Deathstalker

This movie is packed with everything you would expect in a sword and sorcery film(except explicit sex)!

There are twenty-five breast shots, twenty-seven butt shots, six sword fights, fifteen impalings, two amputations, one arrow in the neck, three beheadings, on horse dragging, one eye-candy, one finger food, one mud wrestle, one pig face, one magical trans sexual operation, two bitch slappings, one crotch stabbing, one head smashing, and one draw and quartering.

It doesn't get much better than this!

This is a classic that is so bad it's good. It's a likely intentional parody of itself.

It's cheap, dumb fun, something to relax and shut off your mind. This makes it pretty hard to rate, but let me try anyway.

Will this movie make you think? Absolutely not! Not a chance.

Will it make you burst out into laughter? That depends on your taste. It might, but also it isn't a comedy. Instead it plays with cliches, cliche fantasy and I think at that it does a decent job.

The story, as is usual with such movies is extremely thin. You can essentially ignore it. If you feel like something doesn't make sense, you are absolutely right! Nothing makes sense, but it's also not really meant to.

If you want to go for a silly, 80s cult movie, maybe watch something with friends, be it real ones or a can of beer, or whatever you are into, this movie might make for a wonderful, joyful evening.

Woosh…! Man… What can I say...?

The opening-scene, maybe? We see a bunch of mongoloid-barbarians with bad make-up jump off the walls of some ruins. They sneak around and attack some dude with a scantily clothed captive girl. The dude runs off, the mongoloids follow him and one of them stays behind seemingly to rape the girl, but instead he exposes one of her breasts and kidnaps her. Then, the dude (still on the run) sees a horse and tries to steal it. Suddenly… a blond god-like looking hero with a bad wig appears, saying "That's my horse!". The Mighty Deathstalker just made his appearance. The mongoloids arrive, Deathstalker kills all of them (including the dude) on the tunes of some rather inappropriate Mexicanos western score (this is supposed to be a Swords & Sorcery flick, so what's with the 'arriba-trompettos'?), and then goes up to Captive Girl and exposes both her breasts. He starts to rub them and Captive Girl seems to like it. She starts liking her lips and caressing Deathstalker. Just when they are about to get down to it, this old dude appears, interrupting what could have been the end of a perfect day for Deathstalker (and a possible perfect ending for a short-film).

Now tell me… Isn't that the point where either a feminist would angrily switch off the movie, or any other male viewer would say "This is going to be one hell of a good movie!" The plot is as simple as throwing a kitten from the balcony: Deathstalker must obtain the Sword of Justice and use it to steal the Amulet of Life and the Chalice of Magic from the evil sorcerer Munkar.

Aside from decapitations, dismemberment, random bloodshed, retarded fist fights and embarrassing sword fights, this film also contains a massive amount of t!ts & a$$ shots. I initially wanted to add one extra point to this movie for each gratuitous shot of naked boobies I could count. After 9 points (not even halfway into the movie), I had to give up counting. It was distracting me from the rest of the movie. And the rest of the movie was worth it. Totally crazy stuff. Check out this mutant cat/worm-like creature Munkar has as a pet and which he feeds eyeballs and fingers. And here's an interesting question: What would you do if a man in a woman's body would enter your bedroom and try to kill you with a knife? The answer is simple: You slap him around a bit, take away the knife and then try to rape him. Then you discover that he's actually not a woman, so you throw him out of your bed and tell him to leave your room. It works out well, I tell you. Deathstalker does it too, and the Deathstalker-way, is the right way!

DEATHSTALKER is a wonderful movie, really, as pointed out in other comments. The villains are vile. The women are delicious. There's blood, sex, violence, rape and tasty chicken. There's a completely pointless tournament which just features a bunch of barbarians beating, slashing and hacking the crap out of each other. My favorite weapon used in that tournament was a giant wooden hammer, used to beat a poor contender to bloody pulp. And my favorite contender undoubtedly was that one brute with the Warthog-head (reminiscent of the Gamorrean Guards from RETURN OF THE JEDI). I won't reveal how the movie ends, but just prepare to ravish in delight when I tell you a 4-way dismemberment is thrown into the movie's climax.

And of course, there's a wonderful display of ineptitude throughout the whole movie. See a guy being dragged behind a horse over a dirt road, and the next point-of-view shot shows him being dragged over grass (no road). See that awesome tattoo on the sorcerer's head magically change sides within the same scene (on shot has it on the left side of his head, the other on the right). Well, after all, Munkar is a magician. It's that, or this movie was shot in an alternate universe where things like "continuity" simply don't exist.

As much as I enjoyed this and as much as I am looking forward to the other 3 installments in this series, I do have enough shreds of decency left in me to not let this movie pass. I am prepared, though, to give it the maximum amount of minimal points, just so I could be able to deduct a couple of more points for the possibly inferior sequels to follow. DEATHSTALKER might be a superbly fun, trashy & sleazy CONAN rip-off, it also is an abominable movie.

A warrior named Deathstalker is sent on a quest by a witch to find a chalice, an amulet, and a sword. Soon, he's making new allies while battling warriors, creatures, and a wizard, in a story that's as thin as parchment but somehow still compelling in its brazen absurdity.

Hot off the back of Conan the Barbarian (1982), director James Sbardellati (credited as John Watson) delivers a film in the vein of The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982), though without the latter's sense of scope or panache. Howard R. Cohen's adult-oriented plot is paper-thin-more a skeleton for chaos than a story-but it suits the kind of low-budget, testosterone-fueled nonsense this era of sword-and-sorcery demanded.

Modeled on He-Man, Rick Hill (with a dash of Peter Weller and Dolph Lundgren) does a serviceable job as Deathstalker, bulking up the brawny charm while looking permanently winded from wearing so little. The late Lana Clarkson, however, steals every scene she touches, exuding both danger and allure with effortless presence. Richard Brooker as Oghris is a welcome oddity; one of those performances you remember for no good reason other than sheer theatricality.

Gratuitous nudity, a dash of unnecessary rape, and all the hallmarks of Roger Corman production shortcuts are on full display-cheap sets, choppy editing-but the high-concept lunacy carries it for the most part. Óscar Cardozo Ocampo's score deserves a nod: it lifts the proceedings, energises the fight scenes, and even when intrusive, it somehow feels part of the charm, like a synth-powered alarm announcing chaos.

The giant pig-man gladiator fight scene is a highlight, ridiculous and unwieldy, nothing like the promotional art but all the better for it. The showdown borrows from Superman II (1980) with Flash Gordon's Ming-like sorcerer Munkar, played by Bernard Erhard, getting his moment to shine-somehow lending gravitas to an otherwise gleeful trashfest.

Overall, it takes itself seriously, it's violent, and wall-to-wall scantily-clad leads and extras parade through every frame. Yet there's an undeniable appeal: low-budget 1980s sword-and-sorcery shenanigans, a dash of audacious nonsense, and just enough spectacle to make it one of the better Conan cash-ins. Poster art is still better than the film, but in that gleeful, slightly trashy way, Deathstalker has its own charm.

WOW ! If there ever was such a thing called a "guy movie" this is it. Deathstalker is one of few films that includes sword fighting, nudity, mud wrestling, full frontal nudity, and mid evil characters that talk like they're from New Jersey! You got to love it. Take my advice and rent this flick, buy a six pack and a pizza and lock the doors. This is one worth watching if you just broke up with your girl friend.