Cataclysm | 1980 | USA | Tom McGowan, Phillip Marshak, Gregg C. Tallas
Existing in a variety of forms, such as Satan’s Supper and The Nightmare Never Ends, Cataclysm was even re-edited as part of the director’s anthology piece Night Train to Terror. The plot follows a police lieutenant named Sterne, whose elderly Jewish friend shows grave concern when he appears to have located his old torturer from his days as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. The problems arise when the charismatic offender Olivier appears to have retained his youth all these years later, and seemingly shows interest in funding prominent atheist writer James, much to the fright of his timid wife Claire, who has suffered nightmares of the smiling Olivier as the Devil himself. The film feels quite choppy due to its three main threads presumably being directed by each of the directors independently, but the film’s finale manages to up the ante with gore, including some stock footage of genuine medical surgery. It’s this latter element that seems to have irked someone in the UK authorities, as it found itself listed on certain local nasty lists after the huge media coverage of the film’s gratuitous marketing and Nazi themes.