Archive for the ‘Trash movies’ Category

Conan The Destroyer (1984)

Posted: 05/08/2014 in Trash movies
Tags: , , , , ,
1

Yeah, I bet you thought I would leave this movie alone. How can I? It has to be pinpointed as an example of how to ruin great original movie with watered down sequel. Though I have to admit that I am writing this review in top secrecy, without even letting know the rest of the Worsemovies crew. I just can’t risk spreading that info since bunch of zombie-like fans of this movie would probably annoy me with their “Why so bad? This movie good. Me smash you” ‘arguments’. But unlike my usual reviews this one will go without detailed analyzing of every scene. Partly because the most of you probably know this movie too well and partly because it really sickens me to write about it.

Somebody call PETASomebody call P.E.T.A!

As some of you might recall Conan the Barbarian was quite a success. Director John Milius had done a pretty good job and had a vision of trilogy ending with aged Conan ruling over kingdom. Nice idea. But people from Universal studio didn’t share his views. They were seeing Arnold as a new teenage role-model and they did not like combination of violence, sex, and gore. So what did they do? They dumped Milius and brought more family-friendly action director Richard Fleischer (“20000 Leagues Under the Sea”,”The Narrow Margin”) instead. “And what is wrong with that? He is not an inexperienced director.”, some of you might say. I’ll tell you what is wrong. Everything! Do you want a list? You got it! First, he tossed away original scripts done by comic book writers Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway. I guess the script about half-naked barbarian who fights monsters and meets a lot of half-naked women wasn’t PG enough. Second, Conan gets involved in much more dialogues. And lets face it, dialogues are not what Arnold is good at. Next thing… While Milius had Arnold lose weight and practice swordsmanship so he could look like a real warrior, Fleischer did the opposite thing. Wanting to recreate the giant on the covers of the paperback Conan novels, he demanded from Arnold to bulk up as much as he can. Poor Arnold’s organism probably went into the state of shock during the time between two movies (this might be how the rumors about Arnold’s triple bypass came out in the first place). But Conan didn’t get a lot of muscles only. No, he got feelings as well. Conan now jokes and cares about other people feelings. Fleischer attempted to show us how it would be in one of the most disgusting scenes of the movie, in which Conan completely smashed (after barely one bottle of wine) tries to show how to handle a sword to one of his companions. And his companions… Don’t get me start about them. Arnie gets an idiot side-kick Malak (played by Tracey Walter) to provide comic relief. Then there is Zula (played by Grace Jones) who is some kind of demented amazon warrior. The only thing Zula does in  this movie is glaring and hissing like snake at people. And the only person other than Arnold from the first movie is Mako, who plays a role of inexperienced wizard Akiro. There are others as well but more about them soon.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x22v381_drunk_fun

The plot is simple. Evil Queen Taramis (played by “queen” of sequels Sarah Douglas; Superman 2, Puppetmaster 3, Beastmaster 2) promises to revive Conan’s true love Valeria. In return he has to lead virgin Princess Jehnna (played by Olivia D’Abo -complete miscast) and her bodyguard Bombaata (played by now retired basketball player Wilt Chamberlain) on a quest to steal a magic crystal. Of course, Jehnna is the only one who can handle it. With that crystal they will be able to recover a horn that will bring deity Dagoth to life and give a huge power to Taramis. Conan agrees without much of thinking and journey begins. On that journey they face the usual array of monsters, soldiers, evil wizards, ilusions, etc… Conan is confident. He knows what he is doing. What Conan doesn’t know almost until the end is that Taramis ordered Bombaata to kill him as soon as horn is recovered. And Jehnna is going to be sacrificed to Dagoth. That’s why she needed to stay a virgin (and she did thanks to PG). As it always happen, our heroes manage to overcome every obstacle. Unlike the fight between Conan and Toth-Amon (played by Pat Roach) in a hall of mirrors, which is is well-staged, the final battle between Conan and Dagoth is ridiculous, silly garbage.

Conclusion: Is “Conan the Destroyer” watchable? Yes, for someone who knows absolutely nothing about Conan, I suppose it can be a silly sword-and-sorcery popcorn flick. For real fans of Conan this is nothing more than shameful attempt of cashing-in the success of original flick combined with general lousiness we get from the most of the sequels. The basic would even be OK if there wasn’t for retarded companions. Toning has been done drastically and without subtlety. While the fight between Conan and Toth-Amon (Pat Roach), in a hall of mirrors, is well-staged and exciting, much of the rest of the film seems flat, silly, childish and with bad humor. There aren’t many movies in this genre that are worse than “Conan the Destroyer”. Barbarian brothers? Maybe. Hawk the Slayer? For sure.

P.S. In order to show you that half-ass job was done even at production part of this movie here is a complete list of technical errors, or shortly, goofs:

-Telegraph poles visible in the opening scene
-When Conan hits one of the Taramis’ guards’ rope nets with his sword it makes two swords clashing sound
-When Malak asks “Why are they trying to kill us?”, Conan answers, and the same line of dialogue can be faintly heard playing again
-During the fight with Man Ape it cuts to a shot of his friends behind one of the panes, and Malak says “That’s exactly what I would have done, exactly.” His lips don’t match the words at all
-Just after Akiro reads the legend on the wall of the crypt regarding the woman-child with a certain mark we can see a pink star shaped mark on the swell of Jehnna’s left breast. However, earlier in the movie, when Jehnna first awakens in the castle of Toth-Amon this same area of her chest is perfectly visible but the mark is not there
-When Zula is fighting Bombaata, she leaps from the saddle and throws herself on him, knocking his head-circlet off from the impact of collision. In the very next shot, Bombaata’s circlet is back on his head as he struggles with Zula.
-During the opening sequences between the sword fight with Togra and Conan. You can see Togra wearing a long cape in the long shot. When they do a closeup of Togra drawing his sword, he’s not wearing the cape anymore, but when they charge at each other on horseback Togra is wearing his cape again. When the swords clash in the closeup, the cape is once again missing for the rest of the fight
-Shortly before Akiro is rescued from the cannibals and joins the party there is a scene where Akiro can be seen on the last horse riding through the forest despite not having joined the party yet
-When the smoke dragon carries the girl to the crystal castle she is bare foot, but when the wizard lays her down she is wearing boots
-In the first shot of Conan kneeling on the ground with his sword, the shadow around him changes between shots
-When Queen Taramis first speaks to Conan, the amount of blood on Conan’s sword keeps changing between shots
-During the opening fight sequence Conan drops the net over Valeria’s stone altar. But a few shots later, the altar is bare and the net is nowhere to be seen
-In the scene where Malak locks the stone gate by pushing the lever to the left, when the rest of the party enters the room, the lever is to the right (unlocked) again
-In the first forest scene, just before they rescue Akiro, the first two camera shots shows Conan wearing a top and a cape-like fur. The next shot and on, Conan is fully topless
-As the ice palace is collapsing and Conan is starting to row the boat with his companions with him, he is wearing just a loincloth, but while still rowing the boat in the middle of the lake, he is fully clothed
-During the start of the fight against the temple guards, Conan throws his dagger into one of the guards. Later on when they reunite with their horses, the dagger is back in its place
-In the ravine just after they get the Horn, Conan’s dagger is visible, despite being lost in a previous scene
-Man Ape firstly claw-swipes and then scratches the left side of Conan’s head. Those claw and scratch marks on his face and left side of his head are visible
-During the fight between Conan and Man Ape, Conan gets four bloody scratches on his arms, but there was no showing of Man Ape scratching his arms
-When the ice palace is falling apart and the party is just rowing away inside still, you can see a moving crew member in the rock formation above the water. Also, in the same sequence, in the frontal shot from the back of the boat, the skull is on top of the rudder and a spike points down, in the rear shot of the party the skull is on bottom and the spike points up
-During the first battle, when Conan hits the second horseman with his sword, as the man falls from his horse there is a shadow of the cameraman on the ground
-While Malak falls from the waterfall there is a harness attached to his back
-During his battle with Man Ape, the blue make-up used on the monster can be seen rubbing off on Conan’s body in various scenes for short periods
-When Jehnna is bestowing Conan’s companions with rewards, there is no sign of damage to the room
-When Malak throws his knife at Dagoth as Dagoth is trying to break Conan’s arms, a black wire can be seen on Dagoth’s arm
-When Conan repeatedly swings his sword through Man Ape, certain shadows and areas of Conan’s body and hair are invisible (allowing you to see through him) for brief periods

Deathstalker IV: Match of the Titans (1991)

Posted: 31/07/2014 in Trash movies
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
1

Deathstalker IV: Match of the Titans is the final entry in the longest running Corman’s barbarian series. It also has the honor of being the only “official” sequel of Deathstalker being the only that acknowledges the first part ever happened.It also has the same lead actor (he was extremely unsuccessfully switched with John Terlesky and John Allen Nelson for parts 2 and 3) and we even witness a bit of his mystic sword power in the end.

rAynq33Jh1sDi4iPA0sPz6c98Kw

Films starts with a nice mix of Deathstalker 1 and Sorceress footage to set the tone and then we cut back to lion-man (man with lion heads) chasing a beautiful woman. Of course they don’t get far as the Deathstalker apears. Now armed with a bow and arrow, cocky as always he starts killing them off one at a time. It also helps that his adversaries have the intelligence of an animal.He takes her off to her village where he hopes to find his friend Adelar.

Unfortunately it turns out Adelar left and that’s very bad because he has Deathstalker’s sword (of justice). You see- in the recent battle they accidentally ended up with each others swords (cue in the more Corman archive footage).Deathstalker gets on his way towards the Kana’s castle while we enjoy a bit more archive footage (this time we can place it as pillaging of the village from Barbarian Queen). Even stranger he runs into a medieval bodybuilder (80’s hair and all) and his earnest trainer- small mustached man. Also bodybuilder insist on running while other people ride horses, I don’t think that ended up working out for him…

Deathstalker 4 Match of Titans (1990).avi_002144978With those muscles and mullet no one can possibly defeat him!

They run into some marauders attack the two girls and decide to help out. Unfortunately the warrior woman dies but at least Deathstalker menages to save her pretty blond sister.A lion man appears and menages to bury Deathstalker and Blond in a cave with assurance “you’ll never get out of here”. Strangely after a change of clothes- girl assumes her sisters warrior attire, they walk out of the cave without even trying. There’s something strange going on there. Also this is the first time I’ve ever witnessed Deathstalker being able to control himself confronted with a nude female body.

Deathstalker 4 Match of Titans (1990).avi_000803436And everything worked out just fine…

They finally reach the castle to find premises are filled with all kinds of scum you can imagine- killers and muggers, barbarians and beast people and even a tribe of amazon- like lesbian warriors. Deathstalker also engages in an American Gladiator style test of strength just ’cause he can. Unfortunately Adelar is nowhere to be found. Kana shows up and announces the beginning of their new tournament. ‘Stalker starts making up with the blond with queen Kana calls for him so he switches his priorities.But they get into a bit of a fight and queen commands him to leave and then calls for a man “the bigger, the better… and drunk” in a comedic highlight of this  film.

The blonde, Dionara menages to really piss off a leader of Amazons and they get into full blown chick fight. Duels continue with a new mish mash of archived sequel including my favorite- a barbarian Roberto Benigni betting brutally killed.

She sure knows what she’s doing…

Of course the bodybuilder and Deathstalker eventually get to fight one another and we find out (like people keep finding out to this day), bodybuilding is not the best “Martial Art”

Like I said…

Deathstalker suspecting something is wrong (with his friend still missing and all) decides to sneak around a bit and finds all kinds of interesting stuff like amazon orgies, raging pigmen and also some strange dealings of the Queen Kora (including poisinging men with her wine and doing strange stuff to them).

 Deathstalker 4 Match of Titans (1990).avi_002428228Queen enjoys watching porn in her free time, who knew?

Deathstalker and Dionara decide that the only way to trick queen is to send her an only person who’s not a drinker in the castle- a bodybuilder! Deathstalker also uses opportunity to teach him a lesson he might need- lesson in “ravaging” women. Strangely their plan works and he occupies the queen long enough for them to sneak in. They finally figure out her plan to make an invincible army using her magic wine to transform mighty warriors into stone obeying her every command. She almost gets to Deathstalker too but Dionara saves her using her amulet. He then proceeds to expose her evil plan an massive (for B- movie budget) battle ensues. Fight between her Russian sounding bodyguard, famed as the greatest warrior (yet so old he can barely move) and Deathstalker is a special threat.

Then we finally see that the Kora had Deathstalker’s sword all along. She tries to stop him with he magic but he burns her a bit and she suddenly dies- turning into stone herself (I have no idea how that works). Movie ends with a kiss between Dionara and Deathstalker (D&D right there) but Deathstalker runs away on his horse as soon as he has the chance.

Deathstalker 4 Match of Titans (1990).avi_004530163Maybe a kiss could wake her up?

Verdict: Judging by the standards of Roger Corman production (cutting corners with ton of previously used footage ) Deathstalker IV is a solid entry featuring fun (if not particularly well done)action scenes, more than a few (intentional and unintentional) comedic moments and a fair dose of gratitude nudity needed for a watchable Barbarian flick.

Trivia: Maria Ford aka Dionara is Quentin Tarantino’s favorite B- movie actress. Who would have known.

STARBARIANS: EPISODE II (2013)

Posted: 24/07/2014 in Trash movies
Tags: , , , , ,
0

Starbarians'_spaceship_Teaser

Nearing the  end of our second (and again crazy successful) Barbarian Month it is time to revisit the greatest modern incarnation of Swords and Planets genre aka  Harry Partridge’s Starbarians. We finally have the episode II with fascinating new adventures of Killgar and Hogstrong and  hopefully we won’t have to wait this long for the next one.

Also check out these incredibly cool action figures made by Joe Amaro! Can’t wait ’till they became available.

Harry-Partridges-Starbarians-by-Joe-Amaro-1

Barbarian Queen 2: The Empress Strikes Back

Posted: 22/07/2014 in Trash movies
Tags: , , , , , , ,
0

Don’t let the title fools you… Apart of Lana Clarkson this movie has almost nothing to do with the first part. Sure it has some “borrowed” scenes, feminism, clear “all men are pigs” message but that’s where any similarity with the original movie ends.

The movie starts with Athelia (Lana Clarkson) receiving news about her father’s death on battlefield. But her father is not an ordinary man. He is the king of the realm. Her evil brother Ankaris (played by Alejandro Bracho) takes this opportunity to become the new king. Not a surprise since he looks like an evil version of king Arthur with large stick in his ass. Ankaris demands from Athelia to give him scepter which contains The Power and gives immortality. Purpose of the scepter is to guard king’s life (didn’t help him much as it turns out). Still, the body (or corpse if you will) of her father has not been found yet so Athelia refuses demands of new king. Ankaris throws her into dungeon in order to change her mind. “Why don’t he just takes scepter?”, you might ask. He can’t because it is protected with powerful spell (or so they say) which ensures that no man can touch it and use it without Athelia having previously removed protection from it. So, Ankaris sends his daughter Tamisa (played by Cecilia Twerina) to gain Athelia’s rust and trick her into releasing scepter. Tamisa is a little spoiled monster who is even more degenerate than her father. And she manages to fulfill her task. At least for a while. Being tired of chasing power, Ankaris decides to perform good old tirany instead of gaining immortality from the scepter. That means he doesn’t need Athelia anymore and sentences her to death. But, as it always happens in such situations, she somehow manages to escape while they were taking her to execution. While on the run she gets help from Ziela (played by Rebecca Wood) who is one of the nearby rebellious women tribe. Athelia joins her and couple of minutes after arriving at camp she had shown her intention to take over the tribe. You see, when provoked by tribe leader Erigena (played Orietta Aguilar) Athelis decides to show that she won’t put up with anybody’s shit. And which method she used? The only one that bunch women who aren’t getting enough (if you know what I mean) could think about – good old chick wrestling in a mud. No further talk needed. Enjoy the view.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x21xf20_chick-fight_fun

Getting dirty

While girls are getting dirty, men rape. It was always like that and always will be. So no surprise that soldiers wanted to have some fun in woods with daughter of peasant they intercepted. But not this time. Athelia and her tribe saved the poor girl, surrounded and killed soldiers (firstly I thought that they are going to rape them for a change) who are led by Ankaris’ right hand Hofrax (played by Roger Cudney). During that fight Erigena lost her life so Athelia can now officially become the tribe leader. Oh, and Hofrax got away (never kill one of the main vilains in first hour of movie).

More tits

In order to fight against evil king, Athelia will need to get more people on her side. Once again she ambushes Hofrax with a plan to free captured peasants who stood up against tyranny. Great battle commences with a lot of unconvincing, awfully choreographed fight scenes. This time Hofrax ends captured and tied to the tree. Athelia also captured her old friend from court Aurion (played by Greg Wangler) but she gives him much more hospitality than Hofrax. Unexpected sex scene between two of them is the best proof for level of hospitality. Yeah, all men are pigs but when itch between a legs begins, even an evil slave-driver will suffice. That’s what I call a hypocrisy. And just to make sure her hypocrisy stays unrevealed Athelia sends back to Ankaris both Hofrax and Aurion tied to horses and without pants.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x21xnop_lana-clarkson-love-scene_shortfilms

It is Ankaris’ turn to move. Well, it should be his at least but all he does is getting insane and talking about how much he hates peasants. And during his hate speeches he sounds like the dentist from “Troll 2” movie. Anyway, Hofrax came up with the plan which will lure Athelia into trap. He is going to fake execution of her nanny Nabis (played by Carolina Valero), among with several real executions of PEASANTS! Of course, being a blonde as she is, Athelia falls into trap, gets captured and once again ends up on rape machine (remember that thingy?). Tho, it is not exactly the same one. It is moderated version for higher class perverts. And all of that with little Tamisa watching and enjoying.

Proved interrogation methodProved interrogation method

After struggle with his emotions Aurion finally decides to free Athelia from the dungeon. Just like that. There weren’t even guards to kill. So he frees her, she goes to scepter room (no guards there as well) and it looks like everything is going to be just fine. But no, Athelia went back just to be recaptured. And there we go again. She is back to rape machine. I really don’t know what was the point of this. Possibly they needed to chuck in something so the movie wouldn’t be too short. Anyway, this time Athelia got even more sadistic torturer than Hofrax. Who? Little Tamisa, of course. Tamisa puts her tarantula pet onto poor tied-up Athelia. With Aurion who took a role of voyeur this time. It is never-ending fun down there.

I got really hooked up onto thisShe got really hooked up onto this

Meanwhile, things are not seem to be all well on Ankaris’ side. They have received a message which informs them that the real king is alive and returning to his castle. So the real king is not dead! Long live the king! Aurion takes this opportunity to
offers himself to attempt to convince Athelia to give away her secret to them. Of course, nobody is suspecting him of anything, not even after he demanded to go alone. Naive bunch or master of delusions? Either way, we are watching Aurion release Athelia once again, tho now he had help of Ziela and Noki (clumsy daughter of peasant they have saved; played by Elizabeth Jaeger) who got infiltrated into dungeon (no guards outside either). Aurion goes back with them to their camp thus breaking the heart of Tamisa. Hm what do you know? She is got a heart after all.

Master spiesMaster spies

But Athelia is not the only one whose parents got The Power. Tamisa’s late mother also possessed it. It is not a scepter this time. It is amulet which Tamisa used to turn herself into hot chick and then infiltrate the rebel camp. Ha I bet you didn’t see that coming! It is OK, metamorphosis from little repulsive girl to full grown woman wasn’t the thing I wanted to see either, especially with special effects this movie offers. Anyway, Tamisa uses her new-found powers to control spider’s venom in Athelia to find out secret words for controlling scepter. She also kills Nabis (yeah, old bat joined rebels too) and sneaks into Aurion’s tent with intention of killing him. He wakes up in last moment and knocks her down.

If this movie was better this could have been a threesomeIf this movie was better this could have been a threesome

It is time for full scale attack on castle. Athelia leads a rebels and intends to use Tamisa as a living shield. But during the fight Tamisa escapes and goes to her father to tell him a secret words. Of course, since she had morphed, Ankaris doesn’t recognize her and stabbed her with his sword (BTW, that’s the only scene where we can see a blood on a sword). A couple of moments later he realized what mistake he made. Too late! And that’s when he completely descents into madness. Meanwhile, on the other side of castle, Athelia didn’t have much problems in defeating Hofrax in yet another terrible sword fight. Only one obstacle remains – her evil brother. But Ankaris didn’t give Athelia the pleasure of killing him. No, he did that himself by sticking sword into his chest all the way to it’s handle. I really doubt that anyone can commit suicide in such way. Unless he had impaled his chest just a bit and then used a hammer to  nail the sword. Or falling on his sword repeatedly instead of hammering it. Since he was found laying on his back with no hammer to be seen around I afraid that ship has to sail off from this explanation. Anyway, battle is over, half-naked rebels have, Athelia gives another hearty speech and becomes a queen. Prosperity with simple peasants running country is guarantied.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x21xg1n_madness_fun

The king is soon to be dead!

Conclusion: This movie is so poor on acting and budget that it makes me wonder how it ever got made. The props look like they came from a local theater (and not a very good one for that matter). Weapons have been obviously made of plastic. Tho, it would be a real waste using a proper weapons on those awful and unconvincing fight scenes (unconvincing to “even 5 years old mentally challenged kid wouldn’t believe in this” level). And for nominally being a ‘fantasy’ movie, no actual magic was ever really seen. Director Joe Finley tried to improve overall impression by inserting nudity but even that wouldn’t help. There are soft-core porn with much better production values.

Sorceress (1982)

Posted: 18/07/2014 in Trash movies
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
0

One more notable entry in the Barbarian genre of post-Conan boom of the early 80’s is (of course) Roger Corman produced Sorceress (1982). Jack Hill (Coffee,  Foxy Brown), the director had an idea of combining  The  Corsican Brothers plot (two brothers able to feel each other’s pain) with the current Playboy centerfolds- sisters Leigh and Lynette Harris and (of course). And with a plan like that you just can’t fail.

 

cc_MySisterMySelf_18_Lynette_&_Leigh_HarrisLeigh and Lynette Harris in Playboy: MySisterMySelf(1981)

An extremely evil wizard desperately seeks his woman ’cause it’s time to sacrifice his firstborn to the evil god Caligara. Unfortunately for him it turns out he has twin girls. Confused over which one is the first born he kills his wife. Then the Kung Fu Jesus dude shows up and starts laying smack down on his warriors. Traigon tries to hypnotize him but his wife returns from the death and kills him with a knife- then she dies again. Trigon utters some ridiculous prophecy, something like “when the moon is in the house of the dragon once more I’ll come again”. Man, I really need to brush up on my Barbarian Horoscope knowledge.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x21prp5_sorceress01_fun

He promises that he’ll raise children to became great warriors- then it turns out the children are girls, then he decides to still raise them to became great warriors. He kinda backs out on the promise using the magic amulet to bestow them with fighting prowess (something like Matrix before Matrix) and dumps them with some poor villager family so he doesn’t have to actually deal with them. Many years later sisters have grown up to be buxumy blonds that obviously enjoy swimming in the local river. A random and perverse looking Satyr sneaks up on them and they do a bit of their trademark Naked Kung Fu on him. They return to the village afterwards but find it completely ravaged. Knights in their eternal search for “two who are one” raped and burned everything. Twins menage to get there in time to kill couple of the knights but their adopted father and mother are already dead.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x21prri_sorceress02_fun

“…they are violating her right this moment”

In the aftermath of the slaughter satyr again appears this time in company of the Viking?! And then Krona the Kung Fu Jesus appears again- now older and more resembling Kung Fu Moses. He empowers them with more of his knowledge and then walks into the fire and burns alive??? This is getting weirder and weirder.

Sorceress 1982.avi_001216040“Going into the fire now, see you all later”

Their journey for vengeance takes them to the big city where you can find all the gamblers, thieves and murderers you can think of. Curly -haired barbarian prince Elrick earns a ton of gold by cheating and the rest of the gamblers tried to kill him. It all erupts into one big fight and our heroes of course end up in the middle of it. They naturally team up with a Barbarian Prince and somehow menage to escape. While in hiding we learn that twins don’t know the concept of boys and girls and that is why they are showing their boobs for no reason every two minutes. viking tries to explain them how things go but quickly gives up.

Sorceress 1982.avi_001863120“Girls, what do you mean?”

Unfortunately the lady that kept them hidden betrays them to the Trigon’s soldiers and they capture the twins with a funny looking net that renders them helpless for some reason. Then they subject them to a cruel test to finally confirm which one is the first born but Viking and his new friend Barbarian Prince save them and they head directly to the forbidden forest where knight don’t dare to enter.Evil sorceress (finally I started to thing that the name of the movie was a scam), disciple of Triagon sends her ape servant to fetch them. He assumed command over the other monkeys in the forest and the bombed the intruders with something and they menage to capture one of the girls (Mara) along with a Barbarian Prince.

Sorceress 1982.avi_002343120Apes are the girl’s best friends!

They almost impale the (naked) prince but decide to let him go when they learn of his origins. Then Sorceress offers Elrik to sleep with Mara and then sacrifice them and enchanted by her he accepts. Also we witness the connection between twins with Myra reacting to Mara having sex with Prince with an angry Viking commentating. The level of bizarre of this scene is impossible to describe with words.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x21pry0_sorceress03_fun

See for yourself…

The evil (but laughably pathetic) ritual commences while the Myra, Viking and Satyr attempt to storm the castle. Of course they fail but Trigion menages to offend the Sorceress’s ape and he gives Satyr the sword and swings odds back into favor of our heroes.Skeletons rise from their graves while sacrifice still drags on and in the end Mara gets saved and Sorceress ends up sacrificed- and reborn as a giant Witch head. Twins strike back by summoning Flying Lion creature using the power Kung Fu Jesus/ Moses/ Krona gave them and the rest is history.

Everything you ever wanted to see, Flying lion VS The Withchead!

Everything is fine again, especially for the Barbarian Prince who is looking to have some real fun that same night

Sorceress 1982.avi_004624120

Conclusion: Extremely stupid,yet bizarre and entertaining Sorceress is for a reason one of the biggest successes of Roger Corman’s production and it should be noted as probably  the finest Barbarian film that he ever produced (rivaling with the original Deathstalker film).

Trivia #1: The director of the movie Jack Hill was crushed by the experience of making Sorceress. Roger Corman never delivered the promised budget so Hill was left to his own devices. As if that was not enough shoot in Mexico was plagued by deadly yin/ yang of rain and fire. In the end he took of his name off the Sorceress (replaced with “Brian Stewart”) and not only never worked with Roger Corman again but never talked to him either. Ironically film became somewhat of solid hit for Corman production earning as much as 8x it’s budget.

Trivia #2. Leigh and Lynette didn’t really succeed in following up the success of the Sorceress (their only role afterwards were as rape victims in I,the Jury) but they did menage to earn millions by having threesome with an  extremely wealthy old man over the period of four years. They eventually went to court because of it, as you can see in this article.

Playmates1

Hawk the Slayer (1980)

Posted: 10/07/2014 in Trash movies
Tags: , , , , , ,
3

Let this be a lesson to you all: Never judge the quality of the movie or its level of fun by trailer. Especially when it is B movie from ’80s. Don’t repeat my mistake. I had certain expectations from this one. Entire WM crew had. By expectations I mean good possibility that this movie is watchable and of high amount of fun. How wrong we were. “Hawk the Slayer” is, without any doubt, the most dull and boring of all barbarian movies and it sets sword and sorcery genre centuries back.

Hawk.the.Slayer.avi_000010720

As it is often a case in such kind of movies this one also starts with “disclaimer” about story of heroic deeds and eternal struggle between Good and Evil. After that, cliches start running rampant. We see evil one-eyed Voltan (played by Jack Palance) demanding some key of some magic tower from his father (though Voltan is obviously much older than his father). Of course, this one refuses to give the key to spawn of evil so Voltan impales him with his sword and runs away. A moment later younger son Hawk (played by John Terry) arrives just in time to hear about prophecy being fulfilled and other gibberish from his dying father. Things that Voltan was looking for were right under his nose. If he aimed higher he would strike a pouch under his father’s neck. That pouch contains mind-stone which, combined with sword that hangs on the wall, creates mighty Sword of the Mind. Such sword can fall into your hand if you think about it (or run the movie backwards). Hawk takes the sword and swears vengeance upon his older brother. In that moment poorly drawn hawk flies out of Hawk’s stomach releasing a sound of a screaming woman and that’s the sign for opening credits to bust in. I would say that demented people from Chips Productions and demented director Terry Marcel have never even seen or heard hawk.

Is it a bird, a plane. No, its nothingIs it a bird? A plane? No, it is nothing!

Voltan works with dark sorceress who heals his scalded side of face with eye-drops made from special crystal. But those crystals are quite expensive. He also becomes the Dark one which gives him the power to burn villages and kills women and children. One man evades slaughter of his village and seeks a refuge in monastery led by nuns. Nuns saved him but they couldn’t save his hand. While he was in delirium we learn that his name is Ranulf (played by Morgan Shepard). Anyway, on one night Voltan busts in monastery of Cantenberry, where his son Drogo (played by Shane Briant) slaps nun while his father kidnaps Mother Superior Abbess (played by guest star Annette Crosbie). He demands a ransom of 2000 gold pieces. So nuns send Ranulf, who btw got shot with knife during kidnapping, for help to Holy Fortress. Of course, High Abbot refuses to pay the ransom. Instead he decides to wage a war against Voltan. But with what? Or with who? With a bunch of nuns? With one-handed old man? No, with a holy warrior who had already fought many times on the side of Light. You guess who might he be?

Hawk.the.Slayer.avi_000684960

Ranulf sets off to another voyage in search for Hawk. And wherever is injustice Hawk will be there, riding through same forest while ripping off The Magnificent Seven and A Fistful of Dollars. First one he had saved is some old Witch (played by Patricia Quinn). In return she foretells him a future and reveals that one-handed man is searching for him. Well, Hawk didn’t need to wait for long to find Ranulf since he saved him from being a target in throwing axe contest. Oh that scene you should see. Or shouldn’t? Hawk enters the contest against two thugs. While they are on Mexican standoff Hawk impales one thug with his mind-sword and then kills the other thug with his own throwing axe! Tremendous reflexes indeed, especially when you take into consideration the fact that both thugs have thrown their axes in same time. Ranulf and Hawk then join together in journey. Hawk reveals to Ranulf that Voltan had killed his fiancee when they were younger. Though, Voltan looks old even in Hawk’s flashback.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x218mm9_duel_fun

 

Duel

In order to fight Voltan they need to assemble a crew. But even that couldn’t be done in more ordinary way such as plain seeking, observing and healthy decisions (non-existence of budget, dialogue creativity and actors probably had something to do with that). Hawk and Ranulf went back to the witch cave where she teleports them to persons they need to save. In return those persons will join their cause. At the end of day Hawk had a gang consisted of following colorful characters: Gort the giant (played by Bernard Bresslaw) who isn’t a giant at all; Elf archer Crow (played by Ray Charleson) with false kid-made pointy ears who possess multi-fire bow; and dwarf Baldin (played by Peter O’Farell) who looks like Black Adder from season 2 and uses whip for fighting and catching a fish. Together they are making the most powerless group in the world of sword-and-sorcery while in the same time they manage to rip-off much better movies such as Seven Samurai and even Sevano’s Seven.
For test, the group decides to free the slaves and rob 2000 gold pieces from slave master. In that fight we can see full scale dementia of producers, directors and actors. Crow’s bow besides multi-fire has rapid-fire mod as well (which is shown by fast repeating short sequences of scene). And Crow is not the only one. It seems that Ranulf has found ancient Chinese repeating crossbow schematic we have been hearing about since he accomplished high rate of fired bolts in just couple of seconds. Remember, he is got only one hand. Tho, I didn’t notice bolts storage that crossbow should have. Anyway with such two mighty warriors who need the rest? Hell, Crow himself could solo entire Voltan’s army (consisted of his retarded son and couple of drunken thugs) with his mighty bow.

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x218mlw_rapid-fire_fun

 

Drogo, wanting to prove his worth to Voltan, goes alone to monastery to pick up the ransom money. There he finds an obstacle called Hawk. Drogo puts every drop of his acting talent he could muster (and there aren’t many) in one hilarious line said to Hawk: “I am no messenger but I will give you a message….a message of DEATH!” Fight commences, and in couple of seconds it is over, mostly thanks to both bow and crossbow working in rapid-fire mode. Drogo escapes but he is badly wounded and later he dies on Voltan’s arms.

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x218ml6_message_fun

Kill the messenger!

Now is the time for counter-attack. Hawk and his crew, with the help of the witch, tried to rescue Abbess but they were repelled. It is Voltan’s turn to act now. With the help of one scared, betraying, backstabbing nun he storms the monastery and captures entire crew, demanding to know where the gold is hidden. He kills Balding while being in blind rage because dwarf kicked him in his scalded side of the face (Hawk’s fiance scalded him with a torch as we later learn in one of the many flashbacks) and runs back to dark sorceress. Witch takes that opportunity to rescue them and after some rapid-fire fight the final duel takes place in monastery. Best part of the movie is there too. When Voltan sees sword of the mind on work he says “So, you have found the power which is rightly mine!” Jack Palance doesn’t get much lines here same as others but at least he acts them for more than it’s worth. Anyway, final battle is rather short (I believe they already spent entire budget on repeating crossbow and bow shots). Hawk kills Voltan with punch in the belly in slow-motion fight (?) and that should be the happy end. Or is it? Dark sorceress takes Voltan’s body from chapel and flies away with it, witch foresees new future for Hawk and poorly drawn hawk once again flies out to our face while screaming like a woman. Have they no shame?

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x218mkt_power_fun

 

Conclusion: One of the strange things about this movie is that it was intended for children. Hence there is not a drop of blood shown, tho I suspect the real reason is not having enough budget to buy bags of ketchup. Overall this movie is a dull, lethargic, soul-crashing piece of British sword-and-sorcery attempt. I can say, with being 100% sure, that the only DECENT thing here is role of Jack Palance as Voltan. Everything else deserves to be thrown to history’s scrapyard, then smashed into cube and finally burned. Rapid-fire bows and crossbows? I mean WTF was that??? My misunderstanding reaches even higher level when I take into consideration how many good movies “Hawk the slayer” attempted to rip-off. By story developing this movie looks like the final episode of Black Adder season one, tho it is much less quality and serious.

Trivia: Sequel named “Hawk the Hunter” is announced for year 2015. Let us all join in prayers that it never comes to that. Do whatever you can to stop this. Organize charity for buying off the rights for this movie, bug people at their homes, start petition on change.com, burn Chips Productions to the ground….

The Conquest (1983)

Posted: 08/07/2014 in Trash movies
Tags: , , , , , , ,
2

We can not talk about The Conquest, probably our weirdest and most fascinating entree into the Barbarian (aka Sword and Sorcery) genre without talking about the man who directed it- Mr. Lucio Fulci. Starting his career as a director of Italian comedies he subsequently moved to more fitting (and by that I mean more violent) genres like Spagetti Western and then horror movies. He claimed worldwide fame with the notorious Zombi 2 (aka The Zombie) billed as an unofficial sequel to Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (something akin to the things Albert Pyun is doing- just better).

Now, many of those hyper- violent and gory films were scripted by his collaborator Dardano Sacchetti (sort of like Jagger/Richards of the Giallo Horror). So, when Lucio decided to take a break from  he  usual routine and try his luck with a (supposedly) A-budgeted project (co-production between Italia, Spain and Mexico) inspired by the early Conan the Barbarian craze and didn’t bring Sacchetti with him that created rift between them and they  never  collaborated again. Many people consider The Conquest the turning point after which Fulci’s career never reached former highs (although the loss of quality can also be attributed to Fulci’s  problems with the diabetes and his constant battles with depression). “So, was it all worth it?” you ask. Well, you’re about to find out.

conquest_poster_01

Film starts with a very ethereal (and also very foggy) ceremony that marks the boy’s passage towards the manhood (and also equips him with an armor and a magic bow (more about that later). Then we are bombarded with extremely synthesizer- based score that sounds incredibly like as of a bad outtake for the He- Man cartoon. Things get more crazy from there with an inarticulate chants performed by seemingly barely legal naked girl with a golden mask and feathers (I am not making this up- and you can see this pic as a proof).

 conquest-1983 Sabrina Siani ( Ocron) continued to be just as naked in all her other roles,  unfortunately she also continued to be just as flat

 

Enraged pack of Dog-men (yes, such things do exist in this universe) attack the human village and ravage it completely.Poor leader who tried to reason with them gets his head opened and brain smashed for his efforts and they even find the time to pull apart one lady (a most horrible death if there is one).

Saving a lady from the snake the boy- Ilias provokes a wrath of some local barbarians. Enamored with his bow they try to take it from him but end up taking only arrows (to the knee of course). Unfortunately he runs out of arrows and stars runing for his life. Just when it seems that it’s too late a musclebound barbarian appears and starts wrecking hawk with his BARBARIAN NUNCHUCKS!!!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x213i0q_conquest02_fun

Barbarian Nunchucks, so fuzzy you could die!

Barbarian and the boy start the journey together all the while having interesting moral dilemmas (it’s ok to eat an animal, but only if someone else has killed it, also it’s ok if you kill the man that killed the animal and eat his animal). But golden headed maiden still plots their doom and they are forced to run for their lives faced with a pack of Dog-men. After escaping they found themselves in another village, by coincidence the same one where cute girl that Ilias saved lives. The two of them sneak out after the dinner when everyone is sleeping and… SHE GETS BRUTALLY KILLED BY THE DOG-MAN!!! Then they proceed to rape and slaughter everything that moves. Our hero somehow survives but gets overwhelmed and captured- presumably so they can eat him
for dinner.

Conquest_Full_Movie_1983_-_Fighting_Fantasy_Horror_Luc.mp4_002076407A hero, or a dinner?

It all falls down to his nunchucky-wielding barbarian friend Mace and he doesn’t disappoint.He uses diversion-  gunpowder explosions while he frees his friend and then together they start chopping up terrified Dog- man. They maybe are good guys but that doesn’t mean they are into mercy and all that stuff. In the meantime the evil Ocron is performing a mystical ceremony by rubbing herself with a really big snake (if there is some symbolic in this I won’t point it out). She summons the evil master Zora to this plane offering him his body and soul in return for the Ilias’s head and his bow (man, she must really like that bow).

Conquest_Full_Movie_1983_-_Fighting_Fantasy_Horror_Luc.mp4_002538452

 

Ilias insists on punishing Ocron for her crimes and his barbarian friend reluctantly agrees to take him to her.They go hunting for food but get surprised by some cartoon arrows.They escape on the raft but Ilias almost dies from the infection (arrows were obviously not just drawn by hand by also poisoned). While he struggles Mace the barbarian fights of some swamp yetis and then confronts the dark lord Zora. Zora using old Mortal Kombat trick copies all of Mace’s powers (and his good looks) and now we have ourselves a barbarian nunchuku fight! That alone is worth the price of the movie.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x213jce_conquest03_fun

Not that’s what I call- ACTING!

Now Ilias finally realizes it’s time to go back to his mystical land and that he’s got nothing to be ashamed of (I mean he almost died minutes ago) but as he’s sailing of his barbarian friend gets captured by those crazy yeti  creatures. He sees not other way and returns and with that demonstration of courage he finally becomes a man. Also when you’re a man you get cool laser arrows like this.

conquest_shot2lMan, this is badass!

He saves his friend and finds the time to play with the dolphins (no, I don’t know how that fits anything) but mighty Zora is still not stopped. He menages to surprise them in their sleep and capture them. And then- beheads Ilias!? Ok, I have to admit I’ve never seen the main character headless in the third act of the movie before. Ocron tries to drain the mystical power from the head of Ilias but fails because his soul has already moved on and we have final confirmation of that in the vision of Mace who gets visited by Ilias ghost. Mace following the instruction burns his friends body and covers himself with ashes for protection. And then- IT REVENGE TIME!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x213keo_conquest04_fun

Now, that’s a lot of revenging!

As you can see Ocron finally loses her mask (she has a funny wolf head) and soon her life too. She does get reborn as a white wolf but that’s another story (one I’m afraid we’ll never learn).The End

Verdict: So, was it all really worth it? Well, my guess is- probably not. But still- this film stands firmly as a the most fascinating anomaly in the Barbarian genre. With it’s extreme gore and nudity, strange and surreal atmosphere, and unexpected story structure ( bravely choosing to deviate from Campbell’s Heroes Journey standard) The Conquest deserves to be admired.

Worse News: Samurai Cop Lives!

Posted: 03/07/2014 in Trash movies, Tribute, Worse News
Tags: , , ,
1

samurai-7Z’Darr VS Hannon, the fight for the ages!

 Legendary Matt Hannon the star of Samurai Cop and antagonist of American Revenge long presumed dead finally found the time to speak up and clear the air. Matt Hannon is in fact alive and well, living under the assumed name and looking good as ever. He hit the web and officially refuted reports of his death (accepted as a fact for more than a few years)  one week ago and now he’s back with some more killer stuff. There’s even some steam brewing’ on a possible follow-up (Samurai Cop 2:  Deadly Vengence ). Anyway, we want to thank the Daughter of the Samurai- Courtney. She heroically convinced her father to come clean and let us know that Samurai is still kicking ass and all our lives are richer because of it. Now, we’re eagerly awaiting further development.

Part I

Part II

 

…and now for the old times sake!

Worse News: Wrath of the Dead prologue!

Posted: 26/06/2014 in Trash movies, Worse News
Tags: , , , , , ,
0

26112_1369863080127_1038228527_1117401_719924_nThe original poster art, hopefully changed by now…

Letting you read our first ever review (Zone of the Dead) was in part a history lesson but also a sign of things to come.We are just now …years later ready for a sequel of the first Serbian zombie flick this time with inclusion of a local star Katarina Radivojevic  (Zona Zamfirova) as the witch (part not unlike the one she already played in under appreciated Tears for Sale) and returning star Ken Foree. The first glimpse into the Wrath of the Dead provides serious progress as far as the atmosphere goes (and it even touches on the nostalgia with rock hit from the Yugoslavia days, “Jutro ce promeniti sve” by Indexi ) but it looses a bit of momentum with crude (Iron Maiden’s) Eddie- like make-up effect and almost straight Walking Dead rip off scene that follows. Without the further introduction- Wrath of the Dead!

P.S.  Just to mention that soundtrack will be by Nikola Jeremic, known for his failures in Six Days of Dark, Mamula and some other crappy animated movies which are used only by international terrorists as torturing method.

Zone of the Dead (2009)

Posted: 19/06/2014 in Trash movies
Tags: , , ,
1

Disclaimer: This movie had inspired us to begin with awful movies review. Naturally, we started from domestic cinematography. Following text is our very first review, written on IMDB. Due to disgraceful actions of its director it got deleted several times. But to keep public warned about this atrocity we are presenting our firstborn to you on our blog. HA! In your face Konjevic!

zone_of_the_dead_japan_big

Bad special effects even for a low-budget movie, terrible dialogs obviously written in Serbian and then (poorly} translated into English probably using a google translator and the fact that most of the actors are not proficient in English language make the movie seem completely incoherent. They even messed up the action scenes by applying amateurish shake cam. Emilio Roso is doing a poor Jean Claude Van Damme imitating that feels completely out-of-place in this movie. The less said about other backup characters – the better.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1zuvls_wtf_shortfilms

WTF?

Milan Konjevic (script writer and director) is a washed up comic-book writer known in the ’90-s for “Generacija Tesla”, “Borci sumraka” and in 2000-s for unreadable mess called “Divlja magija”. It’s obvious that in all of his years of writing he hasn’t learned a thing. The story author Vukota gave himself a role of the action hero despite the fact that he doesn’t know anything about acting, action, and his build is of an anorexic 13 years old girl. Pathetic! Also the fact that in Serbia no one is actually speaking Serbian is quite mysterious.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1zuvg6_katana-vs-zombie_shortfilms

Italian dude again demonstrating his ass-kicking abilities, now with samurai sword.

The only high point of this disaster is a surprisingly decent performance by Ken Foree, zombie-movie veteran. It seems impossible that someone can give such a performance even in a god-awful movie like this one.People who liked this movie are either brain-damaged, or Milan Konjevic or probably both of those things.

Conclusion: THE WORST ZOMBIE MOVIE EVER!!! P.S. Mr.Konjevic, please stop!

Besides above mentioned there are still many things which don’t make sense to us. For example, Italian dude that is making a fool out of himself (throwing himself to the floor Van Damme style presumably shooting zombies to the feet), president mumbling incoherently during entire movie, old man forgetting demise of his wife after 10 days only, subplot that leads nowhere, “master zombie” wearing hazard suit and making Godzilla (?) sounds, chick throwing herself away to be eaten by zombies and enjoying every every moment of it (supposedly she is high on drugs but I really don’t know what kind of drugs can cause a desire to get eaten alive)….

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1zuvnx_zombie-boobs_shortfilms

The only good thing about this movie.

Verdict: If you are fan of zombie genre and you absolutely have nothing to watch please, for the love of God, don’t give this movie a chance!!! Better try your luck with Italian rip-offs of Romero movies such are “Zombie” (1979) and “City of the Living Dead” (1980). At least they contain some serious gore.

 

Older Entries
Newer Entries