The Old Man and the Demon Sword is screening as part of the 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival, which runs from July 18 to August 4.

Despite being extremely talky with heavily expository dialogue, the plot of Fábio Powers’ The Old Man and the Demon Sword is immediately confusing. Something meant to resemble a force field is cut through by a swordsman and his demon-possessed sword, initiating a battle against skeletal shadow people that no one else can see (save for the random older man of the title, who pops out of the bushes with a knife). The sword wants the barrier to be breached, for reasons I could not quite identify. And some sort of grand council is pulling the strings of the skeleton army, it seems.

The hooded hero has what is meant to be witty banter with the demon sword (João Loy), a trait carried over to the old man Tonho (Antonio da Luz) once he acquires the sword. The film, ostensibly, is an action comedy. Yet, low production value and poor blocking hamper the action. Overly-performed dialogue and muddled writing dampen the comedy.

There are instances, however rare, where the low budget works to the film’s benefit. There is a charm to the design of the demon sword (it lightly resembles a sword from the Soulcaliber video game series). A winged beast brought in later in the film looks genuinely great for this budget level. There is also something inspired, in theory, in the decision to introduce a stereotypical silent hero type only to kill him off and replace him with an old drunkard (da Luz).

But even this choice is botched by a confusingly fast-paced depiction of events. Within seconds of the opening action sequence in the woods, we are dropped into a new location and the two characters have to cross paths again in order to get to the rug pull. It all happens so fast, that at first it is unclear who is being killed by the undead soldiers wearing Halloween costume skeleton masks. Given the film is just a hair over an hour long, it is baffling that everything unfurls so rapidly and with little attention to spatial geography. If it slowed down even a hair, the story might achieve some coherence.

One could praise The Old Man and the Demon Sword for a certain DIY charm, but I struggled at times to locate this independent spirit. Scenes are cobbled together with clunky edits. Cheap-looking plug-in CGI blood effects are used in place of other, more aesthetically pleasing DIY alternatives. And there is no sense of narrative pace, to the point that it feels like an entire act was cut out between act two and the climax.

This very well may have been crafted with love and care, but the lack of coherence from start to finish makes it nigh impossible for that care to translate. By the time the film reaches its final, fourth wall breaking rug-pull, it doesn’t feel earned, as none of the groundwork was laid to properly introduce a radical new element in the final minutes. The whole endeavor is a confusing mess, such that the film’s final joke on itself feels backhanded.

The Old Man and the Demon Sword: C-

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As always, thanks for reading!

—Alex Brannan (Letterboxd, Facebook)