Welcome, friends, to the latest addition to the Wulf Archives... Wulf's Very Own Pit of Sword and Sorcery Cinema. Here, we will view, review, discuss, dissect and analyze heroic fantasy cinema in all its brawny, sweaty, sword-wielding, breast-bearing, blood-drenched glory. This isn't some namby-pamby, Let's All Go to the Movies, thumbs-up/thumbs-down, I give this movie SIX bow-ties kind of site... We're here to expose the world to the wonders of fantasy, horror and adventure flicks, many of which the average reviewer (or the average person for that matter) wouldn't be caught dead watching. And let's face it, despite the hype, most of them suck. But then that's what we like, isn't it? Beefcake barbarians, bountifully-bosomed heroines, big swords, bad special effects, horrific dialog and budgets that wouldn't buy you a cup of coffee in Times Square. That's the world of Swords and Sorcery, kids, and welcome to it.
So, to get the introductions out of the way, my name is Wulf and hell, I don't know how I got into this racked. Hell, I'm a fictional character for Phaedra's sake... I got "recruited" by my creator, who thought that I'd make a good movie reviewer. And when I started, I didn't know what the hell a movie was, let alone what distinguished a good one. So, the powers that be contrived to move me over to 21st century North America and force-feed me a steady diet of television, music and video games. By the time I was finished, I knew all about Star Wars, I could program a VCR, spot a member of N'Sync and I was even getting pretty good at Halo on the X-Box. I was also starting to gain weight from all those Quarter Pounder value meals, so I figured it was about time to get down to business and start reviewing movies. After all, who would be better at critiquing fantasy movies than someone who's spent his entire life as a freelance rogue, freebooter and adventurer? You guys just read about it and watch bad movies. I bloody well live it...
And in the spirit of all those other reviewers (you know who you are...), we'll also be incorporating a rating system. In our case, however, we'll be rating the films by three criteria, rated one to four swords in each:
Sword and Sorcery: How true is this film to the heroic ideals of swords and sorcery? Magic? Swords? Monsters? Damsels? Heroes? The more of this it's got, the higher it's rated.
Comedy: This one's easy. How funny is it? The comedy can be intentional (Deathstalker 2) or completely unintentional (Deathstalker 2). Either way, the more it makes us laught, the better it will do.
Titillation: Really, it's a big reason we watch this kind of film, isn't it? This is akin to Joe Bob Briggs' breast rating. How much sex and nudity does it have, and how gratuitous is it? Does the nudity serve a valuable role in the plot? If so, it loses points. This is for sheer, unadulterated exploitation and sex/nudity for its own sake. Some movies have more than others. Let's face it, nudity isn't a major selling point for The Lord of the Rings (neither version).
We'll be chatting about a lot of films here, both bad and not-so-bad, so without further babble, we'll get to the films. Just click on the title below and be instantly whisked into a world where men are bold, women all have large breasts, blood resembles cheap grape juice and just about everyone is a bad actor. Enjoy, folks.
One of the greatest cycles in sword and sorcery cinema history begins with the marginally-articulate Rick Hall portraying blonde bombshell Deathstalker on a quest to destroy the evil sorcerer Munkar and free the land from tyranny. Oh, yeah... there's naked amazons, naked slave girls, naked female mud wrestling and just general nakedness along the way. And no, he never does become the Last Great Warrior King.
The saga continues with an entirely different Deathstalker -- this time instead of a grumpy blonde barbarian he's a wisecracking brunette rogue with what he obviously thinks is a ready wit. Apparently they decided to do this one as a comedy, and by golly they almost succeeded. 'Stalker (as they call him for most of the film) is accompanied by cute blonde cookie Monique Gabrielle and battles and evil sorcerer who looks exactly like the guy who published The Book of Erotic Fantasy for d20.
No, not the lyrical, epic triumph of cinema and storytelling that was Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings, greatest of all film trilogies. This is the 1978 version made by Ralph Bakshi, who also made Cool World, Heavy Traffic and Fritz the Cat. It takes place in a 1970s version of Middle Earth, where the Gondorians are low-budget vikings, Aragorn trips over his sword, and pants have not yet been invented. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Oh. My. God. This film literally hurts to watch. Come join us and feel the pain. Academy award winner Jeremy Irons devours scenery while Marlon Wayans plays a fantasy Steppin Fetchit, and future star Thora Burch sleepwalks through the whole flick as if whacked up on muscle relaxants. This is surely the loving, sensitive treatment that millions of D&D fans were waiting for when they finally saw their beloved game make it to the silver screen. Not.
The talented Jack Palance and the (at this time anyway) less-than-talented John Terry are joined by a cast of reliable British character actors to sleepwalk their way through this tale of magic, vengeance and deadly boredom, that mostly takes place in the middle of a forest and features Silly String and superballs standing in for magic spells. It's the Knights of the Dinner Table's iconic Hackmaster movie, but to the rest of us it's 90 minutes of sheer, mind-numbing, soul-destroying boredom. Enjoy.
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