Lloyd The Conqueror (2011)

After my disappointment with yesterday's Knights Of Badassdom, a suggestion was made that I take a look at Lloyd The Conqueror, a 2011 comedy about Live Action Role Play, that was said to be a much better take on the genre.

Despite its provocatively misleading DVD cover (see below) - that Rachel mistook as softcore adult movie when it was sitting beside our TV - Lloyd The Conqueror is actually a light and simple comedy (with some adult humour along the way) about a trio of slacker video gamers talked into enrolling in a local LARP league to boost their grades.

Lloyd (Evan Williams), Patrick (Jesse Reid) and Oswald (Scott Patey) are in danger of losing their funding to attend community college and thus get blackmailed into joining the Demons & Dwarves League by their sinister Medieval Literature professor, Derek (Mike Smith) - whose dominance of the game, along with his legions of orc acolytes, has been driving people away.

Lloyd manages to enlist the aid of a self-defence instructor with anger issues that he has a crush on, Cassandra (Tegan Moss), and dead-pan game shop owner Andy (Brian Posehn) aka The White Wizard (a former champion of the Demons & Dwarves League).

While a major player in this, Posehn also has a minor role in Knights Of Badassdom.

Likeable leads, solid scripting and consistent comedy make Lloyd The Conqueror a good mix of romcom and student comedy with a fair amount of geek wit thrown in that reminded me of Jolly Blackburn's Knights Of The Dinner Table comic strip every now and again.

With the central characters coming to LARPing as complete neophytes, the audience doesn't need to have any advanced knowledge of that world to enjoy the humour.

Lloyd certainly isn't mocking the LARPing community - or gamers as a whole - but instead takes a self-deprecating approach as any level-headed enthusiast might to their own passions.

This is a film about power battles in a sub-culture that just happens to be LARP, which does provide a light-hearted physical counterpoint to the participants' personal stakes.

Not since the golden age of Roger Corman has a poster so missold a movie

Chris Carter's Original Vision For Terrifying X-Files Movie

When a group of women are mysteriously abducted, it becomes a case right out of The X-Files.

Years after walking away from the FBI, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dr. Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are pulled back from the shadows when a federal agent vanishes without a trace.

In a case you’d never see on TV, their only lead is a disgraced, defrocked priest claiming to have horrific psychic visions of the crime.

Forced to confront the ghosts of their past, the partners must navigate a chilling winter landscape and an even darker human monstrosity.

The truth of these crimes is out there somewhere… and it will take Mulder and Scully to find it.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe - Vrach Frankenshteyn reimagines creator and director Chris Carter's original vision in this all-new director's cut.

Streaming on Disney+ and Hulu August 14.

Knights Of Badassdom (2013)

Knights Of Badassdom exists in a mystical confluence, equal parts Monty Python & The Holy Grail, Animal House, Galaxy Quest and Evil Dead but never quite rises to the brilliance of its forebears.

Having just been dumped by his girlfriend, wannabe doom metal singer Joe (True Blood's Ryan Kwanten) is 'kidnapped' by his two best friends - hardcore LARPers Eric (Steve Zahn) and Hung (Game Of Thrones' Peter Dinklage) - to the site of their next big event, The Battle Of Evermore.

Joe is reluctantly talked into joining the Live Action Role Playing game - helped by the presence of the lovely Gwen (Firefly's Summer Glau) - but, unfortunately, in his quest for authenticity Eric has purchased a magical tome off eBay that turns out to be a long lost book belonging to the famous Elizabethan sorcerer John Dee.

When Eric reads a page at random as a mock spell, he unknowingly summons a succubus from Hell that proceeds to feed on the souls of the LARPers.

Soon after that Joe and Gwen realise that people are dying for real and take up arms to strike back at the monstrous demon and try to save their friends.

Knights Of Badassdom starts very promisingly, with plenty of loving nods to both LARPing and Dungeons & Dragons (this certainly isn't a piss-take of geekdom), but once the horror aspect enters the mix, the film doesn't really know where to go.

Now, I'm pretty certain that I read a ways back that this release of the film was not the director's vision of the story but a cut put together by the producers. This might explain the feeling that after a while the story is just spinning its wheels.

What starts off as belly-laughing funny (very much in the style of The Big Bang Theory, but with more swearing) that had me thinking this might one day equal The Holy Grail as geeks' go-to game quote movie eventually lapses into mildly amusing, by-the-numbers fare.

There are plot holes a-plenty and a lot of undeveloped characters (for instance, what was the deal with the redneck paintballers and their major hate-on for the LARPers? Outside of explaining why the police didn't turn up at the camp site when the slaughter began, they were totally redundant to the plot), which again suggests to me a retrospective recutting of the film, for whatever reason, making do with what footage was on-hand.

Don't get me wrong, it's good and certainly clever in parts, but there's an inescapable feeling that it could have been much better. There are some great characters, and great "in-story" world-building by the LARPers, but it all degenerates into a big slugfest with a rubber-suit monster.

Depending on your mood - and your attitude to random absurdity in movies - the climax of Knights Of Badassdom will either have you smirking at its ridiculousness or reaching for the remote control to turn off the television.

It's such a shame because I genuinely believe this could have been - if done right - a cult classic. As it is, I fear it will simply be swept under the carpet as a missed opportunity and promptly forgotten about.

Of course, the film's biggest mistake: not enough Dinklage.

ROLL THOSE BONES!!!

New funky dice alert! I came across these "skull dice" by chance on eBay the other week.

And immediately knew they had to be mine.

Shipped from China in no time at all for £3.59 each (including postage and packing), I didn't even have to sign up for a costly crowdfunding campaign to get them. Just a quick click on eBay's 'buy it now' button.

They are wonderfully chunky cubes of resin, measuring 2cm on each edge and with that deliciously striking skull design.

As well as obvious atmospheric roleplaying game usage, this pair will be perfect for our next Halloween-themed game of Monopoly.

"There'll Be No Doubt Who The Gods Have Chosen To Rule"

The season finale of House of The Dragon is upon us next week. See above for a (mildly spoilery) teaser of the episode.

Meanwhile, below, we have behind-the-scenes features looking at what has recently happened in the show:

The Gamers - Dorkness Rising (2008)

On the whole, gamers are an intelligent bunch and we recognise that what we do can appear - to an outsider - a bit dorky.

However, with that awareness comes a wicked sense of humour and a finely honed knack of self-deprecation that has spawned such 'cinematic' classics as Fear Of Girls and The Gamers and comics like The Knights Of The Dinner Table and Dork Tower.

The Gamers: Dorkness Rising continues that noble tradition, as a sequel to The Gamers (although only one character from the original appears in this, and then not for long), following the lives of a group of tabletop role-players - both inside and outside of a 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign being run by aspiring author Kevin Lodge (Nathan Price).

Imagine an early Kevin Smith movie, but without the graphic sexual references and foul language, and you'll have a pretty decent idea of the level of geekiness in Dorkness Rising.

You don't have to be a gamer to enjoy this film, but if you're not into the role-playing scene then some of the material will pass you by and if you're not a geek at all I can't imagine you'd be watching this film in the first place.

Made with the support of some of the big names in the industry (Wizards of The Coast, Goodman Games etc), there are plenty of Easter Eggs and in-jokes for those on the same wavelength as the filmmakers (Dead Gentleman Productions) - there are nods to The Knights Of The Dinner Table and the party's oft-forgotten henchman is none other than Nodwick from the strip of the same name by Aaron Williams.

Outside of the game world, Lodge is struggling against writer's block trying to convert the adventure he is running into a published module for Dungeons & Dragons, while dealing with rebellious players and an odd unresolved romantic sub-plot with the group's newest addition - Joanna (Carol Roscoe).

However, most of the humour comes from what happens in the game world. Using the same visual trick as used in The Gamers of showing the adventurers as the player's "in costume" in Lodge's fantasy world, things naturally go awry and that's when the real fun starts.

For instance, when the characters aren't seducing every female non-player character they come across or blowing up random peasants, one (the bard) is repeatedly killed because his player can't really get to grips with not playing a fighter while another (the sorceress) is being played by a dude who keeps forgetting he's playing a woman and hitting on Joanna's female fighter.

When Gary (Christian Doyle) remembers his character - Luster - is female she is portrayed by his maths professor (Jennifer Page), but the rest of the time, she's Gary in drag!

Written and directed by Matt Vancil, who was also responsible for The Gamers and Demon Hunters, Dorkness Rising may not be a laugh-a-minute, but with its higher production values and more assured acting it is leagues above The Gamers (the original left me rather non-plussed, with its surreal ending smacking of a film that had run out of ideas) and is a pretty accurate representation of gamer stereotypes.

Vancil has created an interesting group of characters here and, unlike the original, I'd be keen to spend some more time with them in future offerings.

The Gamers: Dorkness Rising is a worthy addition to any gaming group's library.

MUSICAL MONDAY: Welcome To The Black Parade (My Chemical Romance)

Centurion (2010)

Heroic Roman soldier Quintus Dias (Michael Fassbender) finds himself lost behind Pictish enemy lines in the north of Britain and in charge of a handful of survivors of the legendary Ninth Legion.

The Legion was slaughtered after being led into a trap by traitorous, mute scout Etain (Olga Kurylenko of Quantum Of Solace).

In trying to rescue their kidnapped General (Dominic West), the stragglers accidentally kill the son of Pict warlord Gorlacon (Ulrich Thomsen) who sends Etain and Gorlacon's men on a blood feud to hunt down and kill the Romans.

Written and directed by Neil Marshall (who also gave us such classics as Dog Soldiers, The Descent, and Doomsday) Centurion is a testosterone-fuelled Boys Own adventure, a brutal game of cat-and-mouse through the snowy wilderness as the escapees (who count Doctor Who veterans Noel Clarke and David Morrissey among their number) are slowly worn down and forced to make a final stand.

Bloody, gruesome and foul-mouthed, there are definite traces of Spartacus: Blood And Sand here - although bereft of the raunchiness - but the story lacks the intricacies and deviousness of that television show.

As a crowd-pleasing 90-minute diversion, Centurion is good stuff, with its plot twists and turns towards the end adding a degree of mischievousness to the otherwise straight-forward action-adventure.

Ten Gonzo Kung Fu Movies

"From magical peaches and giant monsters to black magic, exploding bodies, and Bruce Lee in Hell, these are some of the most unhinged kung fu movies ever made. If you thought all martial arts films were the same, think again."

An eye-opening list from the Sirbootis Flicks channel.