Iron Warrior

The first Ator film, Ator The Fighting Eagle, was, for undiscriminating sword and sorcery fans, an enjoyable enough low-budget Conan ripoff. It was about on par with the first Deathstalker movie. The second Ator film, The Blade Master, was incredibly cheap and cheesy with hang-gliding and possibly the fakest looking giant snake I have ever seen in a motion picture. The fourth film, Quest for the Mighty Sword, did not have Miles O'Keefe as Ator and thus was not the same. I have no idea why O'Keefe did not come back for the fourth film, maybe because he knew there was no way it would top the third, Iron Warrior, easily the weirdest entry in the series.

Weird, how, some may ask. Joe D'Amato is gone as director and new director and co-writer Alfonso Brescia (Al Bradley) brings an artificially arty look to the film and proceedings. Its low-fi existentialism suggests Monte Hellman making a fantasy, but the bright colored lighting is like mid-1980s Miami Vice. Iron Warrior does far more than suggest with some of its influences.

Remember that scene in the 1978 Superman movie when General Zod and his co-conspirators are tried and exiled? Well, prepare to see a variation on the scene early on in Iron Warrior. How about when the evil sorceress Phoedra crashes the princess's birthday party with a "gift," a scene that comes straight from Sleeping Beauty. Fantasy fans may remember how in Excalibur Morgana imprisoned Merlin, well, guess what, it is here as well. Oh, a boulder similar to The Raiders of the Lost Ark is also present. These blatant thefts, in a way, add to the film's unusual charm.

Charm? Is there anything to recommend Iron Warrior? Yes, Miles O'Keefe, who played Ator in the first three films, brings some much needed gravity to the role in this movie. The character has lost his swagger and is more weary. O'Keefe plays this well. Iron Warrior does have the best performance I have ever seen from O'Keefe. Second, the film is not boring. It is so odd that one keeps wondering what will happen next.

Iron Warrior's story is mostly typical of fantasy films - an evil sorceress, separated brothers, a princess, and a quest. There is disappointingly no monster however. The film does have an unusual, for the genre, female driven plotline. The beings controlling the mere mortals are all women, sorceresses. It is a change that makes Iron Warrior feel different than the other Ator movies. Although, to be honest, story continuity is pretty much ignored throughout the Ator series.

Some may wonder why I am defending what is clearly a low budget, genre-robbing movie.

Sometimes one will watch a "good" movie and like it but never watch it a second time, either deliberately or one just never gets in a mood to re-watch it. Then, there is the occasional "bad" film that one will watch multiple times. I have watched Iron Warrior twice now. I strongly suspect I will watch it at least a third time. I do still prefer Ator, the Fighting Eagle, but I have soft spot for Iron Warrior.

Ator must battle with Phaedra, an evil sorceress and her unstoppable warrior, who has a secret connection to our heroes past.

Director Alfonso Brescia ambitious Iron Warrior is a low budget mix of Excalibur, Clash of the Titans, with a touch of Alejandro Jodorowsky wackiness and Duran Duran music video prowess to name a few. Opening with Carlo Maria Cordio's endless credit title music (oddly reminiscent of Star Trek The Next Generation), we're then sold the aesthetically pleasing locations of the Mediterranean's Malta and Gozo. However, the sunny visuals take away from Iron Warrior some much needed atmosphere. Nevertheless, Brescia's Italian production doesn't shy away from brief nudity, some Lucio Fulci inspired make up and shock moments.

Brescia while disregarding Ator's established character origins (in Ator Flight of the Eagle (1982) and Ator 2 - L'invincibile Orion, released in America as The Blade Master 1984)) at best offers stylised 80's bold geometric shape makeup, and fan blown hair with vibrant costumes, reds, greens and flowing material passing the camera. There's a handful of beautiful women thrown including Iris Peynado, notable is the stunning Princess Jana, actress Sabina Gersak. Offering a poor mans Conan swordplay. There's Superman (1978) Krypton-like prison rings trapping a witch, with Ator played again by Miles OKeeffe, a chiseled lean He-Man, along with nemesis Trogar (Franco Daddi) a Skeletor meets with Action Force's Destro type sword wielding nemesis. He employs slow-motion, sped up film, wide shots and old Bewitched/Randall and Hopkirk vanishing editing tricks. The avant-garde mix of student-like experimental film elements is endless.

If theatrical, over the top, choppy Italian sorcery fantasy salami is your thing, Iron Warrior is a must see.

This is very different from the standard sword 'n sandal pics, and indeed the other two Ator films. It feels more like an art house film. Lots of swirling cloths, slomo-scenes, coloured filters, weird hair styles and make up and a WTF?! Ending. Our princess wears dresses made of swirling cloths in either scarlet or blue, she has pink lips and one pink eyebrow (weird) and her hair is kinda gathered into this crest like a Greek helmet which is just odd. Ator, has his hair done like a girl, beautifully braided and is too neat and styalised to be the 'warrior hero' he is supposed to be. The whole thing feels like a rock video, or an advert for something. The one great thing is that it isn't dubbed.

This is by the director of the awful 1973 'Beauty of the Barbarian' and had I known that I might not have bought it. This is a terrible film. Nothing much happens, its very very arty ie: pretty in a very 80's kind of way, but not much substance. The music is again poorly chosen, though its not as cringeworthy as the skippy the kangaroo stylee stuff from 'beauty of the barbarian'. The characters are underdeveloped, and although Miles O'Keeffe is undeniably lovely to look at, even he cannot save this film. The ending is sudden, weird and non sensical, if you can make it that far. The special effects like Phaedra's spinning hula hoop are tacky. There is no tension, no emotion, no real story and even the sword fights aren't particularly exciting. Still, it is quite pretty, the scenery (its filmed in Malta) is beautiful, and it does have a shirtless Miles O'Keeffe.

"Iron Warrior" introduces a new style both for Ator (he has black hair now, in a ponytail, and barely utters more than fifty words in the entire movie) and for the series itself. Director Brescia drops the silliness and campiness of the two D'Amato-directed "Ator" flicks in favor of a pseudo-arty approach. He employs every trick in the book: slow-motion, fast-motion(!), wide-angle lenses, cheap editing tricks to make people "disappear", etc. But the result in nothing more than a ponderous, often incomprehensible film that you may have to struggle to get through. The Malta locations are admittedly very beautiful, though. (*)

I saw another Ator movie on MST3K under the title "Cave Dwellers". It was one of the worst-made movies I've ever seen. Unfortunately, I saw Iron Warrior without the benefit of the MST3K crew, and it was very hard to endure. The film concerns the quest of Ator to stop a witch, but most of the time he just wanders around with no apparent agenda. He occasionally fights his brother, now the silver skull-masked "Master of the Sword", and is featured in many, many slow-motion scenes which seem to exist solely to make the movie last longer. Painfully boring, but it's a little better than Cave Dwellers in that it has some blood and nudity.