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.
