A veritable cornucopia of dodgy barbarian and barbarian-adjacent movies that I have never watched before, and will probably never watch again. Enjoy Part One here.

Gor (1987) – USA/Italy

Another nail in the Cannon coffin lid, this effort to start a franchise based on the uncomfortable series of novels by John Norman spawned one sequel, and then went belly up before things could get worse.

It follows the same basic plot of the books; dull physics prof Tarl Cabot (Urbano Barbarini — dull as a dish cloth) owns a family heirloom macguffin that transports him to the barbaric planet of Gor, where he must right some wrongs and show the locals that human is best — so far, so very Barsoomy.

Cabot falls in with a village being ransacked by tyrannical despot and maniacal giggler, Sarm (Oliver ‘I’ll get the beers in’ Reed, having a wonderful time). After a run in with some ne’er-do-wells, Cabot is nursed back to health by semi-clad princess Talena (Rebecca ‘more hairspray’ Ferratti) and soon they are off to reclaim another macguffin in order for Cabot to return home. It isn’t long before the landscape is strewn with bodies, slave girls, and partially covered bum cheeks, and it all culminates in a fiery showdown with Olly Reed.

John Norman’s series justifiably has its critics regarding his depiction of women — specifically the slavery and sexual abuse, which becomes a lot darker and pornographic as the books continued to be rolled out. Some (but not all) of the overt misogyny is glossed over however, and the film just serves as another one of the dime-a-dozen S&S videos to decorate your local Blockbuster in the mid-80s. I’m adding a point for Oliver Reed.

5/10

Outlaw of Gor (1988) – USA/Italy

Hot on the sandal heels of the previous plod-a-thon came this one, not based on Norman’s 1967 novel of the same name, but featuring most of the same characters and actors, and a misguided determination to get some more female slaves on screen.

This time the plank masquerading as a physics prof, Cabot, is tossed back onto Gor following a car crash, but this time he’s not alone. He is joined by an annoying co-worker (Russel Savadier) who has been sandal-horned into the plot in an attempt to distract us from Jack Palance’s hats. Yes, Jack Palance, who had one of the top billings in the last film (he was on screen for 3 mins), has taken over the Olly Reed role, but he is having far less fun with it, and in fact is usurped by evil queen Lara (Donna Denton), who frames Cabot for Talena’s dad’s murder and send him on the run.

Cabot, along with his diminutive, white-haired chum, Hup (Nigel Chipps), wander around in the desert for a bit, stumble into a slave trader camp, free a slave girl, and generally cause a kerfuffle. Unfortunately, Lara has sent a hunter after them and he soon catches them and brings them back to the palace to face the music. Cue fights, wrongs being righted, and another generous sprinkling of sand-blasted flesh.

They upped the humour in this one, to no great effect, and Palance really doesn’t get to do much at all. At least Cabot gets to stay on Gor this time, thus saving his class from another boring physics lecture.

4/10

The New Barbarians (1983) – USA/Italy

Barbarians of the future this time (AKA Warriors of the Wasteland), as humanity has descended into Road Warrior style chaos, stealing much of the other film’s plot too. The rest of the story concerns a lone warrior, Mad Ma… sorry, ‘Scorpion’ (Giancarlo Preti), a former soldier of a quasi-religious bunch of nutters called the Templars.

These Templars, led by a cookie-cutter villain called ‘One’ (George Eastman), are determined to judge and exterminate all other survivors in order to purify the world or something. When they set their sights on a group of peaceniks, it’s up to Scorpion to save the day, but not before he has forced himself on several women, and then been raped himself by One in a scene that springs out of nowhere and sours an already less-than-sweet film. Director Enzo G. Castellari and his production team found a lovely quarry just outside Rome, and chose to never leave it, hurtling their cybertruck-lite buggies around the rocks with wild abandon.

Then blow me down, just as I was starting to tire of the whole debacle, who should turn up but Fred Williamson, playing a bad-ass dude called Nadir. Suddenly I was all in, and the film must have realized what an ace it was holding, because it ramped up the violence (sooo many exploding heads) and the hilarity (Nadir uses a bow with explosive-tipped arrows, but he takes an unbelievably long time to attach the tips to the shafts, while the people he is trying to save are getting the snot kicked out of them).

Ultimately though it’s a bit of a silly slog, but I’m sticking a couple of extra points onto this for Fred Williamson and exploding body parts.

6/10

Iron Warrior (1987) – USA/Italy

For a fleeting moment I was intrigued by this one. The opening scene of a pair of young brothers playing with a ball among some ruins was rather nicely shot, with some interesting framing and editing decisions, and I thought I might have stumbled onto a decent one. I could even forgive the clearly stolen James Horner strains from various Star Treks.

Oh, how I laughed when I realised my mistake three minutes later when it all plummeted into nonsense. One of the boys is kidnapped by a witch, Phoedra (Elisabeth Kaza), who encases him in a formidable suit of iron and turns him into her enforcer.

Flash forward several years and the unsullied brother, Ator, lurches onto the scene, all muscles, tragic hair and cheekbones to cut diamonds on. Ator then proceeds to protect various kingdoms from Phoedra, all the while coming closer to the final showdown with (shock!) his brother. Ator is played by Miles O’Keeffe, whom I remembered from the awful Tarzan movie he made with Bo Derek, released in 1981. This bloke, pretty as he is, gives planks a bad name as he vogues his way from one lackluster sword fight to the next.

I had no idea that I was watching the third film in a series of Ator movies, but it didn’t really matter, and following this one I had no desire to seek out the others. Feel free to comment if this was a mistake and I’ve actually missed some classics (but I won’t hold my breath).

4/10

The Dungeonmaster (1984) – USA

AKA Rage War: The Challenges of Excalibrate AKA Digital Knights.

Jeffrey Byron plays a computer nerd called Paul, who has an unhealthy attachment to his A.I. assistant X-CaliBR8, predicting Richard Dawkins’ confusion 42 years ago. His long-suffering girlfriend, Gwen (Leslie Wing), has finally had enough of her digital rival, but before she can do anything about it, they are both whisked away to a fantastical land by a demonic sorcerer called Mestema (Richard Moll), who has been searching for a worthy challenger for some reason, and has decided a nerd and his Siri are it.

Also, he fancies Gwen. Paul has a ‘pipboy’ style version of X-CaliBR8 (Cali for short, thank God), on his wrist, and this thing can do bloody anything, which is useful as Memesta is about to hurl a bunch of different challenges at Paul that have no real connection to anything, and seem extraordinarily easy to beat. Challenges are met, monsters are squashed, demonic sorcerers are defeated, and Paul and Gwen get to go back to their unholy love triangle in their apartment.

Now, I love me a good anthology movie, and this ain’t it. The challenges consist of seven story segments, made by seven directors to varying degrees of competence, ranging from almost interesting to crap. John Carl Buechler got to direct one, and I’ve always loved his films (Ghoulies, anyone?), but his effort was rubbish. Dave Allen, stop-motion maestro, also made one, but that was rubbish too. However, neither of these were as rubbish as the other five, and one of them featured heavy metal lads WASP — go figure.

Nothing made any sense, the wrist-mounted Cali developed super laser powers that I’m pretty sure Paul didn’t program, and the whole shebang is a ludicrous mess.

Recommended.

5/10

Previous Murky Movie surveys from Neil Baker include:

Fauxnan the Barbarian, Part One
Probing Questions
My Top Thirty Films
The Star Warses
Just When You Thought It Was Safe
Tech Tok
The Weyland-Yutaniverse
Foreign Bodies
Mummy Issues
Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
Monster Mayhem

---

See all of Neil Baker’s Black Gate film reviews here. Neil spends his days watching dodgy movies, most of them terrible, in the hope that you might be inspired to watch them too. He is often asked why he doesn’t watch ‘proper’ films, and he honestly doesn’t have a good answer. He is an author, illustrator, teacher, and sculptor of turtle exhibits.