
REDEMPTION
USA, 1995
Director: Steven Scarborough
Stars: Zak Spears, Brad Stone, Tom Katt, Chuck Barron
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The Abduction series, so nearly sublime, ends in ridiculous fashion with this coked-out muddle. For no apparent reason, the story has been transferred to a tacky-looking mock-Moroccan pleasure dome where some cheesy Prince What’s-his-name requires endless sexual gratification to perpetuate a magic spell that has granted him everlasting youth and beauty (it obviously hasn’t worked).
Via a clumsily-worded three-and-a-half-minute story crawl at the start of the film - a la Star Wars – we learn that this film is connected to the previous two movies, which were set in spare and sexy fascist dungeons, are connected because the dungeons are where the Prince’s minions secure him new meat. A rebel band of rescuers are trying to bust up the secret abduction ring, and their efforts are draining the Prince of his life force.
This bloated preamble sets the scene for high absurdity with the film opening on an effete High Priest summoning some kind of dwarf-wizard to assist the ailing Prince. A bunch of black guards in Aladdin costumes force the wizard to do the bidding of the ghastly Priest, who is made up like Mephisto and whose disembodied chalk-white head keeps popping up throughout the film in the style of Eileen Dietz’s “demon face” flashing up to great effect during The Exorcist.