Tag Archives: sword and sorcery

The Beastmaster (1982) | Don Coscarelli

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The Beastmaster follows the hero, Dar (Marc Singer), the son of a king snatched away from his mother’s womb by a witch under the employ of the evil magician named Maax (Rip Torn). Maax had been prophesied to be killed by the son of a king (to which he takes to slaughtering all of the young’uns he can).  The intended infanticide is thwarted by a goodly peasant, who raises Dar as his own, and harnesses the boy’s skill in fighting and farming. Dar soon discovers an uncanny ability to communicate telepathically with whatever animals reside nearby.

Dar’s village is decimated by the evil forces known as the Jun, in cahoots with Maax.  Out for revenge, Dar enlists some newfound animal friends in the form of a panther, an eagle, and two ferret thieves, to bring down Maax before he slaughters any more innocents.  Also joining Dar is slave girl Kiri (Tanya Roberts), a valiant warrior named Seth (John Amos), and the son of the imprisoned king, Tal (Josh Milrad).

Directed and co-written by Don Coscarelli.

Red Sonja (1985) | Richard Fleischer

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An unofficial spinoff of sorts to the Conan franchise, Red Sonja starts off with Sonja (Brigitte Nielsen) as an attractive farm girl that evil lesbian Queen Gedren of Berkubane (Sandahl Bergman) finds fetching enough to invite over.  Sonja finds the offer so repulsive she ends up giving the queen’s face a nasty gash. Spurned, Sonja’s family is soon murdered by Gedren’s army, while they also destroy her home and she ends up raped by Gedren’s soldiers.

Gedren seeks a powerful talisman, which grows stronger the more exposure it has to light, enough to destroy the world if left unchecked within a couple of weeks. Gedren has the all-female guards (only women can touch it) at the temple protecting the talisman massacred and takes it for herself.

After a forest spirit grants her great abilities to wield a sword, Sonja vows revenge, soon going off to the Orient to train with the masters on sword fighting, who end up giving her a powerful sword. On her quest, she meets a mysterious stranger named Lord Kalidor (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a protector of the Order of the Talisman, who tells Sonja about her dying sister, who took an arrow to the back from one of the Queen’s soldiers. In her sister’s final words, Sonja gets a mission to stop Gedren’s quest to use the talisman to destroy the world, and she has fourteen days to do it.

Richard Fleischer directs this Dino De Laurentiis production.

Conan the Barbarian (1982) | John Milius

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The setting of this fantasy-adventure based on Robert E. Howard’s literary creations is the Hyborian Age, a fictional period invented by Howard, around 10,000 B.C. It is a time of magic, madmen, and mercenaries, and barbarians who kill before they end up killed. The film starts with Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger) as a young lad in Cimmeria, orphaned at the hands of an evil snake cult-leader and a black-magic sorcerer named Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones), and becomes a slave.  As he grows, he soon fights in an arena for sport and becomes very good at what he does.  Soon, he escapes and uses his freedom to seek revenge on the man responsible for the murder of his parents, with some help from new friends he meets along the way. Sandahl Bergman, Gerry Lopez, Mako, and Max Von Sydow co-star. John Milius directs. Milius and Oliver Stone script.

Fire and Ice (1983) | Ralph Bakshi

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This animated story involves a fantasy world imagined before the last ice age, featuring human civilizations and exotic dinosaurs coexisting. It is a time where the lands are divided among two factions, the evil Ice Peak sorcerer warlords, Queen Juliana and her wicked son Nekron, leading an army of ape-like subhumans, and the goodly Fire Keep clan led by King Jarol. The ice clan’s Nekron is using his telekinetic powers to send giant glaciers out to freeze over the rest of the world, forcing the good humans to set up camp near the volcanoes.

Our main hero is vengeful Larn, the survivor of North Village from one of Nekron’s glacier attacks that takes out his people. Jarol’s beloved teenage daughter Princess Teegra gets kidnapped from Nekron’s subhuman minions. Teegra manages to escape and runs into Larn, and the two form an instant romantic bond. As King Jarol sends his son Taro and his men to seek a peaceful solution, Larn makes his way to Nekron’s abode, joining forces with a mysterious warrior named Darkwolf, who also is traveling to the Ice City to thwart the Ice Lord’s wrath.

Ralph Bakshi directs. Frank Frazetta co-produces.

Excalibur (1981) | John Boorman

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John Boorman’s polarizing but highly ambitious take on Arthurian legend is a visually and aurally striking look into the myth, the fantasy, and the haunting imagery that the medieval Thomas Malory tale has evoked over the last several centuries.  A then-nobody, but now all-star cast that includes Helen Mirren, Liam Neeson, and Patrick Stewart appears alongside stars Nigel Terry and Nicol Williamson to spin this sword-and-sorcery take on this well-known tale unlike any other that has seemingly come before or since.