Here’s a copy of the slides and notes used in the Salt Lake Comic Con 2015 Panel: The Sword and Sorcery Movies of the 1980’s. You can download it here:
The Sword and Sorcery Movies of the 1980s Slides & Notes.pdf
This film has a lot more in common with movies like Excalibur and Ladyhawke instead of Conan the Barbarian but there’s still several of the common tropes of the Sword and Sorcery genre including well… swords and sorcery.
The film originally was a made for TV movie in Britain but became so popular it received a theatrical release. And honestly, compared to a lot of the “so bad they’re good” B-movies of the genre, it’s pretty stunning how many things it gets right. Where Hawk the Slayer really shines is in the character department. Great dialogue and witty characters propel a lot of the low budget scenes. There’s some qualities more like a stage play here with the acting and that’s not a bad thing.
Jack Palance plays the bad guy in this and he’s absolutely ridiculous. Cheesy speeches, overacting, etc. He’s hamming it up like crazy but that adds to the fun here.
Deathstalker II is an absolute blast. This is the funniest of all the sword and sorcery films out there. Unlike other “B” movies of the genre, Deathstalker II does not take itself seriously and because of that, it works better than most. It knows the premise, scenes, sets, costumes, and acting are ridiculous and the film embraces all of that, mining it for clever one-liners, situational comedy, and over-the-top action.
And despite this film being more comedic, it actually somehow nails the dungeon and dragons feel better than most of the other films that actually set out to do it seriously. There’s a weird contrast between some overly sexist moments (as many of these films have) with an ending that has the heroines defeating the bad guys and tremendous girl power moments. Crazy, start to finish, this is one of the funnest of all the sword and sorcery movies.
Considered by some to be one of the better low-budget Sword and Sorcery movies of the era, The Warrior and the Sorceress nevertheless has all the typical trappings of the B-movie genre including shoddy costume design, poor acting, and amateurish sword fights. But I’m somewhat in agreement with pundits who proclaim this better than average. With movies like this, you have to set the bar very low (that’s what makes them so much fun) and on that low scale, The Warrior and the Sorceress is probably one of the better.
What really sets this apart from the others is the script. Some of the dialogue is quite good (although you’d never know after hearing bad actors spout it). Even better is the plot. Some films in the genre such as Conquest have almost no plot whatsoever. Not so with this. There’s a great layered double-cross going on between the hero and three different factions. Of course, the reason it’s so good is mostly due to it being a genre remake of the classic Kurisawa film Yojimbo but that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Look for a mid-career performance from Kill Bill himself, David Carradine and a lizard puppet that steals every scene he’s in.
Absolutely bizarre. That’s the best way to describe Conquest, a strange take on the sword and sorcery genre at the height of its popularity. It seems to be set in caveman times (at least the native people are like that) but the leads are more like Conan characters with swords (although one of them wields a bone nunchuck). The antagonist is even more shocking, a female wearing nothing more than a golden mask and loin cloth, she spends the entire movie in her fog-filled chamber, having snakes slither over her bare chest and trying to wake up from nightmares.
Most strange, is the director’s obsession with smoke & fog. Nearly ever scene is filled with smoke or fog, so much so that many times it’s hard to make out what’s going on. There’s even a scene in a dark cave late in the film where there’s probably 4 minutes of completely black screen time because the viewer can’t make out anything. It’s just darkness with sound effects.
Still, there are actually some great lines and I can’t help but feel bad for the screenwriter who probably had a much better movie in mind when he penned the script. At least some of his dialogue got through. Enjoyable because it is so very weird.
It’s eerie to watch Lana Clarkson in the Barbarian Queen. All I could think about was her bizarre murder at the hands of weirdo music producer Phil Spector. So sad. She’s actually not a terrible actress despite the low budget, stilted script, and poor production values. You can tell she is just learning acting and does a lot of things wrong but there’s a charisma to her that frankly, holds a lot of the movie together.
There’s actually a surprising amount of chemistry between the female leads. I say surprising because all of them were hired for their looks, not their acting. This is clearly an exploitation picture and yet, these ladies actually rise above the bad script with some great one-liners and pathos. This is one of the better mostly-female sword and sorcery films. A lot of fun.
A nearly all-women cast leads this sword and sorcery campy movie from 1986. One of the worst acted villains provides the threat, a wizard who has enslaved some of the Amazon’s people and the girls must quest for a special sword, the only sword that has the power to defeat him.
There’s one particularly notable scene where our heroine must pass through a haunted forest. It’s like something out of a Sprit Halloween store display with fake creatures jumping out at her and fog everywhere. The production values are pretty low on this one so be warned. But I had a quite a few laughs.
The poster makes this movie look a lot better than it actually is. Though Deathstalker is not as epicly bad as Sorceress (1982), it has a lot in common with that film. There’s tons of nudity, gratuitous violence, and atrocious acting. Very low production values as well.
You’d think all of this would amount to something that would be unwatchable. On the contrary, this is a laugh-a-minute cheese fest that’s fun start to finish. I especially loved the wooden acting from the lead, the low-rent bad guy, and the no-budget special effects. I’m not sure this even qualifies as a “B” movie. Maybe more like “B-“. Still, it’s a classic of the 1980’s sword and sorcery era.
One of the more interesting fantasy movies from the early 1980’s. What’s most surprising about Dragonslayer are how well many of the dragon effects hold up even to this day. Dragonslayer was long before the days of Smaug and Peter Jackson’s Hobbit. This movie was done by ILM while they were prepping for Empire Strikes Back and it was one of the first films to use the GoMotion camera which moved as the objects were animated, providing a more life-like and realistic special effect.
Look for a lead performance by Peter MacNicol as the bumbling wizard. He’s probably best known for his role in Ghostbusters II as the art curator Poha. He’s not bad here but it’s pretty clear to see why he never became a leading man again. This role fits him pretty well though.
The pacing is off a bit in this with some stretches of boredom but I enjoyed it nonetheless and would recommend to anyone who’s a fan of fantasy films and dragons.
Absolutely ridiculous, start to finish and I loved it, start to finish. This is an Indonesian film from the early 80’s about a nymphomaniac magic queen who kidnaps men from local villages and forces them into bondage to her. Our heroes must acquire the devil’s sword in order to defeat her.
Where to begin… One of the first scenes is a massive action set piece set in a village where a demon crashes a wedding and slaughters most of the town in a flurry of swords and staffs. There’s blood everywhere on the level of the House of Blue Leaves scene in Kill Bill Volume 1. Then there’s long scenes of the queen seducing her lovers in totally fake ways, but the highlight has to be an action scene at the halfway point where our heroes battle alligator men that jump out of a lake. They fight them on a wooden raft and all of the water jumping is done in reverse. Hilarious.
If you love bizarre sword and sorcery movies and martial arts, this is a must see.