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    Ian Jane
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  • Sword And Sorcery Collection, The



    Released by: Shout! Factory
    Released on: 8/23/2011
    Director: John Sbardellati/Jim Wynorski
    Cast: Richard Hill, John Terlesky, John Lazar, Monique Gabrielle, Lana Clarkson, David Carradine
    Year: 1983/1987/1985/1984
    Purchase From Amazon

    The Movies:

    Are dudes in loincloths, topless ladies, lizard monsters, and bad special effects your idea of a good time? Enjoy cheapjack Conan The Barbarian rip offs? Not phased by sets that look like they were made out of papier-mí¢ché? Then Shout! Factory, in their ongoing mission from God to release as many Roger Corman films as they can, have got the DVD set you've been waiting for…. The Sword And Sorcery Collection! Be warned, however, as there are some spoilers in this review.

    Deathstalker:

    This first Deathstalker film, which spawned three sequels (the third not included in this set for some reason), begins with the title character, played by Richard Hill, saving a girl from some barbarian thugs. Once he fends off the bad guys and things mellow out, he grabs her, rips off her clothes, and they start having sex. This scene basically sets the tone for the rest of the movie.

    Once he's gotten in, gotten off and gotten out, the King arrives on the scene and convinces Deathstalker that he needs his help to rescue his daughter from an evil wizard. In order to do this, he'll need to make some preparations which involves his going to see his witch friend. At this point he's instructed to seek out the 'Sword Of Justice,' which he has no trouble doing, as it's conveniently stored in a nearby cave. When he leaves the cave, he finds another group of thugs ganging up on a seemingly innocent man. He saves him from the thugs, they team up, and Deathstalker learns of a tournament being held at the evil wizard's castle. He doesn't have sex with him though.

    That night, while resting, a topless blonde woman attacks the camp. Deathstalker defeats her, and again, they make out. She joins the group, now a trio, and later the next day they're off to see the evil wizard, win the tournament, and save the princess. When they arrive at their destination, the wizard is holding a giant orgy-like feast in honor of the combatants. It's a pretty rad party, featuring naked female mud wrestling, pig men barbarians, fights, sex, and beer - and it is here that the princess first sees, and falls for, Deathstalker.

    The wizard notices this and promises to send her to his chamber later that night. When she does arrive, it turns out that she's actually one of the wizard's henchmen who had been turned into a decoy princess in order to seduce and kill Deathstalker. Sneaky fucker. He makes out with her then makes short work of her, but not before he/she kills the topless blonde. The next day is the tournament; Deathstalker wins, saves the girl, kills the wizard and lives happily ever after. Sorry, those were some spoilers there - but really, you're going to see all of this coming a mile away anyways, so it doesn't really matter.

    As fun as this movie is, and it is a lot of fun, it's pretty undeniably awful. The acting is terrible, the script is terrible, the effects are laughable, and it's insanely sexist even by the admittedly very sexist standards of barbarian movies. Deathstalker, who we're supposed to see as a hero, forces himself on women, steals, lies, cheats, and spouts off some of the worst one-liners in film history - he's a poor man's Conan, make no qualms about it, don't try to defend him. Hill plays his role well and seems to be having fun in the part, though who wouldn't, as he gets to kill people and bang hot chicks, making his role that of the typical 'male fantasy' that the movie is pandering too. You know what though? As cliché ridden and indefensibly stupid as the movie might be, yeah, it's fun. Don't take it too seriously and know what you're getting into, you'll find that it's hard not to smile like a goon while this one plays out. The late Lana Clarkson shows up here to offer some eye candy and Barbi Benton too.













    Deathstalker II:

    Deathstalker II doesn't really have much of anything to do with the first film (thankfully?). There's a slightly more likeable actor playing the lead (John Terlesky this time around), and a new director behind the camera. The humor works a little better, and it does benefit from the presence of zombies.

    The second chapter begins with Deathstalker escaping the clutches of an evil woman. It turns out that she's Queen Sultana and is in cohorts with the evil wizard Jerak (the mighty John Lazar - read our interview with him here!). Together they have ousted the real ruler of the land, Princess Evie, and replaced her with a magic clone that they're able to control to do their bidding and use to rule the land together.

    Deathstalker inevitably runs into the real Princess Evie, who's posing as a 'seer' and predicts that he will make a great fortune by rescuing a princess and helping her get back to her throne. He decides that making a great fortune sounds like a good idea, so they're off to make it happen.

    When they arrive at a cemetery, they're attacked by a horde of zombies under Jerak's control, narrowly escaping into the forest. They think they're safe but of course, they get abducted by a band of female barbarian warriors. The princes, who's falling for Deathstalker, finds him getting it on with the leader of the tribe, and runs off into the woods sobbing uncontrollably. When Deathstalker finds out that the barbarian girl has marriage in mind, he runs off after the princess but Jerak's evil henchmen capture her.

    Deathstalker heads off to the castle in search of the princess and is attacked by the evil Queen Sultana. After finishing her off with his sword, he's back on track and trying to save the princess again. Jerak finds Sultana's body, resurrects her, and makes out with her but little does he know that the clone Princess is watching and becoming jealous of Sultana.

    Deathstalker later gets captured, and the real Princess is forced to team up with the barbarian women to save him. A big battle ensues, climaxing with a swordfight between Deathstalker and Jerak. The real princess ends up killing the clone, Deathstalker kills off the evil Jerak and Sultana, and they all live happily ever after. Spoilers again, sorry. But you saw that one coming too.

    Though not as truly amazingly awful as the first Deathstalker, this film still suffers from the same problems; terrible dialogue, terrible acting (though in the cast's defense, they seem to be having a blast here and overdoing it as hard as they can!), and bad visual effects. The lead character is a bit more likeable in this one however, and some of the fight scenes are marginally interesting. The zombie attack scene, short as it is, is the highlight of the film, albeit a very hokey one at best. On a related side note, according to the commentary track, the film was actually shot in a landfill, and in more than one scene you can actually see a tire or two in the background. The director and stars seemed to take great amusement in this on the track, as it's mentioned quite a few times. The film's saving grave is Lazar, who is completely awesome as the evil sword wielding wizard and who would have made this whole mess watchable even if it didn't have zombies and pretty ladies in it.













    Barbarian Queen:

    The late, lovely Lana Clarkson (Fuck you, Phil Spector, you creep!) plays a woman named Amathea whose town is plundered by evil soldiers on the day of her wedding. Her sister is raped and kidnapped, her fiancé is abducted and nowhere to be found, and her town is left in shambles.

    She finds two survivors from the tribe and together they swear vengeance on those who are responsible. Along the way, they find Amathea's sister, still alive, but seemingly in a state of denial about the entire incident. They carry on, teaming up with some rebels along the way, and sneak their way into the city fortress that houses the evil king responsible for all their woes. Once inside, they find that Amathea's fiancé is being trained as a gladiator. They team up with the gladiators and plan a revolt, however their plans are found out when one of the gladiators tells the evil king.

    A big fight results, the evil king is killed off, vengeance is served, the rebels and slaves all go free, and everyone lives happily ever after. There we go again with those spoilers. Gotta work on that, sorry.

    Notice a trend in these films? They all share a lot of the same themes and pretty much follow the same basic storyline. Barbarian Queen is marginally better than the two Deathstalker films. Again, bad acting, horrid dialogue, and goofy costumes and sets plague the film from start to finish, but it's not as severely noticeable as in the New Concorde fantasy films like Deathstalker. Clarkson is actually pretty awesome in the role, she looks great in her fur bikini and is quite charming and beautiful throughout the film. The cinematography seems to be a little more interesting here and while the sets and production values are no better than the two movies that came before it on this set, Clarkson is distractingly hot enough that it doesn't seem to matter quite as much.













    The Warrior And The Sorceress:

    Last but not least is this rather awesome David Carradine vehicle in which he plays a barbarian named Kain (as opposed to a kung-fu master named Cain - pay attention) who wanders around the wasteland that is the planet of Ura. A rather unfriendly place, Ura is also home to two warring factions lead by Zeg (Luke Askew) and his enemy Bal Caz (Willaim Marin). These two unruly types are constantly at war with one another for control of the small village that Kain finds himself wandering into because the village has a well and it's really the only source of water in the area.

    Once he's more or less set up in town, Kain offers up his skills with a sword to anyone who wants to pay him. A former warrior, he's pretty deadly with a blade and is hoping to make it rich as a mercenary. Soon, however, he starts to fall for the sexy sorceress Naja (Maria Socas), a captive who for reasons of his own he decides to free (those reasons probably have a lot to do with the fact that she doesn't wear a top and has her tits out for pretty much the entire running time of the movie!). Once he manages that he pisses off both sides and he finds himself going up against Zeg's forces and Bal Caz's as well. But he's got the Sword of Ura on his side, a might weapon that can cut through steel!

    If the storyline for this movie sounds familiar, that's because it's basically Yojimbo with boobs. That's not a bad thing, mind you. Leone successfully remade the movie with A Fistful Of Dollars so maybe, just maybe, director John C. Broderick could pull it off too? Sort of. The movie is entertaining, we can give it that much. Lots of nudity (including a four breasted woman!) and an awesome lizard monster thing help, as does a good bit of bloodshed throughout the film.

    Carradine doesn't stretch himself as an actor here, he plays the part fine and with a good amount of self confidence, so much so that you don't initially realize how dorky the late actor looks with his wispy hair strutting about in a loincloth.













    Video/Audio/Extras:

    All four films are presented in nicely restored 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen transfers that are quite a bit better looking than the previous New Concorde DVD issues from a few years back. There's some print damage and minor age related issues evident on some of the source material now and then but overall the image quality is good, offering up nice colors and fairly solid detail with accurate looking skin tones and fairly good black levels as well.

    The English language Dolby Digital audio tracks are on par with the video in terms of quality in that they're not going to blow you away but they're problem free for the most part. A couple of spots will have some very minor distortion here and there but for the most part the tracks are well balanced and have a bit of depth to them. You won't have any trouble understanding or following the dialogue and there aren't any problems with hiss or related issues.

    Extras? Shout! Factory recorded a commentary for Deathstalker with producer/director John Sbardellati, special makeup effects artist John Carl Buechler and actor Richard Brooker, moderated by Bill Olson. They start off by talking about how they used members of a mime troupe for the opening scene with all the jumping in it and then proceed to talk about the effects and the story but not before taking a moment to remember Lana Clarkson, which was a nice touch. This is a pretty active talk which covers how many of the appliances for the makeup effects while on location, Corman's involvement in getting this film made, where certain scenes were shot, who did some of the stunts and how, and more. If you're a fan of the movie, this one is definitely worth a listen as it is very informative and very well paced but not without a sense of humor. Also included for Deathstalker are a theatrical trailer and a still gallery.



    Deathstalker II carries over from the New Concorde DVD the half decent commentary track, featuring director Jim Wynorksi and stars John Terlesky and Toni Naples. The commentary is much more interesting to listen to than the dialogue in the film itself, and provides an interesting look into the making of this no-budget Conan wannabe. A trailer for Deathstalker II is also included.



    The Warrior And The Sorceress and Barbarian Queen get trailers while a handful of deleted/extended scenes (9:58 worth of material here, including some gorier throat slashing bits and a bit more with lovely Lana's rack on the rack - tape sourced and not in the best shape but cool to see nevertheless!) are included for the Clarkson feature. Menus and chapter stops round out the disc and the flipside of the cover art contains some promo shots of the cast members and some cool one sheet artwork.



    The Final Word:

    As dopey as the four films in this set are, they're a lot of dumb fun. Packed with action, nudity, gore and creature effects they're nothing if not entertaining and Shout! Factory have done a nice job bringing these back to DVD with improved transfers and a few next extra features too.

    • Roderick
      #5
      Roderick
      Butthorn
      Roderick commented
      Editing a comment
      Yeah, it was the Shout! release. I was surprised to see them dump stock to retail. But I didn't get one 'cause I'm holding out for the four movie version.

    • Todd Jordan
      #6
      Todd Jordan
      Smut is good.
      Todd Jordan commented
      Editing a comment
      Yeah they were website exclusives. I paid $15 bucks for mine (I think). Oh well, I'm one of those dorks that needs all the Corman Classics releases.

    • Robin Bougie
      #7
      Robin Bougie
      Senior Member
      Robin Bougie commented
      Editing a comment
      Really enjoyed all the movies in this set! Barbarian Queen was the last one to watch for me, and I checked that out tonight. A LOT of boobs in this one, and how great was the overly complicated tit-poking device the mad scientist hooks Lana up to before the bondage-rape where her vagina nearly eats his wang off?? I can't believe you left that part out of your review, too. A crazy highlight, for sure. :up:
    Posting comments is disabled.

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