Posts Tagged ‘Sword and Sorcery’

The Conquest (1983)

Posted: 08/07/2014 in Trash movies
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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.

STARBARIANS (2012/ 13)

Posted: 02/05/2013 in Worse News
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While we close off our (extremely successful dare I say) Barbarian Month on WM I would like to present you one of my personal favorites. An  animated show by brilliant Harry Patridge (aka Happy Harry)who ingeniously combined Space Opera and Sword and Sorcery genres with his off beat humor to produce something that has authentic 80es Animated Show look and all the brutal carnage you can take.

I PRESENT YOU KILGAR AND HOGSTRONG- STARBARIANS!

Episode 1

Episode 1,5

Ator The Fighting Eagle aka Ator The Blade Master aka Ator l’invincibile (1982)

Posted: 29/04/2013 in Uncategorized
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Kingdom of the spiders shall last 1000 years, and people shall suffer 1000 years, for it is written. And this time shall be known as the Age of Darkness and  the shadow of the spider shall be the law. Indeed, the people shall pay tribute to the word of the master and live in bondage in the valley of the shadows,  even to very mists of a volcano that sleeps above. When 1000 years is done a man will come to promise different way and he shall be named Toran and many  will believe and many will be prosecuted. The sign of Toran will bare witness to the legend, but Toran will fail. For the wrath of the Spider King is mighty  indeed. People of the valley shall weep, for there is no hope, for it is also written that the Spider King will reign until the day the mountain speaks forth in anger. Then out of the darkness prophecy relives, for Toran casts the seed upon the wind, and even in death to hymn his born a son. That’s pretty much it.

The son of Toran is born on stormy night, in a small village. We see woman holding a baby with rather large head, being quite upset. On the other side of  village, in a shack, a lone man wakes up. Saying nothing else than “It is done”, he gets up and leaves the shack. Then, we see golden black man, playing with  his spiders. Yes, that’s right. He is no one else than the High Priest of the Spider (played by Dakkar). Word travels fast across the land, and the news  about arrival of son of Toran have reached to Spider King. Obviously shaken by such news he announces to his servants that child must die, before he reaches  manhood. Sounds familiar?

The child must die

The child must die!!!

The man from the shack comes named Griba (played by Edmund Purdom) to take the new born baby from her mother, and she gives her son to him without either of  them saying a word. That’s what I call motherhood! Anyway, Griba manages to take baby far away, just moments before men of High Priest of the Spider came to  village, slaughtering everyone in their way. But he couldn’t keep the baby for himself, so he decides to give him to young, but poor couple from another  village, with promise that, for their effort, they will receive provisions, armor and hunting weapons.

Transaction complete

Transaction complete!

Many years later, baby has grown up into Ator (played by Miles O’Keeffe), the greatest gay icon of his time. He is in the field, playing with his sister  Sunya (or at least he thinks she is his sister). Ator and Sunya (played by Ritza Brown) are apparently in love (?!). Ator fails to understand the fact that  he can’t marry Sunya (what about incest being sick?). They’ve had a short discussion after which Ator decides to visit his father, in order to ask for a hand  of his sister!!! Funny things is that everyone in the village looks exactly the same like 20 years ago, including his parents, who haven’t aged even for a  day. Now, back to marriage proposing. In normal and traditional occasions, every sane father would kick out such sick and twisted suitor. But no! When Ator popped the question, after previously explaining the situation, his father and future father-in-law (that happens too), replied to him “Ator, you don’t know  how really happy you made me” (!!!), after which he started explaining to his adopted son events from the beginning of this review. So basically, general  happiness in the village, preparations for the wedding, Ator wearing a girly boots while being happy that he will become his own brother-in-law, etc… But,  as it always happens, right before the wedding started, evil High Priest of the Spider attacked village, in orgies of blood and intestines… It seems that  professional soldiers are no match for peasants armed with rakes and pitchforks… Still, soldiers outnumbered peasants, ending up with many casualties on  both sides, and village torched to the ground… Oh yeah, they kidnapped Sunya, and during that act we could clearly see genuine medieval panties.

Medieval panties

Genuine medieval panties.

After leaving the village, Ator encounters Griba, who tells him about prophecy according to which Ator will end tyranny of Spider King. Griba takes Ator under  his command, and starts training him in swords fight and karate (?), providing our hero with the armor and swords. During one of their trainings, Ator helped  lady in distress (what a gentleman), who was attacked by some bandits. No, in this movie she didn’t thank him by allowing him to harvest the fruits of her  loins, so they departed. Anyway, without any previous explanation, Ator goes to some random cave where he finds The Mighty Sword of Might aka Toran’s sword.

Mighty sword of might

Mighty sword of might!

During hunt in a forest, Ator gets captured by Amazon women warriors (not again!). And not just by any Amazon woman, but by the girl he saved from bandits  couple of scenes ago. To get this short, after a speech consisted of shitload of more feministic bullshits, Amazon queen announces that her girls will fight  in tournament and the prize is content of Ator’s underpants. And not only that… The victor of competition will have the honor and the duty to be fertilized   by our muscular hero, thus bearing a child that will be future queen of all tribes. I wonder what they will do in case that child happens to be a male? Meh,  it’s best not to think about it. Anyway, as you have already guessed, victorious girl is the woman Ator saved from the bandits. And who captured him in  return. Her name is Roon (played by Sabrina Siani). Her orders are clear: spend the night with Ator, get plowed and fertilized, and kill him in the morning  (black widow syndrome; or is it mantis). But when Roon heard about his kidnapped love and his intentions to desecrate the Temple of the spider, she got  softened and decided to join him. For that goal, they needed to get away from Amazon village. There is one more problem. Toran’s sword is being held in the  center of village and guarded by Amazon warriors. So they sent a bear, who was Ator’s gift to Sunya (I should have probably mentioned that earlier), to do  their dirty job. How brave… Distraction was successful, they’ve got the sword and escaped the village.

Fertilizing

Fertilizing time!

Somewhere along the way, Roon got trapped after following mysterious deer of mystery, which lured Amazon girl into cave and then ridiculously disappeared. On  the other side, Ator encounters evil sorceress, after following the image of Sunya. Evil sorceress shows him a vision where Sunya is now with the High Priest  of the Spider (once she went black, she never came back), seduces him, and right when he was about to heat her oven, Roon rescues him, by shooting an arrow  into sorceress’ mirror, thus making her look like a hideous monster. Seems to me like another rip-off, this time of Odyssey. Since our heroes got reunited at evil sorceress, they choose to get some rest at a local inn. Only thing worth of mentioning there is a fat inn keeper girl  (played by Chandra Vazzoler), who serves the bean and shows her tits.

Mystery deer of mystery

Now Ator and Roon are in the other cave, surrounded by blind blacksmiths and blind warriors. No one is attacking them so they proceed deeper in the cave  where Ator finds mighty shield of might. He fights with his shadow, takes the shield and, on his way out, he heroically kills blind people. Such a bravery!  True warrior indeed!

Fight with the shadow

Shadow-warrior

Grand finale takes the place inside Temple of the Spider. Ator and Roon are outnumbered by black knights, but they eventually kill every single one. Just to  mention that the scenes of swords fighting aren’t worth mentioning. Only High Priest of the Spider has left. Fight between him and Ator lasts for some time,  but it ends up with High Priest of the Spider seeing his own reflection in the mighty shield of might, which makes him explode (???). Now the only thing left  to do is to save Sunya, who is trapped in giant spider web made of ropes. But it’s not that easy. Ator there finds Griba, who reveals to him that he was just  using our hero in order to become the next High Priest of the Spider! What a twist! I bet you didn’t expect that. Anyway, after a short fight, Ator pushes  Griba into ropes (sorry, i mean spider web), frees Sunya and both of them hit the road. But it turns out that Griba wasn’t enough meal for Spider King, so  the giant spider (which can be barely seen) went outside to pursue gay Ator. There, Ator uses a Sunlight reflection of his mighty shield of might in order to  distract Spider King, come closer, and cuts him with the mighty sword of might, thus ending his reign. End of Spider King tyranny is represented with archive  footage from Animal Survival show.

You blew up!

Conclusion: This is, by the far, the worst Conan of Barbarian rip-off!!! Poor casting, terrible acting, awful scenes of fight, low budget, ugly women, Miles  O’Keeffe being even more gay than in Sword of the Valiant, static camera, boring and repeating choreography… The fact is, women do like Miles, but Miles  doesn’t like them… It would be much better for everyone that writer and director of this calamity David Hills, should have stick to making porn movies as did in following years. Also, don’t miss pathetic ending scene. It’s to throw up your life.
In short: This movie shall last 90 minutes, and its viewers shall suffer 90 minutes,  for it is directed.

The Warrior and the Sorceress (1984)

Posted: 27/04/2013 in Uncategorized
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During this (Barbarian) month we covered a wide range of Sword and Sorcery flicks and as you noticed nearly every single one of them was a rip off of ‘s Conan The Barbarian. Well, not this film!
This movie is a rip-off of Kurosawa’s legendary Yojimbo! Literally you just take Yojimbo, change a setting to the desert planet of Yura, replace fantastic Toshiro Mifune with less than fantastic David Caradine , add some bad creature effect , a four breasted stripper and sparkle it all with a doze of acid and voila- you get The Warrior and the Sorceress!

Disclaimer: David Caradine looks nothing like this mighty dude!Disclaimer 2: Woman with an extra set of breasts has only a small cameo !

A hooded warrior  (Caradine) arrives in the town. Right off the bat we see the half- naked sorceress Naja (Maria Socas) being tortured by one of the gang members. He quickly decides to cause the commotion in this case by fighting the knights guarding the city’s well. As you can guess they prove no match to his (caugh, caugh) Kung Fu skills. Left unguarded well gets overan by villagers making the leaders of both city’s clans extremely unhappy.

Just look at those bare legs of Caradine, the sign of the real Warrior!

With his reputation preceding him The Warrior visits the first of the clan leaders, the fat man. Dude looks like a giant bold baby, surounded with naked women and his personal assistent
the Lizardman (who’s by all accounts- a hand puppet)*.  They strike a dead right there and then and Caradine walks away with a … of gold. in the meantime… Fat man’s cometitor is trying out a sword made by the priestess. She promised to make a sacred sword of Yura for him, sadly she did not deliever and was imediatly returned to the her cell.

Man’s best friend- his lizardman!

Soon the two sides confront each other in the city’s square. Caradine, a supposedly big asset to the fat man decides to sit this one out and completely changes the complexion of the fight. But just as thing were starting to heat up the slave-owners entered the city gates. As they all love slaves they stop what they’re doing and start biding with the monstrous slave-owner Burgo. After a fine day of selling and buying the slave-owners dance the night away. But little do they know that the Fatman and his trusted lizard poisoned Burgo’s wine in an attempt to frame their competition aka the mighty Zeg. Things seemingly go as planed ad the scaly slaver prophets his revenge with the brilliant words “gather our army and avenge out deaths”. Hopefully he dies at that instant, that would be cool.

He doesn’t look too good, does he?

Dark Warrior seeing all that goes staight to Zeg and offers to sell an information. He explains fat man’s scheme to Zeg, takes some gold and then start roaming around the castle. He finds the Sorceress in the dungeons. She starts rambling something about the secrets and prophecies and then finally agrees to come with Caradine. He starts cutting through soldiers with his usual ease and they succeed in escaping. Next thing Warrior does is almost unforgivable, he steals the (fat) man’s best friend, his lizardman and delivers him to Zeg.What follows is the exchange Sorceress for Lizardman and we finally start to wonder does the Warrior have a plan or is he just enjoying fuckin’ with everyone (and getting rich in the process).

Because of all the stuff he (seemingly) did for him the Warrior is invited to the grand feast at Zeg’s place but uses opportunity to AGAIN free the Sorceress (and kill a ridiculous tentacled monster but the less said about that the better). He plays dumb and continues the drinking at a main table but this time Zeg’s got a surprise for him! Yeah, the main selling point of this movie a stripper (backed with techno soundtrack), but not just any stripper, a four boobed stripper!!!

Just in case you find yourself in this kind of a situation…

Scenes with her are so funny and absurd that they almost make this mess worth a while. Ending her act she attacks Caradine and he chokes her to death but not before she poisons him.For some reason they do not kill him right there and then but they chain him and put him in the cell.

Воин и колдунья (The Warrior And The Sorceress 1984).avi_003661027

Let’s celebrate our new-found partnership!

Then Zed offers an alliance to the fat man which he jolly excepts. when they hug to celebrate he stabs him to death and finally succeeds in reaching the complete domination. Unfortunately just as he was at the top of the world the bunch of lizard-like slavers launched the attack on his army. Naja, the Sorceress frees the Warrior with Caradine’s help finally forges the magic sword of Yura and using it they lead a rebellion against the powers that be- in this case the Slavers. Warrior suddenly appears leading the villagers and then… does what he always does, funny circular motions that are usually supposed to represent Kung Fu. The power of the mighty sword of Yura that we waited to see entire film is… NOTHING AT ALL. The damned sword doesn’t even have cool sound effect that goes with it and doesn’t seem to help Caradine the slightest. He even menages to loose it half-way into the fight with Zeg’s former general and still win fairly easily. Damn, that Sorceress is an incompetent bitch!

David Caradine + Sword of Yura = Everyone dies

After massacring every last Slaver and all of their human underlings (with minimal help from the villagers) Naja tells him “to holy victory” * which is supposed to mean something but it doesn’t. Being the cool cat that he is he leaves them all and walks into the sunset into new adventures that thankfully didn’t get filmed or captured in any way.

Yeah, hi to you to!

Verdict: Idea a of Samurai film by the way of  of SF/ Fantasy seemingly has some potential but that potential is mostly wasted. Caradine seems to be having a good time and feels constable in his role but the fact is he made his living by acting martial artists and never bothered to learn any and that completely undermines all his effort. If you want to be a convincing warrior in a Sword and Sorcery flick you need to look the part/ or have some serious sword-fighting skills and truthfully (ignoring the man’s significant cool factor) he really had none. Also the movie is considered one of the most violent and bloody barbarian flicks and that may be true but the doesn’t make silly action scenes any better. The only thing that separates this movie from the rest of the pack is the presence of four-boobed stripper and mind0 boggling weirdness of her scene is the only thing worth watching in this film.

Knowing how cheap Corman is, this girl probably had real four boobs, I can’t imagine him paying to get them made…

Trivia: When the director of the film  John C. Broderick originally read the script he called Corman and said that he couldn’t do it because movies was not based of Yojimbo but an (almost) straight scene for scene rip- off. Corman said that the same was true of The Fistfull of Dollars and that Leone had no trouble because Kurosawa used an American book Red Harvest as a model for his film- so there is no real original. He got Broderick to direct but that statement was of course a  blatant lie- because Leone was sued and forced to pay compensation to Kurosawa for remaking  Yojimbo without his knowledge. Thankfully for Corman almost no one knows of existence of  The Warrior and the Sorceress so he’s safe… FOR NOW.

Deathstalker II: Duel of the Titans (1987)

Posted: 11/04/2013 in Trash movies
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Deathstalker II: Duel of the Titans is an example how sequels should not be made. This “masterpiece” of Roger Corman’s production (the guy should be given some sort of medal of shame) is considered to be the follow-up to 1983’s original low-budget Deathstalker (low budget = Roger Corman). But, apart from it’s  title, this movie has nothing to do with it’s predecessor. And you will see why.

Deathstalker (John Terlesky) is now completely different person, which can be seen in introduction. He seemingly infiltrated the treasure room of some old castle, followed by an almost naked blond. It appears that they are looking for something. I don’t know what exactly is he doing that since he became the king at the end of previous installment (I guess the royal paycheck wasn’t enough to him). Anyway, they notice some sort of an altar, inside which he finds red crystal.  Then, in the scene that recalls either Raiders of the Lost Ark or Conan the Barbarian, Deathstalker (which will be known as DS for the rest of this review),  takes it from an altar and puts it into his pocket. That was the sign for an army of ninjas (no, really) to attack. After he killed a couple dozens of ninjas (NO, REALLY), a woman warrior named Sultana (Toni Naples) marches in with the escort of her elite guards. Seeing that, DS decides it’s time to hit the road,  so he breaks through a shuttered window, drops to a stone bridge below, leaps onto the back of his horse, which was parked right under the bridge, and  disappears into the night. Sultana, who watched entire show from the shuttered window, just turns to her guards and yells “I’ll have my revenge, and  Deathstalker, too!”, at which point the title card “Deathstalker II: Duel of the Titans” comes up with a fiery background and some really retarded music,  which sounds like it has been taken from a really bad video game.

IT BEGINS
IT BEGINS!!!

After escape from old castle, our hero stumbles upon young woman who had been previously kicked out of the castle grounds. She was tossed out by 3 guards.  After some really retarded insults from even more retarded actress, guards decided to teach her a lesson. But, before they even started to rape or beat her (or both), DS decided that it is time to act and kicked their asses. Grateful lady in distress introduced herself to DS as Reena the Seer. DS then takes  Reena (played by Monique Gabrielle; former Penthouse Pet and later porn actress) to inn, when we see a lot of naked girl dancers, pig-man who again eats pig’s head, some of boiled pee, and more nudity. One guard bitch-slaps Reena in front of DS, and we got ourselves a good old bar brawl. Seeing the complete chaos at the inn, DS did something he does the best – escaping on the back of the horse into the night. But, this time he took Reena with himself. Eventually, they hid from the pursuers at her hut deep in the forest. There, she makes him another cauldron of boiled pee and tries to foresee his future. We notice that there  wasn’t enough budget even for her visions, since the only thing she did was looking at crystal and speaking. But those visions were enough to convince DS to  help her. She reveals to him that she is actually Princess Evie, but the evil sorcerer Jerak had her abducted and cloned, in order to take control over the kingdom. Well, she didn’t say so directly to him, but anyone with even half of brain would get a picture.

Bitchslap me

Bitch slap me, please!

Meanwhile, Sultana is at pirate den, where we can see chicks wrestling in the mud, bunch of the rough drunken guys and a lot of fluorescent barrels with “Beer” written on them using a marker (?!). She wants to hire some mercenaries to finish off Reena and DS. A lot of money is offered, so pirate leader introduces her with his the most roughness, and therefore, the most drunken boys. Shocking thing is that for one of them has been said that he was the member of Genghis khan strike force for 5 years and part-time consulter to Attila the Hun (Dafaq?). No one bothered to explain almost 800 years gap between those 2 “jobs”, but never mind that now (also, midget being dismissed by Ivan the Terrible is beyond any discussion). Ever more shocking thing is that they are drinking beer from glass mugs and glass bottles, and directors didn’t even try to hide it.

Pirates = advanced technology

Pirates – advanced technology!

Selected pirates managed to ambush Reena and DS, while they were riding through some canyon at night, attacking them using explosive arrows. After finding  a safe cover and securing the lady, DS starts assassinating each one of them with pocket knife. Each assassination is followed by out-of-place sinister synthesizer sounds. For the Coup de grâce, DS hits pirate midget with shuriken and the moment later, midget explodes, leaving the smoking pile of shits  behind him!!! What a finale!!! But wait!!! There is more!!! Unhappy because of failure, Jerak (played by John La Zar) kills the pirate leader by stabbing him through cauldron with his sword!!! Even magic can’t do that!!!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xyxii5_cauldron_fun#.UWb62UqTf04

Along the way, our heroes battled the army of undead zombies but, besides completely illogical DS escape from death trap (spikes wall), nothing was the worth of mentioning. Oh yes…And during entire event, we can hear in background the music from “Saturday night fever”. What was the purpose of it, remains mystery to me. However, back in the castle, the duplicate of Princess begins to fade so she has to eat little children in order to maintain her body. I fail to see the purpose of this quick fact too, since it wasn’t mentioned again until the end of the movie. Probably it was lame attempt of adding horror elements here.

Sign

Turn left at Cimmeria!

Following the instructions Reena’s crystal ball gave to them our couple ends up captured and tied up by Amazon women warriors. Now pay close attention. Be  sure to spot FIAT 1300 parked in the upper-left corner of the Amazon village opening scene. Such an oversight is too much even for Roger Corman’s 100$  production!!! Anyway, DS reputation as womanizer is well known among the Amazon women. And that’s not a good thing for DS, since the Amazon women warriors  are feminists too. And like every good feminist they hate men. So, for his crimes against womanhood, DS will be put on trial by combat to death! But, it isn’t going to be combat with weapons and shield. That would have some sense. No, fight is going to happen at wrestling ring, where DS will fight versus HUGE  woman Gargo the Amazon. After exhausting, crippling 15 rounds of wrestling, DS wins the battle, showing mercy on the end by refusing to finish off already  knocked down woman mountain. For that he has been rewarded with wild sex with Amazon queen (played by Maria Socas). Yeah, even feminist warriors need their oven heated occasionally. With the risk of losing our woman readers, I would say that they need it much more often. But that reward has it’s price. Amazon  queen wants to be married with DS, so once again, he decides to escape. I really can’t blame him.

Royal carriage

Royal carriage?

Being jealous on Amazon queen, Reena leaves the village on her own and gets captured by Sultana, after which evil woman warrior had Reena hanged above huge  cauldron of boiling pee. Death seems to be imminent for real princess. But, DS arrives just in time (probably because he was running in fear from proposed  wedding). DS battles Sultana and kills her, saving Reena in the last moment. Following 30 minutes are just fill-up , consisted of ninjas attacking Princess Evie (with sexual results), while DS impales her duplicate with his  meat-sword, skeletal raising Sultana from dead (with sexual results), massive fight when even God himself helps DS (by sending bolt after bolt of lighting  onto our hero’s enemies), Princess Evie showing the full potential of her brain damage, and so on…

All of above mentioned events led to final battle when DS confronts Jerak in, perhaps, the most ridiculous sword fighting scene since “The Sword and the Sorcerer“.  Their battle looks like background sword fight of two extras in some other low-budget Conan the Barbarian rip-off, and I could swear that I heard the sound of of two wooden swords clashing!!! Also, we are now able to fully notice how gay Jerak actually is . Highlight of this combat is the  moment when Deathstalker, after being cornered, brakes evil sorcerer’s sword with his fist (?!), killing him and thus ending this story.
And oh yeah, he marries real princess and becomes the king (again).

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xyxirj_it-s-wood-all-right_fun

It is wood, all right.

Conclusion: This movie looks like as if fans of original Deathstalker (therefore, not the brightest people on Earth), got money by begging in front of church  which they used to make a sequel, though it’s much more fun that it’s previous installment. But, not everything in this movie is as bad as it seems. For example,  colored light gels and inspired location shooting are pretty decent, providing colorful ambiance for each new area. Also, most of the sword battles are very  well choreographed. And for the end, don’t miss the outtakes over the end credits! It puts tombstone on this.

Deathstalker (1983)

Posted: 08/04/2013 in Trash movies
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
9

This movie presents us with the story of fierce warrior- The Deathstalker, the man on a quest to find three powers, the chalice, amulet and the sword and to by uniting them all become a power himself! With a foolproof set-up like that you just know that the movie will be all kinds of WIN.

deathstalker-1

Age of Awesome Magic? Oh, boy, oh, boy!

Films start abruptly with some kind of goblin-caveman prowling the forest. Quickly they catch their victims, a confused looking dude and a girl but naturally they seem more interested in the girl. Deathstalker runs into them and seeing healthy human female decides to intervene. Fallowed by spaghetti western music he  disembowels the goblin cave man and then has a word or two with the confused dude. It turns out that he stole the girl even before she was stolen by the creatures. Bit scared of the blond barbarian he offers her to him. Deathstalker takes her… and then kills him anyway! My hero!

He jumps on the girl like she is the last female on the planet but gets interrupted by an old man. He fallows the old man, who turns out to be the adviser to the King. He takes him to the King- right here in the forest? It turns out the King was exiled by his former magician Mungar- now the new ruler of the land. He begs Deathstalker to be his hero and despite of the incredibly EPIC music ‘Stalkers says no! In his last plead he admits that his only daughter is taken by Munkar and promises Deathstalker anything he wants but he just shrugs it off and rides away.

No long after Munkar’s general Kang apears in the forest and tries to take a magic sword from the old Witch.That proves futile because of the two thing. First thing- Witch turns his sword into a giant snake that start strangling him and second Deathstalker appears- and when Deathstalker appears heads start flying. Faced with his  epic fail Kang ends up despairing, indubitably aided by his evil Master. Thankful the Witch decides to teach Deathstalker about the three powers of creation. They turn out to be the amulet (key of the Munkar’s immortality), sword (instrument of justice) and the chalice (of magic- not really sure what exactly does it do). Also, if you join these three powers- and you become the power. Not sure what she means exactly but it sound neat. Deathstaler doesn’t seem interested at first but decides that he does want to BE the powers so he start on his quest. He takes a break to drink some water but the ugly Witch  appears againnow as a reflection in the water and she points him to the cave nearby. Cranky because she won’t even let him drink water he heads into the cave and finds small gnomish/ devilish creature. Then a giant pops  out of nowhere and after almost crushing his skull ‘Stalker gets some help from the little creature- he throws him the sword. Immediately the sword starts glowing as if to  prove it’s magic powers and after a moment to admire the blade ‘Stalker scares the giant away. Then the creature explains that he was a human and that he can be freed only “by a boy who is not a boy”. Hmmm, that problem gets solved in about 30 seconds as the sword (of justice) turns Deathstalker into a small blond kid and he leads the little imp away from the cave. He does turn into a man but his general appearance doesn’t get that much prettier.

Deathstalker.(1983).DVDRip..avi_001147800

…sadly, his human form is really not that much better

Meanwhile a group of bandits tries to rape a girl tied to a tree. Metrosexual looking dude (he has an armor that reveals his chiseled abs) called Oghris surprises them but falls victim to their superior numbers yet in the last possible  moment The Deathstalker appears. And we all know what happens- heads start flying again. Also the bloods starts pissing everywhere. Feeling generous that day he doesn’t touch the girl (the only time he does something like that) but is happy to join the young swordsman on his way to the tournament. It turns out the tournament is held in the castle to determine  the Munkar’s hair to the Throne. That set-up seems dubious (’cause of Munkar’s immortality) but who knows. They are surprised that night by a hooded warrior and after a brief dueling it turns out the warrior is almost naked she- devil Kira played by the late great Lana Clarkson. Clarkson generally specialized  in playing young, buxom beauties and truth be told she was never as young or as buxomy as right here in the Deathstalker. They naturally team up and Deathstalker teams up with her  in some other way that  same night*. Ex-imp surprisingly watches everything but is smart enough not to make a sound. You never know what could angry ‘Stalker do.

Team Up*

Then we’re in a grand hall of the Munkar’s castle. We are faced with one of the strangest bacchanalia ever. Girl mud- fighting, barbarians losing their mind, skinny dude with horns eating like an animal and weirdest of all Man- Pig mutant having a “Be or not to be” moment with a regular pig’s head. Munkar wishes them luck on the upcoming tournament and then presents them with a captive princess. He gives his blessing to a Man- Pig to (I guess) rape her but the bearded barbarian stop him- wanting the princess for himself. Crazy, all- out brawl then ensues and surprisingly Kaira shows some sympathy to the poor princess saving her ass (literally) from more than a couple thugs. In the end ‘Stalker frees the princess and tries to take her away but Munkar stops him- and promises he’ll send her to Stalkers room later that evening.

deathstalker feast

Munkar may be evil, but he sure knows to throw a party!

In an attempt to cleverly deceive the ‘Stalker Munkar transforms one of his incredibly ugly guards into the Princess with a mission to kill the ‘Stalker when he least expects it.  The guard is not thrilled with a metamorphosis at first but seems overjoyed with the fact that he has boobs mere moments later.

Sex change in the middle ages. Much simpler!

Deathstalker stop the knife  but proceeds to almost fuck a dude- only in the last seconds does he realizes something’s wrong. It seem that the transformation was starting to wear off. He throw her/him from his room just as Kira was walking down the hall. She initially seems worried about the princess and even gave her something to wear (Kira doesn’t seem to fancy clothes too  much as we already now) but he turns back into a man. They engage in a duel and menage to severely wound one another.Deathstalker disturbed by the noise runs towards them but  it’s already late, his love (kinda) dies in his arms.

Tournament finally begins and we are treated with many moronic fighters and number of 80s wrestling moves! That same night we see Oghris in a torture chamber with Mungar. It turns the whole point of Tournament was to bring Deathstalker out in the open and Oghris was Munkar’s inside man all this time. That doesn’t stop Munkar from torturing  him a bit for good measure of course. Anyway, he volunteers to kill ‘Stalker and heads into his chambers. Then because he grow fond of him as a friend he asks him to run away so he can spare his life. ‘Stalker gets extremely mad at this. He lays down his sword (that makes him invincible and stuff) and starts a fist fight with  a dude. He catches him with a rear-naked chokes and apparently Oghris dies.

Tournament continues and Munkar is shocked to find out ‘Stalker is still here. He tries to bring about his demise via Man-Pig but the creature fails miserably. Then people almost start a riot suporting the Deathstalker as the future ruler. We hear the witches voice” you can be the power” and we know what happens next. Munkar sets a trap for ‘Stalker using an amulet and then sends his strongest warrior to disarm him and behead him if possible. Well, it was not possible, ‘Stalker not only stabs the dude with his own weapon but uses the Force to get the sword back in his hands (a new power added in the last minuts of the movie, congratulations to screenwriter here ) and finishes him with it.

Deathstalker VS Pig-Man

Now possessing the both sword and the Amulet Deatstlaker seems invincible. Munkar transports him outside and then multiplies himself. Stalker seems confused by the sight of many Munkars (also the horror synth score) but decides to cut them one by one. The evil wizard even tries to make him sword impossible to hold (que in some poor neon red  effects) but the Witch appears and proclaims “Don’t let the illusion become the fear” (will this woman ever shut up?) and that seems to be just the boost of confidence the ‘Stalker needed. He easily walks trough the wall of fire, takes the Chalice from the disappointed Munkar who then gets disembodied by his own people.

Deathstalker then proclaims  “all the powers of creation and chaos I destroy you” and we get heroic music as the (cartoon) thunder goes from a chalice to the sword and back. The End.

Deathstalker.(1983).DVDRip..avi_004462120He became- THE POWER!

Verdict: This movie has an incredibly stupid storyline (with unexpected bits here and there I admit), awful acting, laughably choreographed fight scenes,  incredibly funny soundtrack and really poor special effect (even for that time period)  but I would still recommend it. Why? Because it’s great freakin’ fun in equal measures filed with idiocy and nudity and most importantly it has a absolutely fantastic scene of Man-Pig  hesitatingly eating a regular pig and that alone is worth the price of admission/VHS/DVD/BluRay.

Deathstalker.(1983).DVDRip..avi_001922240

“To eat or not to eat…”

One more observation- it’s interesting how even the mighty Conan seems like  a monk who took a vow of chastity when compared to Deatstalker whose only occupation seem to be jumping onto the ladies whether they showed any interest for him or not. The only times when he is not indulging himself seem to be times when he’s indulging his other passion- brutally slaying people of course. You won’t find another hero like him even if you try!

The Barbarians (1987)

Posted: 21/08/2012 in Trash movies
Tags: , , , , , ,
3

Prepare to be transported to the ancient times, times of swords and powerful sorcery, times when muscle bound warriors  ruled the lands with their savage might , times known  only as the- 80es! Obviously in the 80s everybody wanted to be new Arnold Schwarzenegger. As we all know there can be only one Arnie so people mostly embarrassed themselves by  varying degrees.  Barbarian brothers (also known as the Paul brothers) managed to be twice as big and (combined) almost half as smart! They even got to French-kiss each other for no apparent  reason- but more on that later.

The least gay cover of this film, coincidentally a German one!

Film starts with young, scrawny orphans Kutchek and Gore accepted by Retniks, a strange tribe consisting of clowns, jugglers and your general village idiots.   Also they soon adopt one more orphan, a small girl called Kyra.  Their leader was beautiful (we’re told) Queen Canary that wears the magic stone in her bellybutton.  Retnik, supposedly people with safe passage everywhere end up attacked by a gang od savages and then ambushed by devious King Kedar (played by B-movie alumni Richard Lynch).   Kedar has the desire to put them all in their place which he expresses mostly by random killing of the Retniks. When he threatens the orphans he finally breaks Canary’s spirit  and she accepts to be his slave.   Twins are spared but not treated very kindly, in fact they are thrown to the ruthless Dirtmaster (always fantastic Michael Berryman) to work long hours in “The Pit” and  train to fight as Gladiators. For years they are kept separate and thought to hate the person with the iron/ brass helmet, not knowing that one day they will face one another wearing those same helmets. Of course they grow up to be extremely muscled up, to the point of absurdity (but on the other hand I can’t think of a one thing not bordering absurdity in this film).

One day the evil Sorceress claims that it’s finally time for brothers to slay one another. Canary (who haven’t aged a day i a decade or so) protest but Kedar claims that he is keeping his promise by making them kill one another thus not technically participating. Brothers fight as only muscleman can ( clumsy enough to chop off some random dude’s hand) and when they finally loose the helmets one of them gets furious. He yells “what your doing with my face?” About as sharp as a marble that one! Kutchak, a less dumb one tries to calm him down and convince him that they’re brothers but almost dies in the process. Finally when Gor hears the Canary scream he comes to his senses and teams up with his brother for an escape. That produces the screaming/ laughing agony with Dirtmaster( but to be fair it seems that almost anything can produce that reaction with Dirtmaster).

The Barbarians (1987) Engl Dub VHS-Rip.avi_001300132

He is just so Goddamn awesome!

Barbarian brothers ride into the forest and menage to fool their pursuers but they run into a captured girl with big 80es hair. She tries to get them to help her and they oblige, but only by striking some silly bodybuilding poses. Than they figure out that they she is held captive by remaining Retniks. What left of the tribe fronted by the ugliest man alive appears and Gor answers with angry “Abar, what da hell is goin’ on” in your strongest Brooklyn accent. I would have to search far and wide to find one single worse line delivery in the history of cinema. Retniks capture them with a simple net and then decide to hang them just for the fun of it. To be truthful I would do the same. Unfortunately they are so big (?) that the rope breaks in both their cases and after making absolute imbeciles out of themselves they prove that they wear the mark of the tribe and are in fact the long gone orphans. They seek weapons for their rescue mission (they did leave Canary behind) but the Retniks admit that have nothing to offer. Than the captured thief girl Lemon offers her assistance and strangely they accept.Finaly their EPIC quest begins! They are suspicious but the girl guaranties that everything they need can be found in fantastically named) Bucket of Blood! Full of pirates and ugly belly dancers it seems like the right place. Brothers gamble everything on game of arm wrestling with certain Jakko  and predictably escalates into the idiotic bar fight (how could we live without one those)!Girl probably got some information because they set out to infiltrate the Castle straight afterwards. At this point brothers have to kiss one another to fool the guard roaming the area, of course guards we’re disgusted by the scene and practically run away. Level of stupidity of this is astounding. Also they menage to bump into some orgies and make funny faces.

Orgije

They also produce noises resembling the noises seals produce when they are hungry…

They menage to infiltrate the king’s harem but Canary doesn’t want to go. She sends them to find the magical belly stone obviously hidden all this time in the lime tree in the forbidden land. So their next stop is The Tomb of the Ancient King (sounds familiar) where they can find the sacred weapon necessary to defeat the mighty Dragon that guards the said lime tree (seriously how are they making up shit like that). Then just as they were about to go, Gor finally loses his restraint and start an orgy of his own with all the Kedar’s wives that he neglected because of Canary- yes the same Canary his adopted mother who had no choice but to watch that orgy being in a cage and all. Anyway they finish up by the morning, reunited with the now angry thief girl and head out for forbidden lands but the evil sorcerers figures out what happened and goes after him, accompanied by The Dirtmaster.

Barbarians find the secret cave and the tomb of the ancient king incredibly easy but the thief- girl Lemone. gets captured by incredibly large Werewolf creature. On the other hand Gor proves so strong that he easily rips the creature’s arm out.

I am officially terrified of their sense of humor!

Evil sorcerers finds the ruby stone before the Barbarians but most of her escort pays the ultimate price, the get eaten by Alien/ Gill- Man hybrids. King Kadar himself joins them and tries to fight the approaching Dragon but to little avail and they are forced to withdraw. Despite being the incompetent fools that they are with Lemon’s help they trap the dragon in the cave entrance and stab him to death. Then exploring his corpse they find the Evil Sorceres partially eaten but still holding the ruby- and all problems solved! Well, not quite yet.

The Barbarians (1987) Engl Dub VHS-Rip.avi_003704200

Oh, no the Dragon!

King Kedar finally confronts Canary after a decade of her bullshit. She tries to confuse him with her magic and almost succeeds but then gets stabbed through the chest. In the meantime Lemon reaches the Retniks guided by the glowing belly stone. The leader of the Retnicks, also the ugliest man alive* then tries the stone on all the females to find the successor for doomed Canary. It “shockingly” turns out that Lemon herself is the new prophesied Retnik  leader… and she’s also the orphan girl that they adopted at the same time as Barbarian Brothers.

The Barbarians (1987) Engl Dub VHS-Rip.avi_004654941

*just look at him!

What a coincidence?! Finally Barbarians confront Kedar and not even his horse and crossbow prove enough parry the brothers savage sword throwing abilities. He ends up dead in the dirt double stabbed to death. Retnik’s join the Barbarian brothers and end this abomination with another one of their trademark jokes that aren’t funny to the 3 year olds.

Verdict: Fascinating thing about this movie is that the fact that it  doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously doesn’t make it any better!!! Hell it  somehow menages to make it even worse! Serious scenes fail enough to get a good laugh or two, yes-  but those envisioned to be funny end up being just plain imbecilic. Combination of  Italian hack director (that pretty much sums up all of their directors not named Leone or Argente), stupid/ possibly mentally disturbed muscleman and accursed Cannon Inc (see Cannon) proved a little bit too much even for us.

The Deadly Trio!

Trivia: Some sources claim that this movie was in fact a tax write off, which sounds like a reasonable explanation for its existence if I ever heard one.

Also the actress who played Lemon/Kyra Eva LaRua can be later be found in only slightly less horrible CSI: Miami as Agent Natalia Boa Vista.

 

                               When man’s breasts are your main selling point instead of female ones it means that you’re doing the whole B- Movie thing wrong!
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