Long ago, in a mystical realm known as… the 80s, a genre of cinema knew an era of peace and prosperity born of cheesy effects and questionable budgets. Some, like The Neverending Story and Willow, stood proud and tall, projected on large, glistening screens for all to see, while others trawled throughout the dark realms of the kingdom known as video rental shops and contained less family friendly content as explicit gore and bare boobies. Needless to say, while young kids enjoyed the tamer stuff, teens really enjoyed the sleazier shit and thus legends were born.
Then everything changed; and after the twin kingdoms of Tolkien and Rowling made their moves on the unprotected realms, fantasy movies became a respectful territory to ply your trade and possibly build multi-film franchises. But some out there still remember the glory days when low budget filmmakers used to throw all sorts of shit at the screen to see what would stick and thanks to them, one such legend would finally hear their name called once more. Deathstalker.
The land of Abraxion is under siege from the terrible, bloodthirsty scourge known as the Dreadites and as they move through the kingdoms, slaughtering as they go they aim to do the evil bidding of the evil wizard Nekromemnon. After the latest of many battles, we find a mystery man seemingly defending a dying man from a scattered group of Dreadites – however, once the creatures have been dispatched, the guy robs the wounded man as he dies, swiping his rings and an important looking amulet he’s discovers on his bloodied person. The man is the fabled Deathstalker, adventurer, former knight and certainly not above stealing from the nearly dead to score a little bling. However, while chilling at a local tavern, an attack from a two-faced troll clues him in that this amulet isn’t quite what it seems.
Enlisting the aid of a local witch, she leads him to seek out the only one who can decipher the runes etched on the side, a magical being known as Doodad, but it soon proves that every inch of this adventure will be fraught with aggressive danger as freeing the little, impish creature from his locked trunk requires a battle with soil burrowing serpents.
With Doodad enlisted, a rapidly frustrated Deathstalker realises that they’ll both have to embark on many other, similarly lethal, side-quests in order to remove the curse to enable the adventurer to actually discard the fucking thing without it magically reappearing in his pouch seconds later. However, while embarking on this, further friends and foes keep making his life absurdly complicated such as mischievous member of the thieves guild, Brisbayne and ally-turned-villainous henchman, Jotak. Can Deathstalker manage to halt the steady stream of rubbery monsters that’s targeted him and go on to save the world?
I have to say, I was never particularly enamoured of Roger Corman’s Deathstalker series back in the day because I found that the fact that the cheapjack movies failed to match the kickass video box art used to piss me off to no end. Plus, I was too young to fully appreciate how deliriously fucking camp some of the more adult-themed entries were – although they never stood out as much as Albert Pyun’s utterly bonkers The Sword And The Sorcerer, Don Coscarelli’s trippy The Beastmaster or Terry Marcel’s majestically scrappy Hawk The Slayer. Well, aiming to change that is throwback king Steven Kostanski who has moved on from homaging such 80s as trashy sci-fi (Manborg), mini monster movies (Frankie Freako) and weird Saturday morning cartoons (PG: Psycho Goreman) to turn his attention to ropey fantasy flicks by rebooting the Deathstalker franchise to meet his own, goofy sensibilities.
Essentially strip mining the series of what works (the self-aware humour and genuinely awesome theme song from part 2) and ditching what didn’t (part 1 is worryingly rapey), he then adds his obvious weakness for splashy gore and cramming as many mishapen monsters centre stage as he can to take the load. While I’d argue that Deathstalker doesn’t quite nail the tone as well as Psycho Goreman did (it’s nowhere near as funny) the secret of enjoying the character’s second coming will probably depend on your relationship on the type of fantasy movies that attempted to whisk you faraway lands but blatently didn’t have the money to pull it off. Kostanski doesn’t mock the genre like Your Highness or just run with it with reckless, slapstick abandon like Sam Raimi did with Army Of Darkness, no, he has far too much love for them to do that. As a result, he seems to have delivered a fifth installment in the vein of the looser second film and just threw as many funky rubber monster suits as humanly possible.
The result is actually something of a joyous experience if you also share the directors adoration for this type of gaudy trash that doles out all the lumpy, slimy creatures you could possibly hope for in order to draw attention from a plot that’s predictably thin as Gollum on an all-bran diet. The marauding Dreadites look vaguely like the Slayers from Krull, there’s a freakish troll with two, arguing faces, a box-headed witch, flesh tearing snakes and squishy bog-people who – in the film’s best joke – really just want a hug among all the head ripping. It may seem like a gargantuan weakness to use a variety of blobby creatures and the sort of backdrops that would look at home painted on the side of a roadies van, but it’s also incredible accurate as you could probably fit the plots of all previous Deathstalkers on a fucking postcard.
While action stalwart Daniel Bernhardt might not the raw charisma that you’d hope, he certainly looks right at home wrestling with a comically aimless wraith or locking weapons with a teleporting Mummy while flicking his hair out of his eyes. Meanwhile, possibly in an attempt to make good on his forgotten role as Pip the Troll from Eternals, Patton Oswalt once again provides the voice to a short, impish creature and is required to deliver a shit-ton of exposition that requires him to amusingly spout fantasy gobbledegook like he’s getting paid by the syllable. Rounding out the good guys is Christina Orjalo as a typically annoying thief character, but the lead trio has good chemistry despite the real stars of the show being the inhuman cast members.
With cameos from Kostanski’s old mates from Canadian cult filmmaking collective Astron-6, and an absolute gaggle of inhuman beasties to lay your eyes on, Deathstalker’s cult credentials aren’t up for debate, but while the humour could have used a bit of Psycho Goreman polish, you certainly get what you paid for. If you didn’t have childhood spent absorbing this kind of fantastic twaddle, then not only do I pity you, but the joys of Deathstalker may whizz right over your head – however, those weaned on needlessly elaborate swords and scoundrels squaring off against squealing cryptids will feel right at home.
🌟🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 