REVIEW: My Master Satan (2016)

Last year I reviewed Dakota Bailey’s short film Satan’s Coming For You, an acid trip of visuals and violence. Now, Bailey has taken that short film and expanded it, turning Satan’s Coming For You into an anthology, My Master Satan: 3 Tales of Drug Fueled Violence. 

This film, which starts with an altered version of the original Satan’s Coming then spreads into more segments, follows the story of drug-addicted serial killer Alister and his friends. In the first story, Alister helps to dig up his friend Bubba’s ex-wife, whom Bubba killed some time before. Bubba wants to dance with his bride again, and the ensuing tango with her skeleton was just as hilarious this time as it was when I first watched Satan’s Coming For You. The pair then drop acid and meet Satan – which may or may not just be a metaphor for man himself.

In the second segment, Alister and his friend Charlie commit a home invasion, busting in on a man who has having sex with a blow-up doll. This segment was actually my favorite; a lot of the movie suffers a bit from some bad audio and (purposely degraded) video, which made it difficult to watch at points, but the second segment features the best acting and the best part of the story. It’s the most violent, too, and the most fun.

The third segment was more about drugs and LSD or acid, and the group experimenting and again, we meet the ‘man’ called Satan. Visually, this is the best part of the movie, and actually, I think a lot of what was done in the film was quite good for being filmed on VHS. The movie has an extremely low-budget feel, but according to the opening credits, it was done on purpose, following in the footsteps of other dirty, murderous films that reminds me of a much less polished August Underground. 

Sadly, the hinderance here, though, is a lack of leveled audio. For me, that was the hardest part to deal with. It does make it very difficult to hear dialog in several scenes, and then we’re blasted by Luciferian Insectus’ brutal metal – which fits the theme perfectly, I should say.

This movie doesn’t have the level of disturbing ultra-violence of the aforementioned Toetag cult film, but Bailey’s definitely on the right track when it comes to producing sick, violent sleaze – although the message I think he was going for might have been lost, slightly, in translation. As I said in my review of Satan’s, Bailey is definitely still a filmmaker to keep an eye on. Technical issues aside, with a bigger budget (or some more LSD), Bailey’s next film could be just as groundbreaking as Mordum.