Arizona birthed something foul. A reporter named Steve is obsessed with an old Native American legend… the story of Natas and a riddle that needs to be solved. In Arizona, some sacred wise man waits for someone with “the faith of 100 eagles” to solve the riddle of the Devil’s sentry… Natas. Steve’s boss fires him because he ain’t buying Steve’s story and his girlfriend is concerned about him throwing away his career and personal life on his insane quest. Steve doesn’t listen to the plausible concern of the woman who loves him and journeys out into the mountains to find the 200-year-old shaman and unravel the mystery. Steve finds the elderly sage easily and is given some help is discovering Natas’ tower and freeing the trapped souls that reside there… so, I guess Steve isn’t a complete dick. Our hero is given a magic necklace and encouraged to get the fuck going and get to freeing them souls because the time is upon us where it will be too late to do anything and damnation is waiting for more than a couple poor saps. Steve heads out to find the tower, ignores the “stay away” advice of a gas station attendant who reveals himself to have a “spooky” distorted voice after Steve leaves and immediately runs into trouble when he hits the desert. His water turns to sand, he stumbles into a ghost town full of non-threatening old-timey zombies with distorted voices, gets thrown in jail to await his hanging, has some indecipherable conversations with the townsfolk (the crap audio and spooky monster voices are not compatible), is freed by a mystery person on horseback with magic powers and lucks upon a carved-tablet/mirror which gives him the proof he needs to convince the people back home he wasn’t insane. Convince them he does, and a group of idiots trek out to the desert to gather facts and report it all to the world. They get back to the ghost town and camp out. The terror hits hard and fast; there’s a lizard in a can of peaches, murder and a whole lotta lookin’ around. Brief nudity, a skeletal ghoul and a decapitation add some pulse. It comes to a close with Steve and his gal looking like background characters in an Italian Mad Max ripoff and confronting their fate on the treacherous mountain-dwelling of Natas… oh my god! Hold that name to a mirror! The overly-happy ending just adds a nice and cheesy “fuck you” to everything. The droning score, persistent winds and sun-bleached cinematography encourages quick slips to the world of napping but I think that was Natas’ plan all along. We’re lulled into something comfortable that ends with a hilarious confrontation with an incredibly laid back evil one. This movie ain’t good but it’s my kind of “ain’t good” and it beckons me every so often like a siren dwelling far from any land I once called home.
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