But, unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, I’m not sure), the sword finds its way to the local drunk Antonio da Luz, who needs to learn how to use it – with help from the sword itself – to defeat the evil that is upon his village.
As you might expect this is a low-budget genre affair with cheap CGI and cheap practical effects, amateur actors, poor music and lots of humour. It might sound like it, but I don’t mean these things in a bad way. They work for this type of movie perfectly, which is clearly going for that B-movie-vibe and there’s a clear influence from movies like the original Evil Dead. So that can be no bad thing!
Lets get the things out of the way that didn’t really work for me. The music truly is terrible and just doesn’t fit with the action on screen. It doesn’t even stick to one genre or style. It’ll go from instrumental pop to euro dance to some sort of classical and unfortunately, it’s all mostly annoying. There is an argument of course that it does fit with the B-movie style but I did not enjoy it.
The humour isn’t going to work for everyone but I laughed plenty of times and there are some scenes in particular that I think everyone will get at least a little amusement out of. There’s a scene – which may or may not have deeper meaning than silly sword fight – where the old man and demon sword fight a mobile phone that has just sucked the soul out of some poor guy. Another scene, sees the old man and demon sword interact with another old man and his ‘demon’ ventriloquist doll. Only the doll isn’t some evil-looking thing, it looks more like Statler and Waldorf from the Muppets. Which obviously makes it even funnier!
The CGI is cheap-looking and poor, there’s no getting away from that. BUT some of the creature designs are still pretty cool. The people wearing tight black outfits that cover them from head to toe and kinda just walk a bit like a zombie towards the old man, aren’t so cool-looking though.
The lead guy, Antonio da Luz (he kind of plays himself), is surprisingly good in the role, and although it is not the most serious of movies, he is very likeable, and to a degree, relatable, so you’ll be rooting for him to pull through. There’s also a bit of fourth wall breaking towards the end of the film that comes out of nowhere but works really well.
At only an hour long, The Old Man and the Demon Sword is entertaining and funny, and sure to put a smile on your face.
*** 3/5
The Old Man and the Demon Sword screened as part of this year’s Fantasia Film Festival.
