Prisoners Of The Lost Universe (1983)

Three years after creating the most Dungeons & Dragons film of all time (Hawk The Slayer) Terry Marcel and Harry Robertson reunited to try and recapture that 'lightning in a bottle' magic with Prisoners Of The Lost Universe.

The chances are your impression of their success can be gauged against how well you feel George Lucas recaptured the magic of the original Star Wars trilogy in the Ewok movies.

Even bringing back Peter O'Farrell and Ray Charleson in essentially the same roles as they had in Hawk, a roguish dwarf and a gifted elfin creature, doesn't really help.

TV presenter Carrie Madison (Kay Lenz, best known as Thursday from the classic western The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday) and handyman Dan (Richard Hatch aka Captain Apollo from the original Battlestar Galactica) find themselves shunted from our world to the primitive parallel world of Vonya. There the warlord, Kleel (a slumming-it John Saxon) is using his stash of Earth weaponry to maintain a brutal grip on the nomadic locals.

Kleel takes a shine to Carrie (because of her blonde hair and feisty nature) and it's up to Dan and the adventuring party he soon gathers (an elf, a dwarf, and a giant... sound familiar?) to rescue her.

As with Hawk, there's a strong whiff of Dungeons & Dragons in Prisoners Of The Lost Universe, with its abundance of random encounters.

But the cheesy monsters our heroes cross swords with are more reminiscent of the Italian low-budget sword-and-sandals fare such as the Hercules movies, Conquest etc that were being made around the same time.

Unfortunately for gamers - and neutral observers - all the humanoid monsters met are simply interchangeable, disposable goons in different costumes with no discernible differences in their abilities beyond their different outfits (be they midgets with glowing eyes, subterranean cloaked critters, or the Jason Voorhees-like waterbeast).

If Hawk The Slayer was Marcel and Robertson's Robert E Howard, then Prisoners Of The Lost Universe is their Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Despite the '80s opening on Earth and the presence of firearms, the sci-fi vibe that's suggested by the film's advertising (see poster/DVD cover above) is largely trampled by the fantasy elements, giving the film a micro-budget sword-and-planet John Carter of Mars flavour more than anything else.

Although Dan The Handyman is no John Carter!

On top of clunky dialogue and bargain basement effects, there's also a quite heavy-handed attempt to force humour into the mix by injecting some odd, comedy sound effects, which are totally cringe-worthy.

Trying too hard to lean into "camp charm", when such elements should be allowed to blossom naturally, it doesn't take long to realise why Prisoners Of The Lost Universe never gained the cult following that their earlier work did.

The Devil's Sword (1984)

Sometimes I stumble across a film that truly taxes my limited reviewing repertoire when it comes to expressing its unique brilliance: the Indonesian fantasy flick The Devil's Sword is just such a beast.

At its heart, it's the story of errant warrior Mandala (Barry Prima), tasked by his guru to retrieve the powerful Devil's Sword (a sparkling, snake-bladed Kris) and use it to overthrow the shapeshifting Crocodile Queen, who is seeking world domination as a side dish to satisfying her carnal cravings.

Her main activities appear to be ordering her servants to kidnap local unmarried men and hypnotising them into becoming her sex slaves, rather than concentrating on global conquest.

Now, don't get excited, what passes for sex in The Devil's Sword (a metaphor for the male member?) is very coy, clothed and frankly quite ridiculous, taking place on comfy sofas, in firepits and even underwater and never really progressing beyond kissing and cuddling.

I think (but it's never explained, unsurprisingly) The Crocodile Queen may be draining her sex slaves of their youth to prolong her own life, but equally I might have just made that up from a couple of random lines of dialogue.

Although there are also a number of evil warriors after the magical MacGuffin (who end up killing each other after initially working together), Mandala's main opponent is his old training classmate Banyunjaga (Advent Bangun), a  master of the menacing cackle.

Along the way, we are treated to: amputations; decapitations; mushrooms that fight back; flying rocks; enchanted umbrellas; long meaningful looks; skeletal boatmen; a genuine dungeoncrawl complete with traps, secret doors and a Cyclopean mud monster; an indecipherable treasure map; an outbreak of unexplained laser-hands; an arsenal of imaginative weaponry; an interpretative dance number; and blood, lots of blood (although all very unconvincing).

While being its own unique brand of entertaining, madcap sword and sorcery, there are certainly traces of Zu: Warriors Of The Magic Mountain, Monkey!, Deathstalker (sans the gratuitous nudity) and Hawk The Slayer to be found in The Devil's Sword.

This is a very special 101 minutes of game-inspiring, retro, martial mayhem that should be in the Appendix N of all budding gamesmasters.

Flying Rock: The Only Way To Travel

Hawk The Hunter: What Could Have Been

Terry Marcel, director of Hawk The Slayer, talks with Oliver McNeil, of The Fantasy Podcast and The School of Wizards and Witches, back in 2015, just as it looked as though we might get a sequel (Hawk The Hunter) - with the aid of Kickstarter.

Sadly, as we know, that never happened.

However, the interview also covers the samurai roots of Hawk The Slayer, the film's Easter Eggs, its world's creatures and magic, the casting of Lost's John Terry and Jack Palance, Terry's tantalising plans to take the Hawk brand to television, the Dark Knight TV series, how we almost had Tom Hardy as Hawk back in 2009, and handing over the reins to a younger director.

Ah, those were the days! What could have been...

Honestly, it breaks my heart to hear all these plans and imagine a world where Hawk got the Renaissance it deserves, and we could all be watching a TV show, reading an ongoing comic book series, and even playing video games based upon the most Dungeons & Dragons film of all time.

While we bathe in the warm glow of "what might have been", here also is a selection of interviews that Rebellion conducted with the lovely and optimistic Terry Marcel prior to the launch of the doomed Kickstarter:

THROWBACK THURSDAY: When Hawk Failed To Fly!

Back in October 2015, I was devastated when the Kickstarter campaign to secure the final funding for the proposed Hawk The Slayer sequel, Hawk The Hunter, fell well short of its goal.

Getting the bit between my teeth, I penned an amateur dissection of what I felt went wrong.

Remember this was written over 10 years ago. In the meantime 2000AD (published by Rebellion) has run a number of original Hawk The Slayer comic strips, but - as far as I am aware - Hawk The Hunter as a movie property is dead and buried.

You can read my commentary from back then below:

The Kickstarter to secure the final slice of funding to get the long-awaited Hawk The Slayer sequel off the ground ended this week, having raised a pitiful five per cent of its target.

The Hawk The Hunter campaign started with great gusto, screenings at FrightFest in London and at a convention in the States, a slew of magazine and news website coverage.

Then nothing...

It was as though the campaign organisers were just sitting back, expecting the cash to come flooding in. Or they simply didn't understand how Kickstarter works.

The campaign launched on August 30, and ran until October 1, hoping to raise a cool half-a-million dollars, the final 20 per cent of the finances needed to get the film made.

In that time there were only three updates to the campaign, the last being on September 1, where the writer/director of the original Hawk The Slayer, Terry Marcel, said: "Just wanted to let you know we've raised $4.5M on this project, we need the final $500K to make this happen."

Through the duration of the campaign we heard nothing from the director chosen for the new film, nor from Rebellion (the comic publishers and video game company providing the special effects), no sample footage, no tunes from Rick Wakeman, or anything that might spur people to invest... beyond simple nostalgia for the original cult classic.

In the end the Kickstarter raised just under $27,000.

You just need to look at the Kicktraq data for the campaign (which is more readable actually on the Kicktraq site) to see the enthusiasm was there at the start, but then dropped away dramatically.

Days before the end of the campaign, producer Andrew Grocock posted a message to the Official Hawk The Hunter Facebook page spelling out some of the reasons why the campaign had faltered so spectacularly.

First up, a couple of their pre-release promotional videos on YouTube were removed because of music clearance issues:

"The first two videos were then taken down from YouTube by the representative of the Harry Robertson Estate [citing] Soundtrack Copyright as we’d used a few seconds of original Hawk the Slayer music without permission.

We were also issued with a statement that under no circumstances were we allowed to use the HtS soundtrack music to promote the sequel Hawk the Hunter."

Luckily co-producer Jason Kingsley, head of Rebellion, stepped in and helped create an alternative launch video.

Then, despite some success with getting Terry in front of reporters to talk about the campaign, Andrew said:

"Many newspaper, magazine, RPG and games-based media outlets refused to help promote or mention our campaign as Kickstarters are not wholly recognised as being 'FOR REAL'. Games Workshop Weekly newsletter being one opportunity that was a ‘NO’ and disappointed me the most."

In the end, the Hawk The Hunter campaign received pledges from only 375 backers (which, of course, now won't be collected). If it was just members of the Official Facebook Group who were backing it that's still less than 60 per cent of the group's 639 membership.

If self-professed fans of the franchise weren't even willing to chip in $10, what chance did Terry and Andrew have of raising $500,000 from others  who weren't so invested in the world of Hawk The Slayer?

Let's consider for a moment Iron Sky (the 2012 fan-funded Nazis-on-the-Moon 'comedy'). That was a pretty awful film that makes Hawk The Slayer look Oscar-worthy in comparison, yet its sequel, The Coming Race, raised $614,599 from 8,807 backers on IndieGoGo at the start of the year.

The current Mythica film Kickstarter (the third fantasy flick, from indie film company Arrowstorm, in a five-part saga) has gotten over 1,000 pledges already, while the second part got 1,382 and the first 1,527.

Both the Iron Sky crew and Arrowstorm get crowdfunding, understand the need to keep their backers enthused so they continue to spread the message, regularly update their sites while their campaigns are running, drip feed new titbits about the production or new investment incentives etc

Earlier in the week, when it was clear the Hawk The Hunter fundraiser wouldn't reach its goal, Terry posted an upbeat message on the film's website:

"As you may be aware, the Kickstarter campaign was unsuccessful so we are re-evaluating the project. I hope to have news before the end of the year."

However, this needs to be taken in tandem with Andrew's earlier message, which said:

"You all know the resulting failure of the Kickstarter, the numbers of which cannot justify holding onto our studio, post [production], CGI and equity pledged investment..."

So, it looks as though, if Hawk The Hunter is ever to move ahead, it's not going to be simply a question of making the movie with the $4.5 million they had raised, as they may not even have all of that now.

It's very easy to sit back here, behind my keyboard, and armchair quarterback what went wrong, but given that, in some shape or form, Hawk The Hunter has been 'in the works' for more than 30 years, you have to question some of the decisions made as the film raced towards its final hurdle.

Besides the music clearance issue discussed above, I found a number of the high value rewards on offer for the campaign rather strange, for instance:

• $250 for a 15-second bespoke voice message (even though there was no indication who the actors would be in the film).

or

• $3,000 to be an extra for a day in a tavern scene (I don't know how much extras get paid these days, but to pay three grand to appear in the background of a scene seems a mite excessive. It didn't even state where the filming would be taking place, so you could have coughed up the money then found it was being filmed somewhere you couldn't get to)

And the thing was, about the bulk of these high-end incentives, as written, you didn't even get a digital download, let along a DVD, of the movie when it was completed... or any other of the lower price incentives!

One person chipped in for a Mind Sword prop replica, a couple went for framed art, and three were hoping for a pair of premiere tickets, but most of the high-priced items didn't attract any interest.

I guess, because there was the big launch at FrightFest, Terry and his team felt committed to run the campaign to completion, but given the lack of anything from its organisers after the first few days, sadly, I'm not surprised that few others were interested in pitching in.

I'm still holding out hope that Hawk will live again, but if this campaign couldn't even muster the full support of its own fans, maybe the wider world just isn't that bothered about seeing Hawk do battle with Voltan again.

Perhaps, the Hawk The Slayer video game will still come out from Rebellion, perhaps they'll still publish the comic that was mentioned in passing during the initial promotion, or perhaps we'll have to make do with our shiny new Blu-Rays of Hawk The Slayer...

Hawk (2011)

During The Dark Ages, a young pagan boy Rowan (Steffan Thomas), is raised in the wilds of Wales by his grandfather, Gawain (Philip Madoc), and taught the ways of wilderness survival, and respect for Nature and its protector, The Antlered God (Barry Cockers, with Sain Evans providing its otherworldly voice).

However, when Gawain dies, leaving the lad alone, Rowan imbibes of the forbidden hallucinogenic mushroom drink that his grandfather consumed, looking for guidance and explanations in the spirit realm.

Instead, enraged and confused, he commits a heinous crime against the Antlered God and is charged with making recompense, initially adopting an orphaned fledgling hawk (apparently, correctly termed an eyas).

A couple of decades later, adult Rowan (Robert Gwyn Davin) and his hawk realise a pair of innocent worshippers of The Nailed God (ie. Christians) - Ruth (Joanna Maw) and Jack (Mark Charles) - have wandered into his part of the wildlands and are in danger of setting off his hunting traps.

He races to save them...

Coming in at just under 40 minutes duration, Hawk is a gorgeous-looking short film, from the evocative costuming to the stunning Welsh landscapes that make full use of a widescreen.

Massive kudos to cinematographer Martin Hill and costume designer Anna Kovacevic for giving Hawk such high calibre visuals.

The film was written and directed by M.J. McMahon with co-writer Alex McArdell.

Initially the narrative comes across as almost glacial in its progress, taking its time to lay out a montage of the everyday existence of young Rowan and his wise grandfather, and possibly relying a bit too much on voice-over.

However, once the plot hits its tipping point, events unravel at a much faster rate.

So much so that you might be slightly confused by the goings-on, but taking a holistic view of the pagan world as presented, in concert with Gawain's teachings, you will realise the story is ultimately about karma, restoring the balance of nature.

For those bothered by such things (including me), I have to warn you that there's a surprising amount of (simulated) animal death and harm in this short fantasy drama.

Connoisseurs of vintage British television (and particularly the classic era of Doctor Who) should check Hawk out as it's the last on-screen appearance of the legendary Philip Madoc.

I came across the film via the official Hawk The Slayer fan page on Facebook, not that it has any connection to that epic movie beyond the word "Hawk" in its title.

Released by British production company Capture, Hawk is available to purchase via a variety of platforms, although I went old school and ordered the Blu-Ray edition from them.

Not The Slayer, Nor The Hunter, Just Hawk

Hawk from CAPTURE on Vimeo.

The land holds many secrets, and one boy will learn them all.

When Rowan is taken away from the civilised world, his lessons in the wild begin.

Yet when he shatters the balance of nature, Rowan discovers another world beneath our own.

In that shadowy land of old gods and wild hunts, the divide between man and beast becomes uncertain and the fairy tales of childhood spring to life.

With only the guidance of a hunting hawk, Rowan must make amends for his crime, and choose between what is real, and what is not.

Since it's release in 2011, Hawk has picked up over 14 international award nominations, with 6 wins including ones at the Accolade Competition, TOHorror Film Festival, ShockerFest and Idyllwild Cinemafest.

Writer/director M.J. McMahon's 40-minute short film Hawk was the last onscreen appearance of the late Philip Madoc of classic Doctor Who fame (as well as many other credits to his name, stretching back to the early 1960s).

Although it has no connection with my favourite Dungeons & Dragons movie, I first came across mention of this enigmatic entry in the annals of fantasy cinema on the Official Hawk The Slayer Facebook Group.

I suspect it will possibly be a triumph of atmosphere over story (which isn't necessarily a bad thing), but look out for a review in due course.

WALL OF HAWK!

For my birthday in 2019, Rachel agreed to pay for my two original Hawk The Slayer posters to be framed professionally.

The following January they went up (thanks to Rachel's dad) in the gamesroom, and I couldn't be happier.

The top one is a quad poster that would have been displayed outside a cinema, while beneath that is an official art print that was produced to coincide with the launch of the (sadly failed) 2015 Kickstarter to fund the sequel, Hawk The Hunter.

It's signed by Hawk's co-creator and director of the 1980's original movie, Terry Marcel.

Then beneath that I have a signed picture of Annette Crosbie as the Abbess, and a stock publicity picture of the legendary Jack Palance as Voltan.

SINBAD WEEK: The Lost World of Sinbad (1963)

Today's entry in this week of early Sinbad movies is a little known chanbara excursion  from that brief period in the Arabian sailor's storied career when he was, in fact, Japanese.

In this well-dubbed reworking of the Japanese movie, The Great Bandit, about the semi-mythical 16th Century Japanese merchant and pirate Sukezaemon Luzon. the legendary Toshirô Mifune (of Seven Samurai fame, as well as many other movies) takes the role of Sinbad.

The film begins with him inexplicably (in that it's never explained) escaping from being burned alive for the crime of piracy.

Back on his ship, however, in no time at all, Sinbad and his crew are caught in a massive storm and their vessel destroyed.

Sinbad and a couple of survivors are adrift, with a large chest of jewels, when they are set upon by the dread Black Pirate (Makoto Satô) who makes off with the treasure, leaving Sinbad for dead.

Our hero washes up on a beach, where he meets horny wizard Sennin (Ichirô Arishima) who carries his family curse of becoming paralysed whenever he sees the exposed flesh of a woman's cleavage!

Through a series of misadventures in the nearby town, Sinbad eventually falls in with a bandit queen and would-be rebel leader, the rather lovely Miwa (Kumi Mizuno, who crops up in several well-known kaiju films of the 1960s), and learns that the local ruler is taking peasants' daughters, in lieu of taxes, to bolster his harem.

Meanwhile, there's shenanigans at the nearby palace, where the sickly king (Takashi Shimura) remains out of sight.

The king's conniving Chancellor (Tadao Nakamaru) is trying to engineer a coup by getting himself hitched to Princess Yaya (Mie Hama, who appeared alongside Sean Connery in You Only Live Twice), with the help of his cackling pantomime demon-witch ally Granny (Hideyo Amamoto), whose skills include brewing poisons and turning people to stone with her gaze.

The princess, however, is betrothed to the Prince of Thailand (Jun Funato), who is due to arrive any day now for their wedding, which would scupper the Chancellor's ambitions.

Sinbad begins to suspect what is going on when he realises the jewels the kindly princess is wearing come from his own treasure haul (their original provenance is never truly discussed, but I like to think it's booty from a previous adventure of the "I'm not really a pirate" Sinbad).

Unsurprisingly, the lurid claims made in the movie poster (above) are gross exaggerations (the 'giant', for instance, is just a tall bloke, like Bernard Bresslaw in Hawk The Slayer or Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson in Game of Thrones) and there is no "lost world".

Nevertheless, The Lost World of Sinbad is a damn fine romp.

There's even some nice misdirection through the Chancellor's double-dealings that adds a surprising degree of complexity to the central plot.

Mitsukô Kusabue turns in a particularly good performance as Sobei, the Chancellor's overlooked consort, who definitely delivers some of the best snark .. before running afoul of Granny.

While the film boasts no monsters, there's plenty of magic on display, even if Sennin and Granny only have a handful of spells each in their repertoire.

Sennin's main trick is transforming himself into a fly, primarily to get around (including landing on a dancer's breast at one point... because family curse!), while Granny leans heavily on her petrifying gaze.

Towards the climax of the movie, a peculiar sequence sees Sinbad strapped to a giant kite to evade the enemy guards, when he and the rebels are storming the castle,.

He's not riding the kite like a magic carpet, as shown in the (again misleading) poster, but for some reason strapped on its back - facing the sky - so I have no clue as to how he was supposed to guide it.

Sinbad eventually gets into the castle entirely by chance!

Otherwise, the plot - for a dubbed effort that changed so much from the original and unfolds in a setting you'd never associate with Sinbad - is solid, has some good politicking in the court scenes, a cast of interesting and memorable characters, and, as you might expect with Toshirô Mifune involved, pretty decent fight scenes.

Early Thoughts on Personalising The Twilight Sword Setting

As a youngling I had this Pauline Baynes map of Narnia on my bedroom wall

With the impending release of the beta PDF of Twilight Sword, I have begun to noodle around ideas for "personalising" the lands of Radia - the game's default setting. 

World building from scratch is one of my weaknesses as a gamesmaster: all my worlds created whole cloth tend to end up as simply reskinned versions of real lands from Medieval(ish) Earth... and not in a clever, Robert E Howard Age of Hyboria way.

I also have a tendency to "Game of Thrones" things up before the first die is slung, by which I mean I overcomplicate and hyperdetail the setting way beyond anything the players will probably ever have any interaction with.

This is because I tend to fall in love with my settings and then mistakenly believe I'm the next JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis or George RR Martin! When all I'm really doing is creating a backdrop for some wonderfully silly elfgames.

Aware of this fault in my planning process, I'm approaching Radia - which we know is inspired by video games and anime - with broader strokes.

At the moment, clearly, I know almost nothing about the actual, 'official' setting, so am just scraping together notes and bullet points of ideas, locations, names (for places and people) etc that - hopefully - veer away from the usual Western/Tolkien norm of fantasy settings.

For the anime influences for Radia, I shall be looking to pick up cues from my beloved Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, Record of Lodoss War, and Delicious in Dungeon.

My knowledge of anime is limited (although greater than my knowledge of video games), but I remain firm in my belief that these three serials have the best resources in the pure fantasy (Dungeons & Dragons-inspired) genre.

Beyond anime, I'm looking at established settings such as Narnia, Wonderland, Oz, Neverland, Eternia, and Arduin, and films like Labyrinth, The NeverEnding Story, The Dark Crystal, and so on, rather than my usual inspirations, for example Hawk The Slayer and Lord of The Rings. 

Don't get me wrong Hawk The Slayer remains the definitive old school Dungeons & Dragons movie in my book and Peter Jackson's Lord of The Rings trilogy is simply the greatest movie of all time, which I ensure I watch at least once a year from start to finish.

But, in my experience, the thing I find about such intricate settings as Middle-Earth and Westeros is that they are 'fragile'. If you mess around with them too much they break and are no longer the setting you fell in love with in the first place.

Now, I know you can say: but it's your game, you can do what you like with the setting, who's going to know?

But, besides the fact that I would know, it's my belief that these settings are so intricately interwoven that if you mess with, or change, one bit it will have a cascade effect further down the line so that something else isn't going to make sense (just look at George RR Martin's anger with The House of The Dragon tv show because characters were cut out who actually have an important role to play in the story at a later date).

Hence, why I'm shifting my focus to loosey-goosey, weird and surreal settings that are governed by more fairy tale aesthetics. I believe these will gel more with my vision - and understanding - of how Radia (and Twilight Sword) is supposed to operate.

Of course, I could be completely wrong. But I hope not.

I'd really like to run a setting that was, at once, familiar to the Tuesday Knights but also fresh and original, and not just another Middle-Earth/Forgotten Realms/Medieval Europe retread. 

And has talking animals.

DEATHSTALKER WEEK: Deathstalker (2025)

Warrior and scavenger Deathstalker (Daniel Bernhardt) is pulled into the "machinations of the gods" when he steals a magical amulet from a dying prince on a battlefield.

Teaming up with goblin-dwarf wizard Doodad (Laurie Field, voiced by Patton Oswald) and thief Brisbayne (Christina Orjalo), this trio of rogues have to first undo the curse on Deathstalker that has bound the amulet to him.

Then they have to find an (impractical) four-bladed magical sword and thwart the apocalyptic plans of the evil sorcerer Nekromemnon (Nicholas Rice), his right-hand goon, the undead Jotak (Paul Lazenby) and their legions of monstrous Dreadite soldiers.

Written and directed by Psycho Goreman's Steven Kostanski (who was born three years after the original Deathstalker was released) Deathstalker (2025) is a loving tribute to vintage, low-budget, swords-and-sorcery flicks.

It is set in a land awash with Hawk The Slayer mist, and our heroes fight their way through a never-ending onslaught of Power Rangers (and Psycho Goreman) style rubber-suit monsters and Evil Dead-style stop-motion creations.

And, yes, the infamous porcine-faced humanoid makes a return appearance, although he's had a bit of a glow-up since the original movies. You may call him a pig-man, but to me he's a Gygaxian orc.

The ultimate weapon that Stalker is seeking - as I suspected the other day - is even an on-the-nose homage to Alert Pyun's The Sword and The Sorcerer.

In fact, the only thing that really differentiates this from the earlier Deathstalker movies is the total absence of sleaze. There's no nudity (gratuitous or otherwise), not even a hint of sexual tension between Stalker and Brisbayne. Instead, they are treated as <shudder> equals!

And, you know what, I didn't miss it. Deathstalker's linear plot is a blood-spattered, non-stop riot of over-the-top cartoonish violence, interspersed with some witty dialogue, subtle foreshadowing, and a cavalcade of rubbery monsters that could easily have just rolled out of an old school Dungeons & Dragons adventure.

You may recognise him as Kirill from John Wick or Agent Johnson from The Matrix Reloaded, but Daniel Bernhardt, who has a definite air of Jon Hamm in his mien, is superb as the titular antihero and the door is definitely left wide open at the end for sequels.

I, for one, would welcome further adventures with Bernhardt reprising the role.

The only nit I would pick with Kostanski's script - and this is as much personal taste as anything - is giving Deathstalker a backstory that necessitates him having a "pre-Deathstalker" name.

Honestly, this is completely unnecessary as the name could have been excised from the script and it would have read just as well if he was a "man with no name" type.

The film was part-funded by Kickstarter in 2024, but (for reasons) as there were no Blu-Rays (or even DVDs) on offer as incentives I just chipped in at the lowest level to get my name in the credits... because I'm easily pleased.

This did mean I had to import the Blu-Ray off my own back this week - thanks to eBay.

I know there are going to be those who moan about what's missing from the traditional Deathstalker formula (even though, surprisingly having now seen the film, it is front-and-centre in the comic book spin-off released by Vault Comics in the wake of the Kickstarter).

However, if anything, 2025's Deathstalker proves you can still make outrageous, trashy, dark fantasy sword-and-sorcery movies in this day and age that cater to audiences both old and new.

My "thank you" in the credits: best $10 I've ever invested in a Kickstarter 😉

Cult 1980's Fantasy Worth Watching (or Rewatching)

For some reason, fantasy movies feel especially good to revisit in winter, so in this video I decided to focus on the genre, specifically the 1980s.

You won’t find obvious picks like Krull, Excalibur, or Conan the Barbarian here, not because they don’t belong, but because you already know them well. Instead, this list makes room for slightly less popular titles.

Some proper classics here, including my boy, the pioneering Hawk The Slayer and his sleazy cousin Deathstalker, as well as Beastmaster and a wonderful Ray Harryhausen epic in the shape of Clash of The Titans (his Medusa is the definitive Medusa for me!).

Plenty of old school Dungeons & Dragons inspiration to be found in this lot as well.

"The Golden Age of Sci-Fi/Fantasy is 14"

In an old article on his blog about a youthful passion for the Dragonlance novels, Timothy S Brannan shared the wise saying: "The Golden Age of Sci-Fi/Fantasy is 14."

And this is so true.

The things we discover at that age stay with us.

For me, this would be around 1980... the year Hawk The Slayer came out.

I've written often of my love for this most Dungeons & Dragons of all fantasy movies (and probably will continue to do so).

At the dawn of the '80s, I was already engrossed in the stop-motion worlds of Ray Harryhausen fantasy movies (his last, Clash of The Titans, would come out in 1981), and this was also the era of the original Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back (which came out in 1980).

I was reading mainly sci-fi (Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy, Stainless Steel Rat etc), if I recall correctly (inspired by the galaxy far, far away), but my young gaming hobby had propelled me to the works of Fritz Leiber.

His Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser stories would come to influence my Dungeons & Dragons adventures as much as Harryhausen's Sinbad at that time.

I was always a player - rather than a Dungeon Master - in my early years, so was interested in character ideas, rather than grander plots and world-building (not that I didn't appreciate them at that time, but they just weren't as useful from a gaming perspective).

I had yet to stumble upon the stack of New Teen Titans in a second-hand book store in Tunbridge Wells and become a fully-fledged comic book collector, but I still dabbled in that medium.

2000AD was my publication of choice at that age.

And, of course, all these things still hold sway over me and continue to influence my gaming and broader hobby interests.

I don't think I realised, until just now, quite how important the art we discover at that particular age is in shaping the sort of person we grow into in our adult life and our hobbies, passions, and interests.

HALLOWEEN HORROR: Countess Dracula (1971)

In 17th Century Hungary, the elderly and recently widowed Countess Elisabeth Nádasdy (Ingrid Pitt) discovers she can temporarily restore her youth and libido by bathing in the blood of young virginal women.

Initially, her secret is only known to her castellan Captain Dobi (Nigel Green, a familiar face from such classics as Zulu and Jason & The Argonauts), who has loved the countess from afar for two decades and sees the death of her husband as making way for him, and her brainwashed nurse, Julie (Patience Collier).

At the reading of her husband's will, the Countess finds herself attracted to a new arrival, Lt. Imre Toth (Sandor Elès, who has an air of Jonathan Rhys Meyers about him), the son of her husband's wartime colleague and heir to the Count's stables and collection of valuable horses.

Unfortunately, the will divides the late Count's estate between the Countess and their daughter, Ilona (Lesley-Anne Down, of North and South, and Dallas), who has yet to arrive back from a stay of many years in Vienna.

Thus, the Countess instructs Dobi to kidnap Ilona on her return to the area, and she is bundled off as a prisoner of mute woodsman Janco (Peter May), who's not the sharpest tool in the box but still manages to thwart her multiple escape attempts.

In the absence of the real Ilona, the de-aged Countess assumes the role of her daughter and seduces cavalry officer Toth.

However, because her dark magic never lasts longer than about 48 hours, the Countess finds herself switching between the 'characters' she plays in the castle, while also charging Dobi with finding her fresh victims.

The wise old librarian Grand Master Fabio (Maurice Denham) quickly becomes suspicious and starts to investigate the goings-on in the castle, but this comes at a cost.  

However, his downfall opens the eyes of Toth, just as the castle is forced into "lockdown" by the Chief Bailiff, Captain Balogh (Peter Jeffrey), who concludes that the person responsible for the recent spate of murders could be among the Countess's staff.

Blackmailed into staying, Toth is forced to go through with the planned wedding to the fake Ilona, but the Countess needs another bath of blood to maintain her looks and energy for the honeymoon.

With no visitors coming to the castle, the jealous Dobi has to retrieve a virgin for exsanguination so his unrequited love can find some kind of happiness with a younger man.

Guess who he brings back?

A solid, if ultimately unremarkable, slice of Hammer Horror fare, with music from Harry Robertson of Hawk The Slayer fame, this is a creative compression of the legend of the real Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Báthory, a real 16th Century serial killer said to have bathed in the blood of her victims.

Of course, the Countess isn't a classic cinematic vampire - there are no fangs on display, and she doesn't drink the blood, but rather uses it as skin cream - so the title Countess Dracula (shoehorned into the dialogue right at the last moment) is a slight misnomer. 

Mainly enjoyable for the charms of Ingrid Pitt, the film certainly improves the closer it gets to its climax, but to modern eyes one can't help thinking that with some judicious trimming of the fat this could have made a really good hour-long shocker.

I went into Countess Dracula pretty certain I'd seen it before, but as the tale unfolded, the more convinced I became that it was actually 'new' to me and I'd simply conflated it with the many other 'boobs and blood' vampire films I've sought out over the years.

Gwenevere (2023)

Poster by Sarah McIntyre

Banished from Camelot, Queen Gwenevere (Laura Frances Martin) must travel across wild country to the abbey where she is to live out her remaining years. She is accompanied by her loyal lady-in-waiting, Laudine (Joanna Neary) and young knight Sir Ruan (Jonny Hibbs). But their journey is interrupted by the menacing Knight of the Wild Woods...

Gwenevere: a film by Philip Reeve & Sarah Reeve, starring Laura Frances Martin, Joanna Neary, Jonny Hibbs, Tessa Arrowsmith-Brown, Sasha Innes and Roseanna Lambert. Guest appearance by Alan Lee. Shields designed by Sarah McIntyre. Music by Brian Mitchell. Filmed on Dartmoor.

As a long-time fan of the work of author Philip Reeve, I was delighted to learn that he was planning to bring his passion for Arthurian legends to life in a low-budget, short movie to be shot on Dartmoor, where he lives.

The resulting film, Gwenevere, was officially released on YouTube at the end of 2023.

It is a half-hour film following the titular queen (Laura Frances Martin) after she has been exiled from Camelot for her dalliance with Lancelot (Arran Hawkins).

She has been commanded to walk across country to the abbey where she will see out her days in quiet contemplation, accompanied only by her faithful handmaid, Laudine (an outstanding performance from Joanna Neary) and reluctant young knight Sir Ruan (Jonny Hibbs).

However, passing through some woodland their way is blocked by the mythical Knight of the Wild Woods (Niall Parker).

In the ensuing melee, Sir Ruan is rendered unconscious and the ladies bear him away to a nearby village, where they learn the story of the Knight of The Wild Woods.

Gwenevere then takes it upon herself to bring an end to the monstrous knight's reign of terror.

The beautiful short film is full of ethereal visuals and lyrical, evocative dialogue - as readers of Reeve's books have come to expect - strengthening the mythological bedrock upon which Gwenevere is built.

Dream logic and otherworldly rules lay at the heart of the story, while the smoke-filled forest is a visual tie to another classic of British fantasy film, my old favourite Hawk The Slayer.