New Sword-and-Sorcery Comic From Conan's Jim Zub

In a dark medieval-fantasy world, a skilled group of warriors and priests from a strict religious order have been tasked with escorting a dangerous prisoner back to the “Fayral”, an untamed primal realm of perilous elemental energy.

Their sacred charge is a mercurial and mysterious princess of the fay folk and, the closer the group gets to the land that powers her magic, the more difficult it will be to complete their quest. Worse still, at each step of this perilous journey secrets will be revealed about themselves and the history of their world that may save or damn them all.

March next year sees the publication of Omen-Bound #1, a new creator-owned comic from fan-favourite Conan The Barbarian scribe 'Grim' Jim Zub. It will be released via Image Comics.

The dark fantasy series was co-created with artist Alberto Alburquerque, while Misty Coats provides the colouring and and Marshall Dillon the lettering.

In his newsletter this week, Jim Zub describes the project as follows:

"Omen-Bound is dark fantasy, mysterious and emotional with an old school Dungeons & Dragons-style ensemble party and evocative narration familiar to readers enjoying my run on Conan the Barbarian.

"To say this is a passion project for our team is an understatement. I can’t wait for you to see how far Alberto is pushing himself on every single page and, when that’s coupled with Misty’s colors and Marshall’s lettering, it really is magic."

Guess this is going on my pull-list then?

Sample Omen-Bound art by Alberto Alburquerque

Sonja's Back To Make Your Solstice Wishes Come True

Main cover art by Francesco Mattina

Ace swords-and-sorcery scribe Torunn Grønbekk returns to the pages of Red Sonja for the Red Sonja Solstice Special, due out from Dynamite on December 15.

Join the She-Devil of Hyrkania in a solstice celebration that turns quite bloody, truth be told! Sonja, having come into some gold, is celebrating at a tavern. It is midwinter, and people everywhere are celebrating the holiday season - but the tranquility is shattered by a trip to a cursed village, with demons, slaughter and carnage in its wake!

Art for this one-shot comes courtesy of Edson Novaes, who illustrated the recent Red Sonja Noir: The Plunder & The Princess.

Variant cover art by Josephine Tomarchio

Woochi The Demon Slayer (2009)

Korean action-adventure Woochi The Demon Slayer is so jam-packed with geekgasm-worthy awesomeness it almost defies description.

Although it plays around with time and space, for the most part the first act is a fast-paced magic-laden 16th Century wuxia epic of Woochi (Dong-won Kang), a cocky Taoist trainee wizard showing off and fighting shapechanging demon-goblins while trying to get his hands on a magical bronze dagger.

As all this is going on two Taoist masters - one of whom is Woochi's teacher - have been hunting for the Archgod's Pipe, a powerful artifact that the demons also desire.

Unfortunately, one of the masters, Hwadam (Yun-seok Kim), becomes corrupt - although the three bumbling Taoist godlings, tasked with recapturing the demons they allowed to escape in the first place, are oblivious to all this.

Hwadam frames Woochi for the murder of his master and the gods-stuck-in-human-form exile Woochi and his faithful companion Chorangyi (Hae-jin Yu) into a pair of paintings... where they remain for 500 years.

The action then cuts to modern day, in a major Korean city, when the immortal minor gods realise they have to free Woochi to help them capture a pair of goblin-demons and retrieve the Archgod's Pipe.

Without missing a beat the film metamorphoses into a superhero flick of the highest calibre, with the same incredible standard of CGI effects already established in the dazzling 'old world' segment seamlessly transposing to the modern day.

Unfortunately, Choi Dong-Hoon's direction (he also wrote the script) takes its foot off the accelerator for a bit in the latter half of the movie and while it certainly doesn't drag, there's a definite slow-down in proceedings almost up until the extended final conflict.

The range and creativity of the stunts and effects are mind-boggling, with people stepping in and out of paintings, exploding into clouds of smoke, running up the sides of buildings etc Although much of this has been seen in other wuxia movies, it has never been on quite this scale or with this rapidity and grace.

Woochi's particular take on magic alone should be fascinating to Western viewers - the Taoist wizards would certainly run rings around Merlin and Gandalf! Our first introduction to the roguish Woochi is a stunning display of magic and comedy unlike anything I've seen before - how often do we see Harry Potter passing himself off as a god to wind-up some muggles?

All the time, there is a lightness of touch and great humour to the proceedings, but this certainly isn't light-weight with some several, clever, visual plot devices that rival the stylings of Inception and Doctor Who.

If Woochi could have maintained the breakneck pacing of its first act throughout, it would have easily been in the running for recognition as one of the greatest action films of all time; even so it remains an incredible 115 minutes of cinema that puts many Hollywood blockbusters to shame.

The Hobbit - The Battle Of The Five Armies (2014)

And so Peter Jackson's epically-padded adaptation of a 300-page children's book into three two-and-a-half hour films comes to end with a concluding chapter that is essentially (as the title suggests) one giant battle.

And, yet, oddly, I found The Battle Of The Five Armies the easiest of the trilogy to sit through, quite possibly because it was just vignette-after-vignette of a massive fantasy battle.

It still suffered from dreadful sub-plot bloat:

• Thorin's "dragon sickness" - which started off as fascinating character development - got worse and worse until he had a fever-vision and then it suddenly got better;
• Any scene with Alfrid, the right-hand man of the Master Of Laketown, was just a waste of celluloid;
• Billy Connolly's Dain was a potentially interesting - if stereotypical Scottish - dwarf to throw into the mix, but then he disappeared from the action; 
• Whatever happened to the giant wormy-things that burst out of the ground and were never seen again? 
• What was the point of showing Beorn being parachuted into the battle if we never saw him again?
• etc  etc

The opening pre-credit sequence - the death of Smaug - should have been the finale of The Desolation Of Smaug and I really could have done without Peter Jackson's obsession with Legolas and his physics-defying stunts.

Moments like this tend to bring home the fact that you're just watching what amounts to someone else playing a very expensive video game - and sometimes the graphics aren't even that good.

Thankfully the misty, blur-o-vision that was so prevalent in the trailers doesn't seep in that often in the actual movie.

As much as I enjoyed the variety of fantasy races and monsters clashing, jumping around, killing each other and so on, for me, the most interesting part came with Bilbo's return to The Shire to find all his property being auctioned off - I could have watched more of that!

The hobbits are the most unique creatures in Tolkien's work and therefore the most interesting as they don't seem to fit comfortably with the rest of rough-and-ready Middle-Earth. That's why, if you're going to pad out a story entitled The Hobbit, I feel there ought to be more about hobbits!

Much like the Star Wars Prequels, I'm sure I'll come round to liking these three movies eventually, but they're never going to come close to Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings, which is a shame.

You have to wonder if The Hobbit might have been better treated as a single movie or maybe two, without all the spurious padding.

The book has stood the test of time without anyone feeling the need to write additional chapters and inflate it to the size of Lord Of The Rings, so perhaps there's a lesson there.

The Hobbit - The Desolation Of Smaug (2013)

One of the main things to take away from The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug is that it is infinitely better than its predecessor (An Unexpected Journey).

While, at two-and-a-half hours, it still feels padded, it also doesn't feel as though you are just enduring it in the hope that the next part of the trilogy is better.

Gone is the juvenilia of An Unexpected Journey (no naff musical numbers or English-speaking trolls) to be replaced with a more consistent tone of all-out action. This feels like it's part of the Lord Of The Rings universe.

Of course, it does suffer the curse of the "middle film" - as most trilogies do - in that it starts in media res and ends the same, not with a resolution but a powerful cliffhanger that should guarantee your return for the final movie.

For a large part of The Desolation Of Smaug, the story is split between the dwarves' continuing mission to reach and reclaim Erebor and Gandalf's investigations into the machinations of the mysterious Necromancer of Dol Guldur.

But both segments move the main plot forward and are equally engaging, visually and mentally.

Two major action locations stick in my mind: the most alien-like encounter with the spiders of Mirkwood (which leads to the dwarves capture by the wood elves) and the climactic confrontation with Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, who also lends his vocal chords to the Necromancer).

I had feared that the dwarves escape from the wood elves would turn into a proof of concept promotional video for a barrel ride attraction at the future Hobbit World theme park, but the sequence is nicely broken up with other distractions.

The padding comes in with the added elements, like the bizarrely unnecessary 'love triangle' involving Legolas (Orlando Bloom), Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) and Kili (Aidan Turner), one of Thorin's band of hardy adventurers.

Even Laketown, which is wonderfully atmospheric in appearance, comes across slightly Discworld-y in the presentation of its internal politics and generally paranoia, as encapsulated in the central performance of the Master of Laketown (Stephen Fry) who acts as though he stepped out of a Terry Pratchett novel or Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast.

His toady assistant. Alfrid (Ryan Gage) is sadly little more than a less-than-successful recycling of Grima Wormtongue.

However, for all its weak points, The Desolation Of Smaug is worthy of repeated viewings - although possibly not as regularly as The Lord Of The Rings - even if only to marvel at the wonderful array of monsters on show.

The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Although I now class Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings as one of my favourite movies, I wasn't overly impressed when I first saw The Fellowship Of The Ring at the cinema. There were too many long shots of people in fancy dress walking through fields and the narrative didn't flow that well. It was only when I saw the extended, director's cut on DVD that I began to appreciate the majesty of Jackson's ambitious enterprise.

So, I suppose there's every possibility that one day I will come to love to An Unexpected Journey. But I can't see it being any time soon.

One of the major problems I have with it (beyond being way too long) is it is simply isn't The Lord Of The Rings. Although there are moments of brilliance in this first, 169-minute segment of The Hobbit, it lurches from broad comedy to grim dourness with very clumsy footing.

It also becomes very clear that the source material is a book aimed squarely at very young children, with its alliteratively-named dwarvish troupe of adventurers, anachronistic sporting references and trolls named Burt and Tom.

On one hand we have the orc war-band speaking in sub-titles, then we have the trolls and goblins speaking English.

There's no sense that this is a real world, something which the original three movies achieved effortlessly.

There are scenes - such as the gathering of big-wigs at Rivendell - that feel wholly enmeshed in this world we have grown to love, but then there's the stupidly-named trolls (one also uses a handkerchief) and other moments of juvenilia, that I know are from Tolkien's book, but still don't tally with the flawless verisimilitude of Middle-Earth from Lord Of The Rings.

The rabbit-drawn sled I can let slide (I have a soft spot for rabbits), but the preposterous stone giants: why, just why?

Although there's some meaty exposition up-front, the film starts really slowly with the dwarves arrival at Bag End and the whole set-up for the plot (could have done without the "That's What Bilbo Baggins Hates" song that came dangerously close to tipping this piece over into high camp).

Then even once the adventurers get going there's a diversion for the audience to visit the nature wizard Radagast The Brown (Sylvester McCoy) which, while visually interesting, takes about quarter-of-an-hour to show us something that Gandalf tells Elrond et al in a couple of lines.

And so it goes on, in fits and starts.

Just as you think the pace is picking up, something will pop up to slow things back down again and the plot doesn't really get flowing until the final act - namely Bilbo (Martin Freeman) playing the 'riddle game' with Gollum (Andy Serkis); the dwarves escape from goblin town (which in a sense is just a replay of the Fellowship escaping Moria, but with wooden bridges replacing stone); then the fight with the orcs; and finally the arrival of the eagles (which is handled very well, as it isn't explained because we know exactly what to expect when we see Gandalf talking to the moth he has captured).

Do have to wonder though why the eagles couldn't carry our heroes a bit closer to their final destination?

There are also odd moments where - given that technology has presumably moved on quite a bit since the Rings films - some of the special effects jarred; there's some quite noticeable green-screening which is always a good way to kick you out of the moment. Is this a side effect of Jackson's use of a higher frame-rate to shoot the movie?

While the director's cuts of all three parts of Lord Of The Rings are long, they flow gorgeously and never feel like a chore, but the two hours 42 minutes (plus about seven minutes of credits) of An Unexpected Journey really felt like a marathon.

It was certainly rewarding once we crossed the finish line, and the final shot of Smaug waking up was worth its weight in gold - but then you have to realise we're only a third of the way.

Perhaps the narrative will flow better when we can watch all three pictures back-to-back and see the full vision that Jackson is bringing to this tale.

There's clearly been a lot of backstory added (from Tolkien's other work) to build up the story of the Necromancer and create a bridge to The Lord Of The Rings and I can't help wishing that more emphasis had been put on this and a scalpel had been taken to the actual story of The Hobbit to strip it back to its core elements.

The Throne of Fire (1983)

The witch Azira (Beno Cardoso) is ravished by the Devil's Messenger, the demon Belial (Harrison Muller), who proclaims that their progeny will take his rightful seat on the titular Throne of Fire and "rule the world".

The monstrous child grows up to become the warlord Morak (also Harrison Muller), who, thanks to a vague prophecy about "The Day of The Night in the Day" (catchy way to say 'eclipse', eh?), must marry Princess Valkari (Sabrina Siani, who you may recognise from Sword of The Barbarians, Conquest or Ator: The Fighting Eagle) the daughter of the slain king Aegon 

Only by legitimising his claim to the throne can Morak sit on the magical throne, which immediately immolates any pretenders who dare park their bum on its shiny goodness.

Enter Siegfried (Peter McCoy aka Pietro Torrisi), son of Aegon's friendly wizard, Isar (Isarco Ravaioli), who is destined to thwart Morak's plans - as he believes his father was slain in the same ambush that claimed the royal family (and which Valkari managed to slip away from).

Unfortunately, while Siegfried may have the strength (STR 14 or 15) and agility (DEX 16+ easily) for the hero lark, he's not the sharpest tool in the box (INT 7 or 8, tops), and makes a string of unfortunate or ill-considered decisions throughout the 89-minute movie (from his initial plan to just walk into Morak's throne room to. later, accidentally leading Morak's troops to Valkari's secret hiding place).

It's really the kickass princess who does most of the heavy-lifting in the hero department, seemingly being just as competent - if not more so - with a sword as Siegfried, but also engineering her own escape from Morak's clutches (leaving the imprisoned Siegfried to his own devices).

Morak, it must be said, doesn't help himself either, only remembering in the final act that he has hypnotic powers capable of mind-controlling the princess which, had he used them earlier, would have saved him a lot of bother.

On the other hand, he has acid for blood - which is cool. But, sadly, we only see this come into play once (when Siegfried runs him through... and the sword melts).

Although rather meandering in places, The Throne of Fire is a pretty decent sword-and-sorcery peplum, with a pleasingly strong female lead (although there's some bizarrely random snogging in places, which is odd given that she has only just met Siegfried) who manages to hold her own, in the style of Red Sonja.

The pedestrian plot of this '80s Italian swordsploitation flick is a bit jumbled and hackneyed, and riddled with holes, but some of that may be down to the English translation in the dubbed version I watched on DVD.

For instance, for all the early talk of "ruling the world", it quickly becomes clear that the Throne of Fire only grants sovereignty of this single fantasy realm. It's not exactly the battle for The Iron Throne!

Morak's troops - the ones dressed in the sweet black armour and helmets - may, actually be demons of some kind, but this is only fleetingly hinted at when Siegfried removes one's helmet, and it's never alluded to again.

There's no escaping the fact that director Franco Prosperi's The Throne of Fire looks cheap.

Footage is clearly recycled from other films, you can see the joins in the walls of Morak's castle courtyard, and the special effects aren't that special.

But the plucky Sabrina Siani pretty much carries the whole film on her shoulders, giving us an interesting female protagonist, who largely gets repeatedly captured because of the uselessness of her "saviour" Siegfried.

There's also several welcome moments of levity in the film, some unintentional and usually involving Siegfried, but the bumbling priest conducting the marriage of Morak and Valkari just has to have been deliberate.

And the risible attempts to execute Siegfried (something that, honestly, should have been very straight forward if they'd only, oh I don't know, strapped him down) at the climax of the movie simply beggar belief.

Warriors Of Heaven And Earth (2003)

Warriors of Heaven And Earth (or Tian Di Ying Xiong) is an Eighth Century Chinese adventure story with traces of The Seven Samurai, Zulu and even Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

Nakai Kiichi plays Lai Xi, a Japanese samurai sent to the Tang court at the age of 13 who now serves the Chinese Emperor as a special agent, even though - after 25 years - he craves to see Japan and his family again.

He has been dispatched to the west of the country to hunt down criminals, on the understanding that when they are all rounded up he may go home.

Ten years later he is assigned the task of tracking and killing Lieutenant "Butcher" Li (Jiang Wen), as well as escorting the gorgeous Wen Zhu (Wei Zhao) back to the capitol.

Li, however, isn't the great villain he has been made out to be and is actually wanted because he stirred up a mutiny when he defied orders to butcher captured women and children. He now makes a living protecting caravans through the desert.

Xi and Li come to an understanding that they will work together to guard a caravan transporting a young Buddhist monk and some holy scriptures to the capitol before Xi can try and claim Li's head.

The monk's treasure - which is secretly something more valuable than simple scriptures - is being sought by a bang of Turkish bandits led by the sinister Master An (Xueqi Wang), who is in league with warlord who has his eye on the secret treasure as well.

Xi, Li and Li's small cadre of old army colleagues fight a running battle across the desert against An's bandits in a variety of locations before the final stand comes in a rundown fort on the far side of the Gobi desert.

Warriors Of Heaven And Earth is an odd fish, but is not poorer for its strange identity crisis. For the most part it is a straight-forward, sword and sand adventure yarn, with the usual acrobatic and inventive fight scenes we expect from Eastern action movies (although resisting excessive wirework to keep it in the historical rather than fantastical camp).

But then at the movie's mid-point there is a scene of stunning magical effects, when the "secret treasure" the caravan has been transporting is revealed, that is not visited again until the bloody, Wild Bunch-like finale (which, I'll be the first to admit did not go the way I was expecting).

I would have been perfectly happy if Warriors Of Heaven And Earth had turned out to be a straight-forward actioner, but the couple of leftfield twists writer/director Ping He throws in spin the film into the realm of unexpected, cryptic, wackiness that make wuxia films so enjoyable.

Outside of the craziness, the character work is fantastic as well, with the interactions between the various tough, rugged soldiers protecting the caravan - all with different wants and loyalties - being an object lesson in smart writing.

Warriors Of Heaven And Earth took me by surprise. I had seen the name listed for years but ignored it out of ignorance because I thought it sounded like some tacky video game.

In the end it turned out to far exceed my limited expectations of a simple exhibition of slick swordplay and masterful martial arts, by slipping in a well-penned script full of strong characters and a couple of totally off-the-wall twists.

HAVE YOU READ SONJA?

Back at the height of the cinematic swords-and-sorcery boom of the 1980s, a half-dozen novels were published featuring the She-Devil With A Sword, Red Sonja.

All were written by David C Smith and Richard L Tierney and are now long out-of-print. Until now!

January sees the publication of The Collected Chronicles of Red Sonja, a 928-page hardcover collecting all those stories in a single volume.

Since her introduction to the Hyborian Kingdoms, Red Sonja has become one of the most iconic characters in fantasy, spawning dozens of comics, novels, and multiple live-action films. Now, almost fifty years later, the original novels are collected for the first time in one omnibus edition. Follow Red Sonja's tale from sorcerous start to sword-slashing finish, and see, in the mists of legend, how the she-devil with a sword was born...

The six stories are: The Ring of Ikribu ; Demon Night; When Hell Laughs; Endithor's Daughter; Against the Prince of Hell; and Star of Doom.

I welcome the republication of these eagerly sought-after novels and attribute this decision to the success of Heroic Signatures and Titan and their great work with the characters and worlds of Robert E Howard.

This has really lit a fire under the sword-and-sorcery genre that has grabbed the attention of new fans as well as pleasing the hardcore fans of old.

Long may this new age of sword-and-sorcery reign!

Warcraft - The Beginning (2016)

Continuing my meander through movies based on video games I know little about, the immediate takeaway from Warcraft: The Beginning is that it's a million times better than Assassin's Creed.

Up to this point - barring a very short (we're talking a matter of minutes) and unrewarding stab at trying to play World Of Warcraft online - my primary exposure to the setting was Meredith's eight-part tabletop campaign she ran for the Tuesday Knights back in 2013.

I still came to Warcraft: The Beginning knowing almost nothing about the wider world, but Duncan Jones' movie opened with a tidal wave of world-building, as characters darted from one beautiful location to another and back again during the first act.

There's clearly a mountain of backstory and lore built up over the years that this game has been running, and it's almost overwhelming as the viewer is bombarded by evocative names and locations with whiplash-inducing speed.

At times Warcraft: The Beginning feels as though the film-makers are squeezing 10 hours-worth of intricate storytelling and plot development into a two-hour movie.

The world of the orcs is dying and so their sorcerer supreme Gul'dan (Daniel Wu) uses his powerful necrotic magic known as The Fell (it's kinda like the dark side of The Force) to open a portal to the peaceful world of Azeroth, which he sees as prime real estate for a new orc kingdom.

Among the initial wave of orcs he brings through is the idealistic clan chief Durotan (Toby Kebbell), who quickly realises that the only reason their homeworld was dying is because of Gul'dan's use of The Fell, which is fuelled by life energy.

So Durotan tries to engineer peaceful contact with the ruling human kingdom, ruled by the Preacher partnership of Dominic Cooper (as King Llane Wrynn) and Ruth Negga (as Lady Taria).

Leading the human armies is Lady Taria's brother, Anduin Lothar (Vikings' Travis Fimmel, who is essentially still playing Ragnar Lothbrok, just in better armour), who takes a shine to 'mutant orc' Garona (Paula Patton), after he captures her during an initial spat between the two species.

Although riven with clichés about 'power corrupting' and the 'enemy of my enemy is my friend', the plot of Warcraft: The Beginning is surprisingly engaging.

Once your eyes have adjusted to surfeit of obviously CGI creatures and you accept that this isn't high class fantasy - like Lord Of The Rings or Game Of Thrones - but rather Sunday afternoon B-movie fare like that produced by Arrowstorm or my beloved Ray Harryhausen flicks from back in the day, it's rather an entertaining romp.

The twists and turns of the story veer off into silliness for the climax (which is clearly being contrived to set up sequels that are - sadly - never going to appear), but the fight scenes and depictions of the magical arts are superb.

While most of the plot is quite predictable (and that's not necessarily a bad thing), it makes an 'interesting' and 'brave' narrative choice towards the end to take the story is a surprisingly un-Hollywood direction.

Obviously, I don't know how close Warcraft: The Beginning sticks to the established mythology of the video game, but what we are presented with here works really well.

It's a criminal shame, though, that the other main races of Azeroth - namely the dwarves and elves - are reduced to little more than background extras; it would have been cool to see members of these other races fighting alongside Anduin Lothar.

While Warcraft: The Beginning still hasn't persuaded me to play the online game, it has kindled the desire to see more Warcraft movies (should they ever materialise) and maybe learn a bit more about the world of Azeroth.

Sword Of The Barbarians (1982)

 
There is something quite delicious about watching a crappy old swords and sorcery B-movie on VHS cassette, that certain - almost illicit - frisson of knowing that this movie is so awful it isn't available in any better format.

That said, Sword Of The Barbarians (aka Barbarian Master aka Sangraal, la spada di fuoco) is a surprisingly decent Dungeons & Dragons-esque quest movie.

Nomad chieftain Sangraal (Pietro Torrisi aka Peter McCoy) is leading his people through the wilderness when they stumble upon a group of villagers under attack.

Driving off the attackers, Sangraal asks to be taken back to their village, where he is greeted by headman Belam (Luciano Rossi aka Lou Kamante) and invited to stay and settle down - much to the delight of his people.

However, word gets back to the villainous Nanuk (Mario Novelli aka Anthony Freeman) - enemy of Belam's people and worshipper of topless fire goddess Rani (Xiomara Rodriguez) - that a stranger has appeared in the valley and has been killing his men.

Rani demands vengeance - so Nanuk launches an attack on the village, capturing Sangraal and forcing him to watch as the village is put to the sword and his wife Lenne (Margareta Rance) is cut down in front of him.

Luckily, Belam's daughter, Aki (Yvonne Fraschetti), escapes the massacre with the aid of wandering Easterner, Li Wo Twan (Hal Yamanouchi aka Al Huang), and they free Sangraal.

Sangraal's first thought isn't revenge - he wants to restore Lenne to life, which Aki (who has the hots for Sangraal) says is impossible.

Twan, however, reckons the wise man of The Black Mountains, Rudak (Massimo Pittarello), might know how to do it.

On the journey to Rudak, the trio are attacked by useless bandits, waylaid by the least-threatening sandstorm in cinematic history and finally driven into an underground cave system by a host of extras from Life Of Brian, where they meet some amusingly lame subterranean reptile people.

Finally getting to Rudak, the wizard tells Sangraal that Aki was right and he can't resurrect Lenne, however if he wants to get revenge on Nanuk and Rani he needs to travel west for three days into a forest where he'll find a cavern containing The Ark Of Templars and in that he will find the instrument of his revenge.

It might be worth pointing out, if you haven't picked up on it already, that Sangraal is another, archaic, name for the Holy Grail. 

There's some shenanigans in the forest with a tribe of monkey-people, who are in league with Nanuk, but eventually Sangraal finds the cave he was looking for - which happens to be guarded by another topless goddess (Sabrina Siani) who our hero only manages to overcome with the aid of Rudak.

In the Ark is a humongous crossbow, but by the time Sangraal retrieves it, Nanuk has captured Aki and whisked her back to his own luxury cave where she is held hostage, as naked bait to draw Sangraal in for his final confrontation.

Much fighting ensues and in the end, once he has seen Aki's boobies, Sangraal has forgotten all about his beloved Lenne and found romance in the ample bosom of Aki.

Sword Of The Barbarians is a strange cocktail of Deathstalker and Hawk The Slayer and while not reaching the heights of excellence of either of these legendary movies, it manages to survive translation from Italian and rebranding as an American flick remarkably well.

Large quantities of low-lying smoke in many parts of Sangraal's land made me wonder if it was close to Hawk The Slayer's Realm and Mario Novelli, with all his mwahaha-ing, scenery-chewing and histrionic proclamations is clearly channelling Jack Palance's Voltan, as the barbarian's barbarian, Nanuk.

The presence of a random Easterner is never really fully explained and, unfortunately, the character of Twan quickly deteriorates in to a fortune-cookie-proverb-spouting stereotype whose ramblings eventually prompt Sangraal to cut him off. A harsh word that comes back to haunt him - and suggests that maybe a bit more thought went into this script than you'd expect from this style of movie.

While the creature effects (the 'lizard people' and the 'monkey-men') are very basic, the frequent fight scenes are an odd mix of cheap gore and bloodless acrobatics - yet surprisingly entertaining for a trashy, low-budget swords and sorcery piece.

If you can find Sword Of The Barbarians I definitely recommend checking it out.

It's not Robert McKee or Syd Field, but if you give the script a chance you'll find it hangs together very well and gamers will appreciate the pure Dungeons & Dragons-ness of the whole ensemble (torch-lit expeditions in underground cave systems, monsters, pit traps, magic etc).

Sword Of The Barbarians doesn't aspire to be high art and embraces its sub-Conan silliness without resorting to slapstick or knowingly undermining its world view.

Give it chance - you never know you might be as enchanted by it as I was.

Troll Bridge (2019)

Cohen the Barbarian was angry. Angry that he never died in battle, angry that the world had forgotten him, and angry that his knees were starting to play up in the cold.

He was also angry that his faithful mount had been gifted the ability of magical speech. The horse was insisting that they had made a wrong turn back at Slice. 

He was also angry that the horse was probably right.

This was not how it was supposed to end for the barbarian. This was not how the Discworld’s greatest hero imagined it at all.

Based upon the short short Troll Bridge, from A Blink of The Screen, the half-hour short film is a love-letter to Terry Pratchett and Discworld.

Eragon (2006)

In a magical world where dragons are the suppressed symbol of a better age, why does no one spot that the name of a simple farm boy (Ed Speleers) is simply "dragon" with the first letter bumped to the next in the alphabet: Eragon?

It also manages to sound as close as possible to Aragorn (the most famous of fantasy heroes?) without risking a lawsuit from the Tolkien Estate.

Although I'd imagine it would be the Lucasfilm lawyers knocking at the door first as the script is pretty much a reskinning of Star Wars with Eragon as Luke, Brom (Jeremy Irons) as Obi-Wan, Uncle Garrow (Alun Armstrong) as Uncle Owen, the evil king Galbatorix (John Malkovich) and his wizard Durza (Robert Carlyse) as The Emperor and Vader, the captured Princess Arya (Sienna Guillory) as Leia, the rebel Varden as... well, The Rebels; I think you get the picture by now!

Even the supernatural power of The Force is personified by Eragon's CGI dragon Saphira (voiced by Rachel Weisz) - and Eragon's innate dragon-magic (plot-wise, Saphira also doubles as the Millennium Falcon and the plans to the Death Star!)

There are places where some of the less abysmal dialogue and scenes feel like they are lifted directly from George Lucas' Original Trilogy, with just a few minor tweaks - from magic that "flows through" and "unites" a dragon and its rider to Durza killing an unsuccessful 'boss' minion then promoting one its colleagues into its place.

As there is no Han Solo analogue in the movie at this stage (don't worry, Garrett Hedlund's roguish Murtagh - who has a very Star Wars-y secret of his own - reveals himself a short time later), Durza tortures the Princess to send a 'false' telepathic 'distress call' to trick Eragon into facing him - think Vader on Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back - even though Brom (now in Yoda mode) tells the young farm boy he's not yet ready to face Durza.

And when Eragon busts the Princess out of the Death Star holding cell... er... Durza's castle, naturally Obi-Brom has to give his life so that the others can escape (although his death scene is more drawn out).

Not only is Eragon unoriginal, it is badly written (for instance, about half an hour in, Jeremy Irons makes an expositional speech that repeats the useful infodump delivered in the movie's stilted voice-over introduction) and the acting ranges from scene-chewingly hammy (by the established names in the cast - collecting their pay cheques and getting out as soon as possible) to simply bad (by everyone else, particularly from young Eragon himself).

Rather oddly, very early on, talk is made of there being elves and dwarves in the kingdom - but they never actually appear on screen, so you have to wonder why they were brought up in the first place?

On a positive note, the film looks great - the Eastern European scenery is spectacular, the costumes and weaponry are well crafted and the critters are suitably Dungeons & Dragons-y - but such little effort has been made to conceal the source material being plagiarised that the film's best use is as a "spot the Star Wars analogy" drinking game.

And like so many fantasy modern films that have tried to emulate the success of Star Wars, but failed to learn how to do it properly, Eragon finishes mid-story, expecting a sequel to be guaranteed.

Of course none was forthcoming, leaving many plot threads dangling and certain characters totally superfluous! 

Day The Earth Froze aka Sampo (1959)

Day The Earth Froze is an American redubbing (quite well done) and re-editing (not so subtle) of Finnish/Russian fairytale movie called Sampo.

Not only is the American version, at 65 minute duration, almost half an hour shorter than the original, but it also features phoney credits, suggesting that it is actually an American film with American actors.

Nevertheless, there is something quite charming about this dream-like, enchanted folktale of a village's running battle with the witch Louhi (Anna Orochko) for possession of the fabled Sampo, a magical mill that produces unending supplies of grain, salt and gold.

However, only the village's wizardy-blacksmith Ilmarinen (Ivan Voronov) can forge the Sampo and he cannot do this until his sweet and shy sister Annikki (Eve Kivi) has fallen in love.

Luckily she meets Lemminkäinen (Andris Oshin) and falls for him - just before Louhi kidnaps her to force her brother to make the Sampo for her.

There is much to-ing and fro-ing as Lemminkäinen and Ilmarinen strive to free Annikki (aided by a steel horse and boat that Ilmarinen forges), although this does mean Louhi ends up with Sampo.

But Lemminkäinen is not having any of this and decides to go back and steal it from the witch - under cover of mist.

However, Louhi isn't impressed and to get her revenge steals the sun. Yes, you read that right, she steals the sun - there's an incredible shot of her flying off with the sun tucked under her cape!

Thus the villagers have to rally together and go to the witch's land, but headman Väinämöinen (Urho Somersalmi) advises them that weapons will be no use against the magics of Louhi and her minions and tells them to take only a kantele (no giggling please, it's a Finnish zither).

Of course, there's a happy ending, and it makes an interesting twist on the 'love conquers all' cliché.

Lovely costuming and garish technicolour, combined with the bizarre fairytale logic of the plot, give Day The Earth Froze a hypnotic - almost soporific - quality. 

The key thing to remember is that this a folktale, not a stereotypical action-adventure, so aspects are going to seem weird (like a village having an immortal blacksmith with the power to manufacture pretty much anything - at one point he even tries to make a new sun!), but there's still an innocent verisimilitude about the world depicted.

Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter (1974)

How have I gone this long without seeing this wonderful little film? Especially as Rachel bought me the Blu-Ray for Christmas several years ago and it's just sat on my shelf waiting for the right moment.

Clearly an influence on a variety of other monster-hunting shows from Buffy The Vampire Slayer to The Witcher, and the Ravenloft setting in Dungeons & Dragons, the mythology presented in Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter suggests a wider world and the adventure we witness in this film is obviously just a single episode in his storied life.

Liberating stunning gypsy girl Carla (Caroline Munro) on the way - locked in the stocks for "dancing on a Sunday" - former Imperial Guard captain-turned-professional vampire hunter Kronos (Horst Janson) and his hunchbacked companion, Professor Hieronymous Grost (John Cater), respond to a summons to investigate a suspected vampire attack.

We learn that there are many varieties of vampire, beyond the accepted stereotype, and the one operating here appears to drain life rather than blood.

However, Kronos and Grost need to investigate further, to uncover its weaknesses.

At a later point this involves a darkly humorous sequence when one of their allies falls foul of the vampire and they struggle to find the right method of execution.

The film doesn't really make too much of an effort to conceal the mystery of who the vampire is, but still manages to slip in a few surprises in the wake of the "big reveal" in the final act.

Wearing its '70s pedigree on its sleeve, Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter takes place in one of those peculiarly Hammer, vaguely Central European, pseudo-nineteenth century settings where 90 per cent of the women look like glamour models.

The dashing swordsman and his posse

And Munro's Carla is there mainly to take the role of dogsbody, vampire bait, and the Captain's booty call.

But casual sexism aside, this is a well-paced, swashbuckling-horror from writer-director Brian Clemens (the main scriptwriter of hit '60s spy-fi show, The Avengers, and screenwriter of Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, amongst many other achievements on his CV), that really would have worked as a serial.

Janson plays the deadpan Kronos straight, showing that the war hero is clearly damaged, not just from losing his family to vampires, and that's what makes the katana-wielding, Chinese herb-smoking swordsman all the more intriguing.

Then on top of the layered central character (we learn very little about Grost except that he's an expert on vampire lore and he's insecure about his appearance) we are treated to a number of his peculiar, folktale-inspired, tricks to unearthing the undead.

I was particularly fond of the dead toad gimmick (this is something I need to work into an RPG).

"If a vampire should bestrode / Close to the grave of a dead toad / Then the vampire life shall give / And suddenly, the toad shall live."

There's a minimalist look about the movie as well (no doubt down, in part, to the budget), where scenes - regardless of the size of the set - feature very few characters, which reminded me of my beloved Hawk The Slayer.

Light-weight and well-lit, compared to many of the more Gothic Hammer vampire flicks (as these vampires don't sizzle in sunlight), Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter is a unique film in the Hammer vaults - which is a shame, because there's obviously many more adventures to be had with these characters.

Rain Doesn't Stop Play At Annual Medieval Festival

You can't really judge the steepness of the hill from this picture

Having missed last year's event, Rachel, Alice and I returned to King's Grove: England's Medieval & Renaissance Festival this year... only to discover that it had grown considerably since we were last there.

Oh, and after a summer of heatwave after heatwave, the heavens opened yesterday and it rained almost constantly while we were at the festival (there was a break of around five minutes when the sun came out in the afternoon).

The clue to the event's expansion was in the addition of "& Renaissance" to the official title.

It now more closely resembles what I imagine an American "Ren Faire" experience is like, with the overall focus moving away from the purely historical (as it was back in its Herstmonceux Castle days) and now embracing cosplay, LARP, witchy bits, and even tabletop roleplaying games and board games.

Naturally, I wanted to check out the roleplaying (and board) game area first. As well as tables for people to play games on in the tented areas, there was an Aladdin's Cave of funky dice, of all sizes and denominations, all beautifully displayed.

Rachel said I could have a set of posh dice as a birthday present, but there were simply too many to choose from and my poor, little addled brain just shut down because of the input overload.

After a long time blankly staring at the displays, picking some dice up and putting them down, I just couldn't decide and so we moved on... before I had some kind of emotional breakdown.

THE COSPLAY TENT

THE GRAND PARADE

There were a lot of amazing artisans and craftsmen selling their wares at the show, and the constant rain didn't seem to be putting people off moving between the various tents and covered stalls.

Probably my favourite artists were Lucan Thorndyke from Wyrd Bones (who we had a lovely, long chat with and wasn't at all bothered when I said I liked the "roleplaying game prop potential" of his work), the Medieval illuminations of Eric Verkade, and the t-shirts of Hive Mind Games.

As with the dice, there were so many incredible creations to choose from that I was mentally paralysed by the possibilities and ended up not buying anything.

However, I reckon there's a good chance I will eventually (once I can get my finances in order) buy a piece from Wyrd Bones to use in a Tuesday Knights adventure.

To be honest, all the art we saw was top quality and once again I was also (sadly) reminded that we simply don't have any more wall space at home for additional framed pictures. 

Soggy puppy

Quick family portrait during the five-minute break in the rain

Although there were a lot of other floofs at the event, Alice still attracted her fair share of attention, due a combination of her cuteness, her little rain coat, and her rather bedraggled appearance thanks to the weather (Once we got home, Alice had a nice warm bath in the sink).

The only real problem I have with King's Grove is that it takes place on the side of a steep hill.

While the woods are very atmospheric, especially as the festival evolves into something more "magical", it quickly becomes a complication for those of us with mobility issues. Especially when combined with the mud and rain, making the use of mobility scooters totally impractical. 

I couldn't help but wonder if this might actually be the last time I'm physically able to visit this annual event. 

As we headed towards the exit on Saturday we caught a glimpse  of the demonstration (in the Pageant Arena) by animal sanctuary Watermill Wolves. This was, of course, wonderful 'cos wolves are so cool (and one of the wolves was called Alice).

Apart from some "Medieval" treats for Alice, our main purchase at the festival was a copy of The Box of Death: Tales of Castle Rory, Book One. This is a Medieval swords-and-sorcery adventure set in a low-magic fantasy version of 13th Century Norfolk.

Again, we had a good chat with the author, Rory Marsden, who sold me on the book (and signed it for me; you know I'm a sucker for a signed book).

This is the first of a 10-book saga, although I did warn Rory that I was a very slow reader these days so couldn't guarantee how long it would take me to get through this first volume, let alone the rest.

The Seventh Seal (1957)

After ten years away fighting in The Crusades, Templar knight Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) and his squire Jöns (Gunnar Björnstrand) return to their homeland, only to find it in the grip of the bubonic plague.

Block is approached by Death (Bengt Ekerot) who tells the knight his time is up, but Block challenges him to a game of chess first, as way of postponing - and possibly escaping - his inevitable fate.

As the chess game unfolds, Block and Jöns slowly make their way towards Block's castle, passing through villages ravaged by disease, and drawing to them a growing caravan of refugees looking to outrun the plague, including a family of actors, Jof (Nils Poppe), his wife, Mia (Bibi Andersson), and their infant son, Mikael (Tommy Karlsson).

Jof has the gift of seeing visions, soon after we first meet his troupe he sees the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus walking through a field, and - eventually - is the first person to see Death playing chess with Block.

And it is the joy his young son brings to Block that persuades the knight to change his tactics in the game of chess, to save the young boy instead of himself.

I'm surprised it's taken me this long to get around to watching Ingmar Bergman's legendary meditation on death.

Perhaps because so many of its visuals have become iconic over the years and oft imitated (for instance, of course, the whole 'playing chess with Death' is probably better known to the general public for its central role in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey!), I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

While there are a couple of minor Medieval scuffles, The Seventh Seal is by no means an action film, instead concentrating on the growing ensemble of characters whose lives interact with Block and Jöns. And while Block may be the main protagonist, as it is he who draws Death into the chess game, Jöns is the more proactive character 'in the real world'.

It's Jöns who rescues the silent girl (Gunnel Lindblom) from a would-be rapist and brings her along on their travels. He also rescues Jof from drunken villagers who blame him for Blacksmith Plog's (Åke Fridell) wife, Lisa (Inga Gill), running off with another actor, Jonas Skat (Erik Strandmark).

Beautifully shot and framed by Bergman, The Seventh Seal is wholly absorbing and Max Von Sydow is a striking figure as the taciturn knight who draws the eye in every scene he's in.

However, after years of facing existential threats, fighting in the Holy Land and now the plague at home, agnostic Block wants concrete answers about the meaning of life and God before he dies.

He feels that by engaging Death he may find them, but he's also willing to treat with the Devil through a witch (Maud Hansson) who is about to be burned alive.

Unfortunately, again, he finds no answers because the supposed witch - proclaimed to be in league with the Devil by priests and soldiers - is just an innocent woman, facing her own death.

While the film does have an upbeat ending, it's main focus, I believe, is getting the viewer to contemplate their own mortality, which, for me, is why I count this as a "horror film" - even though I would expect I'd be in the minority who say so.

The Seventh Seal tells us that everyone has a different way of coping with inevitable final curtain: for example, some create art (music, paintings, performances etc), some just want to "have fun", and others resort to fundamentalist religious flagellation.

The film poses questions it cannot possibly answer, which I suppose is the whole point: not to dwell on what's to come, but what we can do while we're here.

Heresy (2024)

In an isolated, Medieval Dutch village - on the edge of a dark, spooky forest - lonely young Frieda (Anneke Sluiters) is in a childless and loveless marriage to Hikko (Len Leo Vincent).

Despite her desperate prayers to God and fertility tests by the village priest, Father Bartholomeus (Reinout Bussemaker), her fellow superstitious villagers fear her possible barrenness is a curse …and that she could spread that curse to them.

Loathsome butcher Gelo (Léon van Waas) - who, at the start of the film is being released from the "punishment cage" for seemingly assaulting Frieda's friend Sasha (Nola Elvis Kemper) - makes vile, suggestive comments to Frieda, which she rebuffs.

But then one evening he follows her into the forest and forces himself upon her.

Only "something" comes out of the trees and drags him away.

Of course, the villagers won't hear anything bad about the man - despite his proven form - and it becomes clear, if it wasn't already, that Frieda is dealing with an adamantine wall of patriarchal misogyny. 

The next night (I'm not sure why they didn't look in the day), the men of the village go hunting for Gelo in the woods and find his mutilated corpse plastered around a tree.

The villagers now believe that Frieda is consorting with the Devil and her life only gets worse.

Eventually she returns to the forest and her supernatural saviour reveals herself to be a mystical Witte Wieven (a mythological entity believed to be the spirit of a wise woman) who draws Frieda into a psychedelic ritual.

Waking up the next morning, she returns to the village only to discover that actually some time has passed.

Although this isn't spelt out overtly, Hikko says the village had believed Frieda dead and had found himself a new wife already!

Then at the evening prayer meeting, when Father Bartholomeus is giving Frieda a hard time for not knowing her prayers "correctly", she suddenly throws up and almost as one the rest of the village realise that Frieda is actually pregnant.

So, it's off to the "punishment cage" for her, where Hikko tells her he's going to cut the devil child out of her.

But Frieda has other ideas.

Heresy (originally called Witte Wieven) is an hour-long Dutch rural horror film from 2024 that is currently available via Shudder.

The short film carries a strong feeling of the hardest-hitting Twilight Zone episodes that lift the lid on paranoia and mass hysteria, but with a heavy serving of inexcusable misogyny.

The Witte Wieven (played at different times by Sam Post and Easy May Walker) was an enigmatic folkloric creature capable of both great destruction and creation. 

While not wholly original, Heresy relies on its suffocating atmosphere and Frieda's isolation, even when she is in her community. Therefore, it's a shame more wasn't made of the dark, misty forest (Although I'm not sure why the villagers built their homes next to a forest they were all terrified of).