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

Deathstalker (1983) – USA/Argentina

Inspired by a recent foray into the Conan the Cimmerian Barbarian: The Complete Weird Tales Omnibus, I suddenly had a hankering for more of the same, and so here we are.

Never one to miss an opportunity to cash in on a zeitgeist, Roger Corman saw the response to the the previous year’s Schwarzenegger grunt-a-thon and fast tracked this hokey slice of sword and sorcery, roping in sometime collaborator James Sbardellati to direct Howard R. Cohen’s cut and paste script.

Deathstalker (Rick Hill) is a wandering rogue fighter who loves nothing better than sticking his sword in people, literally and metaphorically speaking. He is quested by a witch to unearth a trio of macguffins in order to topple an evil sorcerer, Munkar (Bernard Erhard), and does so with the help of a diminutive goblin, a swarthy dude bro, and a female warrior whose idea of armour is a pair of knickers and a cloak.

Indeed, knockers and bum cheeks abound in this less than light-hearted romp, and the whole affair grows tiresome remarkably fast. Deathstalker himself isn’t even a fun anti-hero — the only time he is less than plank-like is when he’s sexually assaulting someone — leaving it very hard to root for him, let alone anyone, in this.

4/10

Deathstalker 2 (1987) – USA/Argentina

Due to a multiple-picture deal with the Argentinian studios, and presumably some car payments, producer Roger Corman once again leaped into the Deathstalker world, still smarting that no one would let him make a Conan film. He roped in Jim Wynorski to direct, having just worked together on the altogether fab Chopping Mall (1986), and recast the titular lunk with John Terlesky.

Neil Ruttenberg’s script borrows heavily from an actual Robert E. Howard joint, the short story “A Witch Shall Be Born,” using the central premise of a kingdom overthrown by a doppelganger, and the usurped princess seeking the aid of a sword-swinging lothario.

This one (in an eventual series of three) is remembered quite fondly by sword and sandal enthusiasts, and that’s probably due to its more tongue-in-cheek nature, but this alone isn’t enough to save it. Yes, I enjoyed watching this one more than the first, but it’s still rubbish. Not only that but it pads out several scenes with footage from the first movie (Corman gripping those purse strings like a python in the temple of Set) and several scenes overstay their welcome, especially the Amazonian wrestling match.

It’s not all misery though, the two female leads, Monique Gabrielle in the dual role as the princess and her evil clone, and Maria Socas as the Amazon queen, are both really good and fun to watch. A female Deathstalker would have been excellent, but the 80s weren’t ready for that (don’t get me started on Red Sonja).

5/10

Deathstalker (2025) – USA/Canada

Such is the nature of rose-tinted nostalgia goggles it was inevitable that an homage would be thrown together and quickly crowdfunded by a bunch of folk who remembered the kick-ass Boris Vallejo posters and copious tits of the 80s flicks. This remake is produced by Slash from Guns and Roses, and written and directed by Steven Kostanski, who made the excellent The Void (2016), and therefore got my hopes up.

In this version, Deathstalker (Daniel Bernhardt) loots a macguffin off a battlefield corpse and is instantly cursed with it. His witch friend tells him of a wizard who should be able to break the curse, and so begins his quest, which would ultimately be packed to the rafters with set-piece after set-piece.

Deathstalker teams up with said impish wizard, Doodad (voiced by Patton Oswald), and a feisty thief, Brisbayne (Christina Orjalo, very good). Together they go up against the demonic forces of Necromemnon and his lackey Jotak (Paul Lazenby), and much blood is spilled by all.

From the opening shot (a head is brutally removed from its owner in shocking close-up) I thought I was going to seriously enjoy this version, but as it progressed, and the humour took over, I started to find it more frustrating than enjoyable. This needed the Airplane treatment — instead of Deathstalker cracking gags, he needed to be absolutely straight-laced — let the lampoonary carry on around him.

That said, the production value is great for the budget and the gore is fantastic, so I did have some fun with it, just not as much as I had popped my corn for.

7/10

Masters of the Universe (1987) – USA

Shockingly, I’ve never seen this dollop of American cheese-style product before, but I hardly knew the franchise, being British and 16 when the Filmation series first ran in 1983. Therefore I had no battlecat in the race and really wasn’t interested when the movie burst into cinemas (and flopped, contributing to the death of Cannon Films).

While doing a bit of digging (yes, I actually research these films after I’ve watched them and before I write this drivel), I learned that Mattel really hamstrung the production, which may have had a small part in its eventual dullness, but also, come on, all of Eternia to play with and the budget restricts three quarters of the film to the most deserted square mile of Whittier, California.

Storywise, Skeletor (Frank Langella, excellent) wants a macguffin invented by incredibly annoying, smashburger-faced Gwildor (Billy Barty), and when He-Man (Dolph Lungren, mercifully dubbed) gets accidentally transported to Earth, Skeletor sends his most inept commandos to hunt the device down and kill the blond bore. The macguffin, a portal-summoning synthesizer key, falls into the hands of Julie (Courtney Cox) and her undeserving boyfriend, Kevin (Robert Duncan McNeill), and a great many things get blown up with nary a single shocked reaction from the surrounding (missing) community.

Lots of chasing, cackling, and hair blowing in the wind ensues, but I fell asleep several times and had to keep rewinding it. Sorry to fans of this one.

6/10

The Barbarians (1987) – USA/Italy

A barbarian film from legendary horror-meister Ruggero (Cannibal Holocaust) Deodato? Sign me up! Is what I probably would have said in the late 80s, but being older now and suckered more times than I can remember, I didn’t go into this one with wild abandon. A wise decision as, despite Deodato’s frenetic direction and ability to squeeze every bit of sumptuousness from low-budget sets, the film is ultimately mind-numbing, and not in a good way.

On paper it should have worked; a classic sword and sorcery plot, Richard Lynch chewing the scenery, loin cloths and blood, but the film is hampered by terrible dialogue (and worse dubbing) and a pair of meatheads (David and Peter Paul as the titular Barbarian brothers) who pop veins and shout words with equal redundancy.

The story, which has its own macguffin in the form of a ruby, has a similar element to another film I’ll be reviewing next time (Iron Warrior) and throws forbidden lands, dragons, and torture at us in an attempt to distract us from the brothers, to no avail.

I know this reads like I disliked the film, but to be honest I actually had a fun time. It helped that Michael Berryman was wearing a headband with a single horn on it for much of the proceedings. What a good sport.

7/10

Previous Murky Movie surveys from Neil Baker include:

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
It’s All Rather Hit-or-Mythos
You Can’t Handle the Tooth
Tubi Dive
What Possessed You?

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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.