While Lucio Fulci is primarily known for his works within the realms of lurid, censor baiting horror films such as Zombie Flesh Eaters, The Beyond and New York Ripper, he frequently stepped outside this zone to deliver lurid, censor baiting films of other genres. He attempted Giallo with Lizard In A Woman’s Skin; gangster films with Contraband and even dipped his toe into the world of swords and sorcery during the 80s fantasy explosion with Conquest; which may actually be the strangest entry in an exceedingly weird pantheon.
Thrusting us into a world of shaggy werewolf people, gratuitous nudity and a plot that stubbonly refuses to explain itself, viewing it often feels like Fulci tried to duplicate the quasi-realistic, whimsy-free wonders of John Milius’ wonderfully gruff Conan The Barbarian, only with half the budget and twice the confusion; but while some may immediately write off the director’s alarmingly hazy epic as just another slice of low budget crud, those more familiar with Fulci’s strengths will find that Conquest simply fuckin’ rocks.
In a world constantly shrouded in plumes of unexplained smoke, young Ilias wishes to leave his homeland of idyllic paradise and enter the wilderness to seek adventure and become a man. Gifted a magic bow by his father to mark the occasion that he’s very likely heading off to his death, Ilias soon discovers that the rest of the world is a cruel land, where ferocious man-beasts frequently terrorise and mutilate small tribes of people to sate their frequent bloodlust. A lot of these shaggy wolf men operate under command of Ocron, a shapely, constantly nude, very high priestess who hides her face beneath a golden mask, feeds on the brains of the people her underlings mutilate and has visions while blasted off her ass on magical nose candy – but after her latest drug trip gives her a precognitive glimpse of her death at the hands of a man with a magic bow, she realises that she has to leap into action or face oblivion.
Meanwhile, Ilias has fallen in with Mace, a lone warrior whose dislike of other people has put him on a solitary path. However, despite his misanthropic leanings, he soon starts up something of a bromance with the plucky, young adventurer as they roam the wastelands, stealing food from hunters and frequent tribes of horny women. However, soon the reach of Ocron starts to get awfully close and they find themselves fending off countless attacks by various misshapen creatures in the priestess’ employ. However, after her furry acolytes are repeatedly routed, she steps her efforts up an notch by appealing to the malevolent spirit known as the Great Zora for aid.
But after a great many adventures that frequently ends with piles of bloodied bodies, Ilias soon starts to feel his youthful courage start to fray under the onslaught. Can he fulfil Ocron’s prophecy, or has the drug addled priestess gotten a vital component of her vision terribly wrong?
While those not vibing on Fulci’s particular style may find his movies cheap, confusing and eager to employ the lowest common denominator (often outlandish gore) at the drop of a hat, anyone who chooses to look a little deeper into the auteur’s body of work find that the offensive old eyegouger actually had a n impressively strong grasp of creating logic-free dreamscapes that whipped up memorable experiences. While I’ll freely admit that the director’s concept of quality control varied wildly from film to film, Conquest ends up being one of those ludicrous entries that somehow manages to be simultaneously fantastic while looking unfeasibly cheap. The secret proves to be the director’s knack of creating worlds that operate utterly within their own sense of realism that deliver a genuine feel of existing in a universe where realism isn’t actually a necessity.
I mentioned Conan The Barbarian earlier and if any fantasy film manages to come close to John Milius’ dedication to creating a completely genuine world that’s still overwhelmingly alien, it’s Conquest – although I’ll freely concede that the result is probably what you’d get if Frank Frazetta decided to suddenly draw his famous fantasy artwork in crayon.
The first thing that strikes you is that Fulci seems to be making the world in which Conquest is look as unearthly as possible by the curious act of making every other shot virtually impossible to see. If a scene isn’t almost completely wreathed in ambient smoke, rendered ethereal by a ridiculous amount of vaseline on the lens, or utterly blown out by Fulci pointing the camera directly at the sun, he’s employing all three simultaneously. But the crazy thing is, even though the film requires you squint an awful lot in order to make out what’s going on at any given moment, it actually manages to create a feeling that you’re genuinely trying to force your way through a dreamy membrane in order to try and understand what is occuring before your eyes.
The script withholds everything but the most basic details to continue in this highly hallucinogenic vein and you’re left floundering as Fulci obviously has no interest in explaining away such trivial matters as why the werewolf people look more like bears, why Ocron shares her drug stash with her hirsute allies and why the filmmaker happily leans into the outlandish gore sequences that made his name. Skulls are graphically cracked open, heads are paraded around like trophies and in one excruciating sequence, a native girl is pulled in half like a wish bone by her legs – but again, the curious use of extreme violence furthers that feel of an out of control dream even more.
Characterisation proves to be about as non-existent as Fulci framing a crystal-clear shot filmed without the benefit of smoke machines and a shit-ton of petroleum jelly smeared all over the lens – however, once again it all works in Fulci’s favour as he increases the weirdness with every passing minute. Swamp zombies show up to riff on Fulci’s undead past; cobwebby frog-monkeys fall before the onslaught of Ilias’ funky light bow and there’s a completely inexplicable moment where Mace is very slowly saved from drowning by a couple of dolphins who can untie knots that isn’t given a single second of explanation – but surely most audacious moment of all involves an ending that not only acts as a giant rug pull, but also ignominiously slaughters one of its main characters ten minutes before the end in order to nail us with an outlandish twist that suggests that Ocron needs to be a bit more careful when decoding her drug-fueled visions. Fucking awesome.
Counteracting it’s obvious lack of budget by going all in on creating a tangible, otherworldly experience that feels like a bad trip on bath salts, Fulci’s trippy crack at the fantasy genre proves to be something of a demented gem in the world of threadbare fantasy movies. Unpredictable, incomprehensible and pretty much indiscernible thanks to the amount of shit Fulci chooses to blind us with, Conquest still ends up becoming an unlikely winner purely by banking on being as weird as inhumanly possible.
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