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.

Hundra (1983)

A strange Spanish-American barbarian movie from the '80s, Hundra is surprisingly more interesting and entertaining than it should be.

A bizarre mix of feminist commentary, Carry On humour and Emmanuelle sauciness with strong overtones of a Gorean obsession with submissive women, the film actually has some pretty decent - and long - action sequences.

Hundra (Laurene Landon) survives a brutal raid on her all-female village and, after single-handedly killing the dozen or so raiders (in an incredible, prolonged fight), is charged by the village elder (a waffling, decrepit old crone who also provides the amusing and overly serious narration) to seek out a man she can use to repopulate the tribe.

Man-hating Hundra makes some poor choices along the way - including a foul, belching, farting slaver that she ends up fighting rather than mating with in an utterly bizarre, and almost silent, scene (the slaver never says a single word during his whole time on screen).

Laurene Landon

Of course that bizarreness falls short compared to an earlier scene of Hundra being unseated from her horse by a dwarf on a donkey - who is possibly only in the movie for politically incorrect humour reasons!

Eventually Hundra arrives at a nameless city (the entire world is one of those generic, sub-Conan, dusty environments where places and tribes have no names - because that would have been too much effort for the writers) where she falls in love with the local healer, Pateray (Ramiro Oliveros) - using the best opening/chat-up line ever: "You will mate with me and make a baby" - then gets mixed up with shenanigans at the local Temple Of The Bull (a knocking shop and baby factory for local warlords).

By no means a great movie, Hundra orbits around mediocre but is saved from total oblivion by its well-choreographed (and often slo-mo) fight scenes, the coquettish charms of Ms. Landon and its humour (some deliberate, some accidental).

The movie also features a strong score by Ennio Morricone that swings from epic grandeur to Benny Hill zaniness in its scope.

MUSICAL MONDAY: Drank Too Much (Flo & Joan)

Rachel's favourite Flo & Joan tune.

President Curtis: Where Are You?

Your Highness (2011)

In the little publicity over here at the time of its cinematic release much play was made of Your Highness - and even later in the marketing of the DVD - being a "stoner comedy", with much of the humour seemingly derived from pot-related jokes and situations.

But that is so not the case. Your Highness is a brilliant, well-observed, swords-and-sorcery film that happens to also be hilariously, tears-down-the-cheek, laugh-out-loud funny, obscenely lewd and crude (although with very little actual nudity), quite gross at times with moments of graphic violence and only about two or three scenes involving weed.

James Franco is Fabious, heroic favoured son of King Tallious (Charles Dance) who returns home from his latest quest, having rescued a beautiful maiden - the naïve Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel) from the tower of the evil sorcerer Leezar (Justin Theroux).

Unfortunately, on the day of Fabious and Belladonna's wedding, Leezar crashes the festivities and kidnaps the bride-to-be - thus prompting Fabious to embark on another quest.

However, the King insists that Fabious is joined by his foul-mouthed, feckless and irreverent brother Thadeous (Danny McBride) to "make a man of him".

After an unfortunate, early betrayal, the brothers  - and Thadeous's page Courtney (Rasmus Hardiker) - team up with lethal, no-nonsense warrior Isabel (Natalie Portman) who saves them from an acid-spitting hydra - and manages to look utterly gorgeous throughout the movie.

The dialogue is a hearty cocktail of cod-dramatic, almost Shakespearean, seriousness and jaunty slang - with the only true anachronism in the story being the appearance of a plate of fishfingers!

The marketing for Your Highness was so intent on pushing the "edgy" drugs angle - which is such a small part of the humour anyway - that it failed to even hint that this was a film with magic and monsters in!

In fact, this is everything I had hoped for from Kröd Mändoon And The Flaming Sword Of Fire (remember that?) and failed to get.

Old School gamers, in particular, will get a kick out of this because Your Highness is basically a true representation of "in-character" dialogue between participants in a Dungeons & Dragons adventure - swearing, banter, crude jokes, sexual innuendo and a lot of laughing - while slashing their way through a "rescue the princess" scenario.

There's a chance this could become the gamer's 21st Century go-to movie for "at table quoting" - alongside earlier classics such as Monty Python And The Holy Grail and Army Of Darkness.

It also made me think: there aren't enough "rescue the princess" scenarios in gaming these days. It's all about finding a special treasure (which Thadeous does) and averting prophecies (which they do), but Your Highness is a great example of how you can blend the classic dungeon-crawl, hack'n'slash mentality with a genuine romantic story as well - and not let the latter get so soppy as to overwhelm the former.

This sort of adventure is heightened by giving the player-characters a personal stake in their quest - which is why it's always good, eventually, to find out a bit about a character's backstory or try to inveigle them into some kind of in-campaign romance or relationship.

It Constantly Amazes Me How Brilliant This Looks!

Jabberwocky (1977)

A Dark Age kingdom is being terrorised by a mysterious monster, driving much of its populace to seek shelter behind the walls of the main city.

Eventually doddery, old King Bruno the Questionable (comedy legend Max Wall) decides to organise a brutal jousting tournament to find "a champion" to slay the beast.

This is despite appeals by his equally aged Chancellor, Passelewe (the always excellent John Le Mesurier of Dad's Army and the Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy radio plays) who would rather the search was conducted in such a way as to not keep killing off the land's knights.

Meanwhile, upon the death of his father, clueless and clumsy Dennis Cooper (future national treasure Michael Palin) decides to leave the village where he grew up and move to the city, to start afresh.

This leads to a series of chaotic, often slapstick, set-pieces as he bumbles his way through every encounter from trying to get into the city to being mistaken for a prince-in-disguise by Bruno's daughter, the princess (Deborah Fallender).

Her hand-in-marriage and half the kingdom are being offered by the king to whoever kills the troublesome monster.

After his only friend, Ethel the lusty squire (Steptoe and Son's Harry H. Corbett), is accidentally killed, Dennis ends up as the squire to the eventual champion of the joust, Red Herring (Dave Prowse aka Darth Vader), and the two brave men set out into the mist-dappled lands, looking for the fearful monster.

However, the church and the rich merchant-nobles of the city aren't so keen to see the creature murdered because it is surprisingly good for business, as people are buying and praying more.

Therefore, they engineer an ambush by the Black Knight (also Dave Prowse), and his small gang of thugs, to take out Red Herring - and Dennis - before they actually reach the monster's lair.

I can't believe I was halfway through my sixtieth cycle around the sun before I made time to see Jabberwocky, a wonderfully, very British, dark comedy with smatterings of gory Grand Guignol.

While strictly not a Monty Python movie, it is written and directed by Terry Gilliam, stars Michael Palin and features several Python regular collaborators, as well as a host of British comedy faces of the era.

There's also the visual, grimy Medieval verisimilitude of 1975's Monty Python and The Holy Grail (which Gilliam co-directed) and a similar picaresque throughline to 1979's Life of Brian.

The monster - which may be the Jabberwocky of the title, but is never directly called that - remains unseen until the climax, with Gilliam instead employing canny, low-budget camera techniques as would be used in Sam Raimi's 1981 Evil Dead (and then the rest of that gore-drenched franchise).

Once we finally see it, the Jabberwocky (a man in a costume) is more Classic Doctor Who era alien than glorious Sir John Tenniel illustration, but that just heightens the surreal craziness of the film.

The film's title, and monster's possible name, comes, of course, from the famous nonsense poem in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.

Snatches of the poem are heard, Greek Chorus-like, throughout the film, recited by an unseen - and unidentified - Punch and Judy puppeteer, heightening the mythological - or fairy tale - nature of the adventure.

Ultimately, the 105-minute Jabberwocky may not be as laugh-out-loud funny as much of Gilliam's other work, but it still manages to be subversive and smart behind its veneer of blood, guts, and toilet humour.

Erik The Viking (1989)

It is the Age of Ragnarok, the skies are dark, and men are constantly at war with each other. Erik The Viking (Tim Robbins) is sick and tired of the endless cycle of marauding and looting to pay for the next expedition to go marauding and looting. He wants things to change.

Feeling guilty for the death of an innocent woman, Helga (Samantha Bond), he seeks the advice of mountain cave-dwelling soothsayer Freya (Eartha Kitt). 

Following her proclamations, he assembles a band of men to head to the mythical land of Hy-Brasil, to find a magical horn that will grant access to Asgard and the ability to awaken the gods, who will then drive off the giant wolf Fenrir that has swallowed the sun.

However, not only is the villainous Halfdan The Black (John Cleese) on his trail, but one of his party, Keitel Blacksmith (Gary Cady), has been persuaded to try and sabotage the mission by his weaselly assistant, the ominously-named Loki (Anthony Sher), because "Ragnarok is good for business". 

Unfortunately Erik The Viking, written and directed by Monty Python's Terry Jones (director of two of the greatest cinematic comedies of all-time, Monty Python and The Holy Grail and Life of Brian) is neither as funny nor as action-packed as one might have hoped.

Not to be confused with Erik The Conqueror or The Vikings, this archetypal British comedy-adventure embraces its Norse mythology wonderfully, yet through a cynical contemporary eye, giving the whole production a strongly surreal tone.

After an awkward pre-credits prologue that hasn't aged well, the story comes alive as we meet the violent Vikings of Ravens' Fjord and Erik sets about putting together his "adventuring party".

It's been decades since I'd last seen Erik The Viking, and the only thing I could truly remember from it was Erik's longship sailing over the edge of the world. And it turns out that, in reality, that scene is nowhere near as epic as the visuals in my head!

As you would hope from the genius of the late Terry Jones, there are strong moments in the 99-minute movie (such as his own performance as the King of Hy-Brasil that's classic Terry Jones, and the Christian missionary, Harald, played by Freddie Jones, who is oblivious to all the fantastical things Erik and his crew encounter).

There's also some delightful world-building, where Jones' academic side gets to shine, but all of this is  sadly few and far between.

Clearly there is ambition at play here, but the reality of Erik The Viking falls far short of its lofty goals, with a chaotic script devolving into a series of mildly amusing set-pieces.

Packed to the gunnels with a host of top-tier comedy thespians, there's an inescapable feeling that a film such as this should be more memorable than it actually is.

I guess I was expecting a bit more Python, maybe even a Viking-themed riff on Holy Grail?

The Blu-Ray of Erik The Viking, from Patriot, comes with - among its many extras - a 79-minute cut of the film, put together by Jones and his editor son, Bill, that supposedly distils the movie down to the creator's original vision for the story. So I guess I should check that out at some point. 

Rick and Morty are Back - And They're Bringing A Friend!

The new - ninth - season of my favourite television show, Rick and Morty, kicked off today with a delightfully, over-the-top, bombastic episode.

And in July, we're getting a new show from their 'verse: President Curtis.

The Big Bang Spin-Off We Didn't Know We Needed

Stuart Fails to Save The Universe looks wild, and totally not what fans of the largely-grounded Big Bang Theory were expecting. Even Rachel's looking forward to this one.

ONLY TEN DAYS UNTIL SCI-FI SHENANIGANS!

Geekgasm moment: Rick and Morty meet Dungeons & Dragons onscreen!

Clear Your Schedule! New Rick and Morty Is Almost Here!

Another Tasty Horror Treat From Apple

Matthew Rhys stars as Mayor Tom Loftis in Apple's Widow's Bay

Widow’s Bay is a quaint island town 40 miles off the coast of New England. But something lurks beneath the surface. Mayor Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys) is desperate to revive his struggling community. There’s no Wi-Fi, spotty cellular reception and he must contend with superstitious locals who believe their island is cursed.

He wants these people to respect him. They don’t. They think he is soft and cowardly. And he is. But Loftis is determined to build a better future for his teenage son and turn the island into a tourist destination.

Miraculously, he succeeds: tourists are finally coming. Unfortunately, the locals were right. After decades of calm, the old stories that seemed too ludicrous to be true, start happening again. Widow’s Bay blends genuine horror with character-driven comedy.

From these teases, it would appear that Widow's Bay is a delicious blend of dark humour, Stephen King, HP Lovecraft, and Twin Peaks. Possibly. Or it could be something completely different... but I look forward to finding out.

Hailing from Apple Studios, Widow’s Bay is created, showrun, executive produced and written by Katie Dippold.

Director Hiro Murai executive produces alongside Carver Karaszewski, Claudia Shin and Rhys. Murai directs five episodes this season, in addition to directors Ti West, Sam Donovan and Andrew DeYoung.

Apparently the story of Widow's Bay began as a spec script Dippold wrote for - of all things - that greatest of sitcoms Parks and Recreation. Which makes me want to watch this even more!!!

The first two episodes of the show drop in three weeks, on April 29, then the remaining eight episodes of the series will appear on subsequent Wednesdays through to June 17 (with a second double-dip on May 27).

Plan 9 From Outer Space (1957)

Aliens seek to stop Earth residents from creating a "doomsday weapons," and so they implement their "Plan 9."

The plan involves resurrecting the dead on Earth to cause just enough chaos to force the humans to listen to the aliens.

And if the Earthlings aren't listening? Well, the aliens can always invade.

Commonly thought to be the "worst movie ever made," Plan 9 from Outer Space has gained a large cult following, as has director Ed Wood.

Huge thanks to Film Masters for sharing this free, HD copy of Plan 9 from Outer Space.

New and Upcoming Western Movies and TV Shows

There's a lot of optimism (wishful thinking?) in Just Westerns':

"...preview of 40 new upcoming Western films and TV shows heading are way in 2026 and beyond, including Young Guns 3, Lonesome Dove remake, Blood Meridian, A Fistful Of Dollars remake, Horizon: Chapter 2, The Dark Tower TV Show, Butch & Sundance, Flint, The Magnificent Seven TV Show, Wind River 2 and many more, as well as new Westerns starring Tim Blake Nelson, Kevin Costner, Scott Eastwood, Kiefer Sutherland, Wes Studi, Samuel L. Jackson and Chris Pine."

For my personal tastes there are a few too many "neo-Westerns" here (although I love Yellowstone... and there's an abundance of Yellowstone-adjacent projects on this list) and, maybe, not enough classic, period Westerns.

Red Dwarf Returns In A Novel Format

Cult British sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf is getting a prequel this summer - in the form of a new novel (the first in three decades) from series co-creator Rob Grant and the creator of the '90s sitcom 2Point4 Children, Andrew Marshall.

The 400-page hardback of Red Dwarf: Titan is due to be published on July 16 and will focus on Lister and Rimmer's infamous shore leave on Titan before they ended up on the deep space mining ship Red Dwarf.

Speaking to the Radio Times, Rob Grant explained that the novel is set:

"... one universe to the side, so we can have familiar characters but we can do different things with them, because the difficulty was writing something that was going to be original and fresh and using the same characters without breaking the canon."

He added that in this story Lister and Rimmer would:

"... get a message from the far future warning them that all realities are going to collapse unless they do something about it."

I realise I'm probably in the minority (I was always more enamoured of the idea of Red Dwarf than the actual TV show itself) but my favourite part of the whole Red Dwarf franchise was the first two spin-off novels: Red Dwarf - Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers (from 1989) and Better Than Life (from 1990).

Not only are these genuinely hilarious books - with just the right amount of humanity and pathos - but they also present a parallel vision of the show's story that isn't restricted by budget.

So, it sounds like there's a chance that the upcoming prequel possibly takes place in the same universe as those original novels, which is good enough for me.

CHAPBOOK REVIEW: Meet The Shrivelwoods (Kek-W)

 

Meet The Shrivelwoods is a 40-page Gothic horror-comedy written by fan-favourite 2000AD scribe, musician and artist Kek-W, available through his Bandcamp merchandise page.

The publication contains two text stories about the creepy Shrivelwood family, wealthy and decadent maple syrup magnates who bear a superficial similarity to The Addams Family but with the darkness dial turned up to thirteen.

Chapbooks are somewhere between a novel and a fanzine, an easily digestible booklet with an affordably low page count; a format with a rich and fascinating history.

The Old Dank Manse, the first story in Meet The Shrivelwoods, tells of a contemporary, failed romance writer seeking solace in the bosom of her rich Vermont extended family, at their "crumbling Gothic mansion", but finding something much stranger than she expects.

The second, Christmas With The Shrivelwoods, takes the form of a late 19th Century letter from Minnie Shrivelwood to her uncle, Heinie, who is currently restrained in the Hartford Retreat For The Insane. It's a bonkers - matter-of-fact - recounting of the family's preparations for the Christmas holidays.

Both tales blend surreality and slapstick with leftfield black humour, shock revelations and general absurdity, as should be expected by those who have read Kek-W's Dark Judges: Fall of Deadworld work in the universe of Judge Dredd.

I was also reminded of the Wojciech Has's very weird The Hourglass Sanitorium for the short stories' occasionally unsettling, nightmarish narrative logic and potentially disturbing imagery.

Rambling - by design - the chapbook's two stories are delightful, amusing, and quick reads that most definitely leave you wanting to hear more about the different generations of this peculiar, and freakish, inbred family of maple syrup-obsessives. 

SUPERB OWL LX MOVIE TRAILERS

SUPERGIRL

THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU

DISCLOSURE DAY

SCREAM 7

MINIONS & MONSTERS

HEALTH UPDATE: Looking Good For 2026

It's so clever 'cos it works on two levels 😉

While Biscuit Club has been on a break for the holidays, my various back-related problems have continued to improve - thanks to continued exercise.

On New Year's Eve, I was both signed off by the NHS physio I had been seeing and (finally) got the call from the hospital to fix a date for my steroid injections. 

These will be in a few weeks at The Pain Clinic, providing none of my other medical issues prevent this from going ahead. This was discussed during the call and hopefully will just be a few routine checks on the day.

Biscuit Club resumes soon, but we're in the home stretch now and only have a couple of months to go before we are all released into the wild.

The subject of "walking football" again came up as the "next step" along my road to recovery, this time while chatting with the physio, although Rachel let slip the possibility of getting me a personal trainer! 

The main takeaway from all this - barring unforeseen backsliding - is that 2026 is looking like a more positive year, health-wise, for me. 

Pertinent to the strip above, one of the early things I want to tackle, once my back is feeling better, is sorting out my overwhelming overflow of comic book back issues.

Jumbled piles of comics line the edges of the office and have filled every gap under the bed. I need to decide which to keep (this requires numerical filing by title on the shelves in the office) and which to either try and sell or consign to charity.

• The comic panels at the top of this piece are from Bite Sized Archie. You can find the rest of the series here on the Archie Comics website. Two paperback collections are currently available (hopefully there will be more) that include behind-the-scenes extras.

MUSICAL MONDAY: All I Want for Christmas - A D&D Christmas Carol (Ginny Di)