Possibly the only film in which a Disciple of Satan drives around in a vehicle with "Sale Van Hire" written on the side- Sale being a town in the Trafford district of Manchester - The Eye of Satan is another outing from GBH Director David Kent Watson and his writer/leading man Cliff Twemlow. Taking their tried and tested north west actioner formula and adding in a dash of British horror film, The Eye of Satan somehow also manages to rope a South African voodoo cult, a mysterious mercenary, an Arab arms dealer, a black panther and a pair of Mancunian duck hunters into the same plot.
No stranger to bloodshed, Twemlow's life story as recounted in his autobiography 'The Tuxedo Warrior' is a brutal one, telling of his background as a nightclub doorman in Southport, Scotland and his naïve Manchester. Its full of tales of seedy bed sits, landladies who either wanted to mother him or jump into bed with him, and where the threat of extreme physical violence from punters, not to mention fellow doormen, was never far away. A life less ordinary, albeit one few would choose to live. Much more than just a heavy, Twemlow also wrote poetry, horror paperbacks and 'over two thousand musical compositions'. His songs like Man of the World and Lets Think of Other People seem to reflect both someone who had been seen human behavior at its most ruthless and violent yet remained decent and optimistic at heart. A Twemlow penned piece of philosophy that sticks in the memory from The Eye of Satan is "yesterday was never, today is forever, tomorrow is but a promise".
So much goes on in The Eye of Satan that its hard to keep up with it, the film almost anticipating Pulp Fiction in having several seemingly unconnected story lines that eventually cross paths. The earlier part of the film evolves around Christine, the promiscuous daughter of a gangster who has been having an affair with his arch enemy, Arab arms dealer Camille Mohamed played by John Saint Ryan (best known at the time for playing Bet Lynch's truck driver boyfriend in Coronation Street, Ryan looks more like Sean Connery than anyone's idea of an Arab arms dealer, but puts it a decent, sinister performance despite the against type casting). However this romance understandably goes sour when Camille holds her hostage and promises to kill her unless the gangster makes good on an earlier arms deal. Meanwhile two policemen ('Brett Sinclair' and Maxton G Beesley) investigate the seemingly random murders of a man involved with a South African voodoo cult and a pair of Manchester duck hunters. 'The killer was obviously a lover of animals' explains a pathologist to Beesley 'and the two corpses didn't share his views or principles'. After Christine escapes daddy hires Kane (Twemlow) a grumpy mercenary to protect her. A mysterious loner, Kane's only friend is his pet black panther which accompanies him on jobs, "must cost a fortune in Whiskers" someone remarks. There is more to Kane than meets the eye though, and heralding in the film's horror elements, he turns out to be a Disciple of Satan who when not stirring up trouble with the local mob by shooting a gang members' coffin to pieces, also performs occult rituals. With glowing green eyes and dialogue like 'I come from a world too incomprehensible for mere morals too understand, a land that lies beneath a cloak of unending darkness' Kane comes across like a mixture of Mike Raven and The Terminator, yet in the amoral, double dealing world of The Eye of Satan is the closest thing the film has to a hero. Lots of neck snapping and scenes of Cliff flexing his pecks result when Camille and the gangster's treacherous step brother team up to try to kill Kane and the girl, all of which goes hand in hand with Amityville horrors like blood emerging from a tea pot and shaking walls. Twemlow being an atheist (something that comes across quite strongly in Tuxedo Warrior), means traditional horror films savours like spiritualists and priests also receive a good kicking along the way. While Twemlow plays Kane in a straight faced, self consciously serious manner, as with GBH there is a streak of very North West humour running through the proceedings with the miss-matched paring of Kane and Christine acting as a substitute for the self-mocking Twemlow/Brett Sinclair banter in GBH. She's a spoilt gangster's daughter cum Eighties socialite he's a brooding robe wearing satanic muscleman with supernatural powers, so its fair to say they don't have much in common. They do however have such classic exchanges as
CHRISTINE: "Do you ****, are you gay, maybe you're just weird you do have balls I take it"
KANE: "No, the cat got them" (cue, shot of the panther licking its lips)
Highly entertaining even after multiple viewings, The Eye of Satan played on the long defunct cable sleaze channel HVC in the 1990s. Though gavcrimson first saw the film and the GBH sequel, Lethal Impact, thanks to actor/Twemlow regular Steve Powell who falls victim to the panther in The Eye of Satan and has his head severed by a lift shaft in GBH2. Steve also runs a website about the films he and Cliff made together and does a fine job preserving the Twemlow legacy on-line.
No stranger to bloodshed, Twemlow's life story as recounted in his autobiography 'The Tuxedo Warrior' is a brutal one, telling of his background as a nightclub doorman in Southport, Scotland and his naïve Manchester. Its full of tales of seedy bed sits, landladies who either wanted to mother him or jump into bed with him, and where the threat of extreme physical violence from punters, not to mention fellow doormen, was never far away. A life less ordinary, albeit one few would choose to live. Much more than just a heavy, Twemlow also wrote poetry, horror paperbacks and 'over two thousand musical compositions'. His songs like Man of the World and Lets Think of Other People seem to reflect both someone who had been seen human behavior at its most ruthless and violent yet remained decent and optimistic at heart. A Twemlow penned piece of philosophy that sticks in the memory from The Eye of Satan is "yesterday was never, today is forever, tomorrow is but a promise".
So much goes on in The Eye of Satan that its hard to keep up with it, the film almost anticipating Pulp Fiction in having several seemingly unconnected story lines that eventually cross paths. The earlier part of the film evolves around Christine, the promiscuous daughter of a gangster who has been having an affair with his arch enemy, Arab arms dealer Camille Mohamed played by John Saint Ryan (best known at the time for playing Bet Lynch's truck driver boyfriend in Coronation Street, Ryan looks more like Sean Connery than anyone's idea of an Arab arms dealer, but puts it a decent, sinister performance despite the against type casting). However this romance understandably goes sour when Camille holds her hostage and promises to kill her unless the gangster makes good on an earlier arms deal. Meanwhile two policemen ('Brett Sinclair' and Maxton G Beesley) investigate the seemingly random murders of a man involved with a South African voodoo cult and a pair of Manchester duck hunters. 'The killer was obviously a lover of animals' explains a pathologist to Beesley 'and the two corpses didn't share his views or principles'. After Christine escapes daddy hires Kane (Twemlow) a grumpy mercenary to protect her. A mysterious loner, Kane's only friend is his pet black panther which accompanies him on jobs, "must cost a fortune in Whiskers" someone remarks. There is more to Kane than meets the eye though, and heralding in the film's horror elements, he turns out to be a Disciple of Satan who when not stirring up trouble with the local mob by shooting a gang members' coffin to pieces, also performs occult rituals. With glowing green eyes and dialogue like 'I come from a world too incomprehensible for mere morals too understand, a land that lies beneath a cloak of unending darkness' Kane comes across like a mixture of Mike Raven and The Terminator, yet in the amoral, double dealing world of The Eye of Satan is the closest thing the film has to a hero. Lots of neck snapping and scenes of Cliff flexing his pecks result when Camille and the gangster's treacherous step brother team up to try to kill Kane and the girl, all of which goes hand in hand with Amityville horrors like blood emerging from a tea pot and shaking walls. Twemlow being an atheist (something that comes across quite strongly in Tuxedo Warrior), means traditional horror films savours like spiritualists and priests also receive a good kicking along the way. While Twemlow plays Kane in a straight faced, self consciously serious manner, as with GBH there is a streak of very North West humour running through the proceedings with the miss-matched paring of Kane and Christine acting as a substitute for the self-mocking Twemlow/Brett Sinclair banter in GBH. She's a spoilt gangster's daughter cum Eighties socialite he's a brooding robe wearing satanic muscleman with supernatural powers, so its fair to say they don't have much in common. They do however have such classic exchanges as
CHRISTINE: "Do you ****, are you gay, maybe you're just weird you do have balls I take it"
KANE: "No, the cat got them" (cue, shot of the panther licking its lips)
Highly entertaining even after multiple viewings, The Eye of Satan played on the long defunct cable sleaze channel HVC in the 1990s. Though gavcrimson first saw the film and the GBH sequel, Lethal Impact, thanks to actor/Twemlow regular Steve Powell who falls victim to the panther in The Eye of Satan and has his head severed by a lift shaft in GBH2. Steve also runs a website about the films he and Cliff made together and does a fine job preserving the Twemlow legacy on-line.