From the legendary Z-movie/Porn director (and occasional pro wrestler) Fred Olen Ray comes a story of a heroic gunslinger and hot cyborgs! Enter the CYBERZONE…
The movie starts with a typical SF crawl that explains the post- 8.9 earthquake life (used also in the setup of Escape from L.A.). After some random footage of stars we go back to Earth just in time to witness a rugged, good looking bounty hunter getting almost killed. And it’s freakin’ Mark Singer- Beastmaster himself! Anyway he survives all thanks to the hidden pistol and then he puts his victims head in the bag? He is cyborg so it’s all Ok.
He naturally proceeds to the local bar (with a mutant stripper no less). Also for some reason bartender looks like a pirate. Then we meet our other protagonist/ antihero Hawk (Matteas Hues),who collaborating with a Predator (?) finds some illegally distributed Pleasure Droids.
These are the droids you are looking for!
Jack Ford (Singer) gets a job offer that takes him to the fancy upper levels of the city. There he’s informed of the terrible theft of the Pleasure Droids from one of the Jupiter’s colonies. After some back and forth he is forced to except the company of Bethany, one of the firm’s leading technicians. She doesn’t seem too happy with the pairing but you just know she’ll worm up to him eventually.They head out to the layer of a fat face- painted criminal lord (something like a human Jabba the Hutt just more pathetic). Ford gives him the cyborg head (remember the beginning) and tries to get some information out of him. Unfortunately the fat one is collaborating with a thief and all Ford gets is killers, including Droid Hunter on his ass.
Ford continues the search and visits some whorehouses to do so. Also that’s an excuse for the cute technician to dress up as a whore herself. Just as they were on their way out they get attacked by Fatso’s men and there we witness the cyber martial- arts training of Bethany (eat you heart out Matrix) and street smarts of Ford. Now the twist- it turns out the killers were in fact from New Angeles (a religious ultra- conservative mecca controlled by seemingly benevolent founder Charles Humberstone). Ford ties to find a way to smuggle them in New Angeles but unexpectedly Droid Hunter shows up and almost kills him. Thankfully Bethany knew his weak spot of his days of bounty hunting would be numbered.
Strangely, Hues is just now porting the New Angeles underwater town with pleasure Droids masked as nuns. and one of them misteriosly missing- how the hell do you wind out in a situation like that? He gets into the verbal confrontation with Charles (in fact a Crime Kingpin) over the lost Droid but he has to settle for less money. This man loves his job
That prompts Hawk/ Ford meeting in the same exact bar we already visited numerous time during the movie. Dissatisfied with his earning he strokes a deal with Ford to steel back the droids. That proves surprisingly easy because they masked the technician as the pleasure droid. Nobody saw threw their scheme until it was too late. Now being the gentlemen that he is Ford returns to save Beth too and Hawks being cool cat himself decides to help him. Pressed by superior numbers Hues heroically dies (shout out to the Western influences of this film).
“Just make sure I get my cut”
Beth and Ford return to the company to pick up the check and Bethany decides to quit having found her wild side down in the slums. And just when you think it’s all over the last Droid shows up- to help down on his luck homeless person. I have to presume that her help was greatly appreciated.
I guess he finally found his faith…
Verdict: As always Ray dosn’t have much in the financing department to show us the scope of the world but he does good with what he has and (as always) when he rans out of ideas he uses the old trick of adding some half- naked ladies in the scene.And sometimes that even works (not in the case of a mutant stripper but in other cases). Anyway this movie is one of those “what you see is why you get” kind of deals. If you wanted to see Beastmaster shooting people, Matheas Hues being kinda emotionless and heavily mascular and cool, and some slutty droids too- you’ve came to the right place. Otherwise find another dystopian future to enjoy.
People are talking about violence in schools problem since schools had been invented. Violence in schools, by my account, is as old as education itself. Over the years a lot of suggestions for solving this problem have been made. Many procedures have been implemented. And they all failed. School violence still exists and it will exist long after we are gone. But the crappiest attempt to subdue the violence has been made in this movie. To answer the violence with more violence!
On the beginning of this supposedly a sequel to the “class of 1884” we get an explanation about how far violence in school have gone until the year 1999. High school gangs are taking control over schools. Gang controlled areas are known as free fire zones. In the middle of one of these zones, in Seattle, Kennedy High is located. It is an area without law, where police do not enter and where only thing that rules is anarchy. Department of Educational Defense (created for the purpose of this movie) has decided to re-open the schools and control the gangs. With the help of Megatech (robot making guys) they send 3 new teachers to Kennedy High and it’s principal Dr Miles Longford (played by Malcolm McDowell). Well, not the teachers actually but 3 cyborgs programmed in history, chemistry, mathematics and physical education. Of course, they also come equipped with special hardware to deal with armed to the teeth gangs. To me this looks like a combination of Dolf Lundgren’s “Detention” and bad cyborgs movies. Or, to be more accurate, it looks like if someone tried to build a school and starts education system in “Mad Max”.
Tactical Education Unit
In order this experiment to work they will need some Guinea pigs. So they have released the most troubling students from jail. I wonder what makes them so sure that students will go back to school? Anyway, one of them is Cody Culp (played by Bradley Gregg, whom you might remember from the “Nightmare on Elm Street 3”). Cody wants to go straight despite objections of his friend and his younger brother Angel (played by Joshua Miller; “River’s Edge” and “Near Dark”). Well, at least they claim he is “brother” since I spent almost entire movie working out if he was really a boy! Cody arrives in school after making through free fire zone just to be there in time for chemistry class. The new chemistry teacher Ms. Connors (played by legendary Pam Grier) shows that there will be no fucking around with new members of school stuff by kicking asses of two students. Same goes with history teacher Mr. Hardin (played by John P. Ryan; “Runaway Train”), who gave a new meaning to corporal punishment term (and gave the reason why it should remain banned).
That something is wrong with robots we see when teachers started with killing undisciplined students (well thats a bit harsh). First, Mr. Hardin bashed the head of some unlucky stoner into his own locker. Then, gym teacher Mr. Bryles (played by Patrick Kilpatrick) started beating the hell out of Cody and then broke a neck of Cody’s friend Mohawk who came to the rescue. Need I to say that Mohawk was also stoned as a hell while he was attacking with gun? Anyway, creator of robots Dr. Bob Forrest (played by Stacy Keach; “The Ninth Configuration”) doesn’t find this not to be unusual and he shows no sympathy for students while he justifies actions of his creations. Not that he could do something about it since cyborgs have openly disliked the idea of being terminated.
Not the Jeffrey Combs but almost as mad as him
After teachers have killed Cody’s brother Angel (at which point I am still not sure if he is a boy, and I guess you might say he took that secret to grave) things go in an obvious and predictable direction from then on. With principal’s daughter Christie (played by Traci Lin; “Fright Night 2”) on his side Cody re-unites two gangs to wage a war against teachers. Somewhere along the way we learn that cyborgs used to work for military and that they went back on their original program hence the killing rampage they went on (shameless rip-off of “Westworld”). That’s what you get when you buy a second hand cyborgs from the US army. Mr. Hardin is even more psychotic, Pam Grier is even bigger bitch while Mr. Bryles is just plain strongman.
It seems that teenage gangs were quite well-armed those days since they had automatic weapons and bazookas (?) No one bothered to explain where they did get them. Not that at that point we were keen to search for any logic in this silly and plain stupid sci-fi horror. War is taking place on post-apocalyptic battleground around the school. Don’t miss more senseless killing, explosions and bad rip-offs. Be sure to notice Pam Grier showing us her mechanical tits a moments before she is blown up by an axe. Enjoy the art of brain drilling performed by Mr. Hardin just before his head got shredded by uzi. Street war is the time when you can show your creativity in sadism.
So the war seems to be over. Aren’t you forgetting someone? That’s right, a toughest guy has been left for the end. Mr. Bryles turned out to be quite persistent in performing discipline measures. The fight between him and Cody and Christie, despite the fact they ripped off “Terminator 2, is awfully staged with stop-motion so terrible that it makes “Nemesis” looks like an Oscar winner in special effects category. Yeah, and it ended with explosion of Mr. Bryles’ head. There is nothing more I can add here. Just plain nonsense.
Conclusion: This movie teaches us that we shouldn’t go to school unless it is the only choice. I am sure that director Mark Lester wanted to send a different message but he did everything wrong. You know, if a cast includes Malcolm McDowell, and if he is not a villain, he is not effective. The acting is bad even with a decent cast like this (I will never understand what made them to sign up for such rubbish), the soundtrack is poor (aside from the “Nine Inch Nails” track), and the plot is so unbelievably non-existent that you get the idea that the whole movie is just a cheap excuse to shoot people and blow things up. If free fire zones were out of reach even for police than what makes students go to school? A friendship? A desire for education? Ha! Obvious attempt of ripping off and mixing ‘The Warriors’, ‘Westworld’ and ‘Robocop’. And it even had failed at that! It is only good for metallers who want to recall the 1980’s battle between the glams (Blackhearts) and the goths (Razerheades).
After a shocking revelation that Matt Hannon the actor behind the Joe Marshall aka Samurai Cop is still alive (link) we finally have the official confirmation of the sequel Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance! Not only that but there’s also a chance to participate in the making of the film with Kickstarter campaign that just started. Matt Hannon (Joe Marshall) and Mark Frazer (Frank Washington) alongside Melissa Moore (Peggy) and Gerald Okamura (Okamura) reprise their roles from the original and we also get some fun addition in the form of former James Bond George Lazenby, playmate and adult actress Lexy Belle and Mindy Robinson from Pain & Gain and V/H/S/2 .
While everyone is discussing their ideal cast for female Expendables flick (something along the lines of Sigourney Weaver and Milla Jovovich) Asylum film decided to go one step beyond that. Yes, they are (almost ingeniously) ripping of a movie that hasn’t been made yet (and it won’t come out ’till 2015 at best). And I mean who needs Jolie or Jovovich when you can get Cyntia Rothrock, Vivica A. Fox (now a Asylum regular) and Brigitte Nielsen. Right?
Anyway movie looks well enough for (extremely low budget) standards of Asylum and there’s nothing wrong in checking this out while we wait for the real thing.If nothing else you have to respect the sheer audacity of those Asylum guys.
Cast of course spans several decades of female B movie stars and is rounded up by (famed stuntwoman) Zoe Bell, ex- Terminator chick and Uwe Boll’s favorite Kristanna Loken and Korean-American TV star Nicole Bilderback. Movie will be officially released August 8, and for any additional information you can visit http://www.theasylum.cc/product.php?id=257
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 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.
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 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.
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…
With 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.
And 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).
Queen 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.
Maybe 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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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 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.
She 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 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 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.
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.
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.
Leigh 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.
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.
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.
“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.
“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.
Apes 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.
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
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.
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.
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, 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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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….
These are the droids you are looking for!
This man loves his job
“Just make sure I get my cut”
I guess he finally found his faith…
Worsemovies 