Saturday, December 10, 2011

Deathstalker (1983)




The 80s had hundreds of movies that ripped off other movies without shame or guilt. DEATHSTALKER is one of those movies. Directed by James Sbardellati under and assumed name this is 80 minutes of the stinkiest cheese you've ever come across. Big hair, crazy characters, sword fights, boobs everywhere, some wild gore and magic to top it all off.

Deathstalker is a mighty warrior sent on a mission by an old witch to find and unite the Three Powers Of Creation - A chalice, an amulet and a sword. 2 of these items are held by the evil king/magician Munkar. Munkar invites the best fighters around to a tournament to decide a successor to his throne - the winner rules! The problem is that Munkar has no intentions on giving up his power and is instead using the tournament to kill off any threat to his throne.

If you have half a brain it isn't hard to figure out where the story is heading. It is the incredible cheesy low budget nature (Producer Roger Corman would have it no other way in the 80s) that are the fun of it all. The naked girls are captured and often served up as nothing more than eye candy for us with all the goods on display. In fact they aren't just eye candy for us, the majority of them in the movie are simply objects for the warriors to toy with. The girls do get their revenge at one point in a rather entertaining scene. The sword fights aren't exactly the most memorable but they are adequate, and usually leave a bloody mess in their wake. Heads fly, guts get spilled and wild shape shifting make it all fun.

DEATHSTALKER is far from high art and isn't even original but serves as a fun time waster to turn your brain off to and just enjoy the glory of the B-movie. Swords, magic, boobs... how bad can it be?

6/10

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