Deathstalker IV: Match of Titans

This is clearly the best of the Deathstalker series, much better than the first three. Rick Hill (Deathstalker 1) is back, this time with more filled out masculine features and physique. He and Dionara (Maria Ford), after generally being involved in medieval combat against the bad guys at the beginning, go to a tournament hosted by the evil Queen Kana (Michelle Moffett). Sort of like "Enter the Dragon" except swords onstead of martial arts, and both men and women. It then becomes evident that the Queen has further motives than sadistically watching people die in slaughtering each other, that is, specifically to get rid of enemies present at the tournament and get a hold of Deathstalker's magical sword. Deathstalker and Dionara, with the help of a sidekick they persuade, seek to foil the queen.

There is lots of wild action, outdoors and indoors, some banquets and orgies and nudity, and the queen even has some erotic moments with Deathstalker and the sidekick. Dionara has a water hole fight with her lead rival before a climactic swordfight. But Rick and Maria make a great pair of protagonists, the best Deathstalker romantic pair. If you are into this genre, see it.

The best thing about this entry to the DS series is that Rick Hill is back! He IS Deathstalker (well, I haven't even bothered watching II and III, it just wouldn't be the same). And you've gotta love the sense of humor it has. You can laugh WITH it, not AT it (okay, you can laugh at it too, but you know what I mean). I usually hate sequels, but I like this entry the best. Yeah, as these films go, it's lacking in the female frontal nudity department, but as a woman, seeing Rick and his buddies in their gladiator garb works for me. If you saw the first film, it's worth checking out.

You would think that a movie that features a former 'Penthouse Magazine' model would be a bit better than this snoozer flick. The fourth (and perhaps last) of the 'Deathstalker' series movies is probably the most ambitious but second-most miserable failure of them all (though 'Deathstalker 2' was even worse).

It's the usual plot - adventuring hero teams up with beautiful female warrior and frees a city from an evil ruler. So what do you get in between the covers? Well, some good opportunities for Maria Ford to show her 'talents' are wasted for one thing. I would think that if her character was in love with Deathstalker, that there would be at least one scene with intimacy. She also has the ability to keep her clothes on in a fight. Also, every castle has a dungeon, yet we never see anybody being tortured (or even half-dressed). So what's the point of having a dungeon in the first place? And worse than that, with all of the swords being swung about, the gore is a bit slight.

If there's going to be a 'Deathstalker 5', the producers would be wise to give us what we expect in a 'B'-level movie: skin, a couple of torture scenes, and blood.

This is a great film. Here are some highlights:

The film has scenes directly recycled from DEATHSTALKER I as well as BARBARIAN QUEEN, but portrayed as if they were brand-new scenes.

Unlike Deathstalker I, there are no pig-men, but there are lion-men and wolf-men and -women, who seem to be recurring villains in the film. Like the first film, the protagonist is played by Rick Hill, which is fun to see his deadpan-delivered lines. His female sidekick/love interest is Dionara (Maria Ford). The duo basically make their way to another tournament, which evil Queen Kana is holding for the warriors in the whole kingdom.

At one point, Deathstalker meets a Tommy Wiseau-look alike who does 50 pushups. Named Vaniat (Brett Baxter Clark), he sort of follows Hill and Ford to the tournament. We later learn that Vaniat is the first no-fapper (which I didn't know existed in 1991): he tells Deathstalker that sleeping with women saps one's vital energy; hee also eats a whole pig and likes cardio. He was basically a crossfitter before cross fit existed. To add to the greatness, this character's non-exposure to women becomes a hilarious plot point later on in the film.

We also get to see the early '90s fascination with lesbian-esque women clad in leather, one of whom has a buzzcut and befriends the main girl Dionara. One of the secondary villains whom we meet midway into the film is a lesbian, who basically forces herself on a younger girl after killing her female guardian.

The music sounds as if the composer was having a seizure on the keyboard.

With so much greatness, DEATHSTALKER IV is a much-watch!

I didn't think anyone else had even heard of the Deathstalker films, let alone actually owned them - so when I saw this 'un on sale for a couple of quid second-hand, the appalling decision had already been made...

It's not a good film, obviously. In fact it's pretty terrible. I can't say just how terrible it is in relation to its three predecessors, because they were experienced way back in my murky, impressionable childhood and the only bits I can remember are the bits that were inexplicably recycled in this one.

But the real tragedy of Match of Titans is that while it's certainly a long way from the likes of the Conan films in terms of production values and, well... everything, really, it's also not quite inept enough to be funny. Don't get me wrong, the scale of incompetence runs pretty high considering it's the fourth instalment in a series, but when it comes to the crunch Rick Hill goes and ruins everything by turning in an inappropriately decent performance. Maria Ford's worth looking at, too. Not worth watching, mind you, but definitely worth looking at. There's a difference.

Still, the 'special' 'effects' are well down to standard for the genre, as are the 'plot', 'dialogue' and 'continuity'. And I can only speculate that the 'fight scenes' were choreographed by a couple of arthritic, wheelchair-bound 85-year-olds drunk on gin, which is great for a film entirely based around a hand-to-hand combat tournament. So it's not all bad, then.