Deathstalker (1983)

“Heroes and fools are the same thing...”

This is one of many sword and sorcery films that sprang up in the wake of Conan the Barbarian. A fair few of them were quite good. This one isn’t, but it’s one of the better known ones which are utter pants.

There are no real stars in it. It’s cheap as chips. But it seems to have amassed enough of a cult following that we’re here talking about it 36 years later. I’m not entirely sure why. It’s a fairly perfunctory plot about a cynical anti-hero whom we first meet saving a damsel in distress from some lecherous men who are disfigures and therefore bad, and then proceeding to, er, undress and grope her, giving us the first of many glimpses of boobies. Well then. No feminism here, clearly.

Deathstalker (what sort of a name is that?) then proceeds to deny he’s a hero and that he just steals and kills to stay alive. It may be sword and sorcery, but this is definitely the ‘80s. And not just because of the bean bags that are visible in several scenes...

It soon morphs into a plot which makes no sense but isn’t hard to follow, involving a witch, a few perfunctory MacGuffins and a kind of gladiatorial contest which an evil wizard is setting up for reasons which are not quite clear. But there’s a nasty pig man, lots of naked woman who, er, seem to exist for the pleasure of all those charming men, and a lot of fighting. And, er, that’s it. It’s a short, simple film which, to be fair, shows a quite well-designed lived-in, dirty, sword and sorcery world. But, really, there are plenty of other sword and sorcery films from this sort of era.