Deathstalker (1983) New World Pictures/Fantasy-Action-Adventure RT: 79 minutes Rated R (graphic violence, rape, lots of nudity, sexual content) Director: James Sbardellati (as “John Watson”) Screenplay: Howard R. Cohen Music: Oscar Cardozo Ocampo Cinematography: Leonardo Rodriguez Solis Release date: October 1983 (Philadelphia, PA) Cast: Rick Hill, Barbi Benton, Richard Brooker, Lana Clarkson, Victor Bo, Bernard Erhard, Augusto Larreta (as “August Larreta”), Veronica Llinas (as “Lillian Ker”), Marcos Woinsky, Adrian De Piero, Jorge Sorvik (as “George Sorvik”). Box Office: $11.9M (US)
Rating: ** ½
The tagline for the sword-and-sorcery cheapie Deathstalker could have read “Made in Argentina where life is cheap…. and filmmaking is cheaper!” if the marketing folks at New World truly believed in truth in packaging. It looks like it was made for less than $5000. It all makes sense, however, once you factor in schlockmeister Roger Corman. He produced it. In the early-to-mid 80s, he made a spate of low-budget S&S flicks including Sorceress, The Warrior and the Sorceress and Barbarian Queen. Their main unifying trait is showing lots and lots of naked boobies. It’s no wonder they were so popular with teen boys at video stores.
As a teen, I LOVED S&S movies. It started with Excalibur in ’81 and really took off with Conan the Barbarian and The Sword and the Sorcerer the following year. It didn’t matter to me how God-awful some of them were. If swords, sorcery and R-rated violence were involved, I’d be right there opening weekend, most likely at a matinee showing.
I didn’t get to see Deathstalker at the movies because it didn’t open in any theaters near me. It was an all too familiar song in my youth. I could never convince anybody with a driver’s license to take a road trip to some faraway theater to see some dopey B-movie. I finally saw it about two years later when I rented it from the Video Den. I wasn’t impressed then and I’m still not.
Rick Hill (Warrior Queen) stars as the title character, a roving warrior/thief on a quest to take down evil ruler Munkar (Erhard, Firefox), a powerful sorcerer who stole his kingdom from its rightful king. To do so, he will have to obtain three magical objects- a sword, an amulet and a chalice. According to the old witch he encounters in his travels, he’ll be endowed with something called “The Power” once he has all three in his possession. He finds the sword in a nearby cave along with the imp guarding it. Said imp turns out to be a thief (Larreta, Wizards of the Lost Kingdom) cursed by the witch after he tried to steal the sword which keeps whoever’s wielding it impervious to harm or death. With his curse lifted, he joins Deathstalker on his journey.
En route to the kingdom, Deathstalker meets another traveler, Oghris (Brooker, Friday the 13th Part 3), who tells him about a tournament being held by Munkar to determine who will inherit his kingdom. He’s invited all the mightiest warriors in the land to take part. It’s the perfect way for Deathstalker to sneak in and steal the other two magical objects from Munkar. They’re joined a little later by a sexy female warrior named Kaira (Clarkson, Barbarian Queen). Apparently, the idea of “wardrobe malfunction” began with her, not Janet Jackson. She goes around with her boobs hanging out almost the whole time she’s on-screen. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Once they arrive at their destination, they’re greeted by Munkar who treats them to a night-before banquet replete with food, drinks and wenches. Uh huh, you guessed it, it turns into an orgy. Lots of sex, lots of boobs! Ever the gracious host, Munkar offers up his captive bride-to-be Princess Codille (Benton, Hospital Massacre), the daughter of the rightful king, as a prize to the warrior that fights his way to her first. It should go without saying that the bad king doesn’t intend to hand his kingdom over to anybody. He has something else in mind with the tournament, something nefarious.
No matter how you slice it, Deathstalker is a bad movie. It almost makes Ator look like a cinematic classic. Calm down, I said almost. It’s a dumb, cheap Conan knock-off with bad acting, dopey dialogue, poorly staged action, inept editing, shoddy sets, cheesy effects and a near-incomprehensible storyline topped off by the wobbly direction of James Sbardellati (under the pseudonym “John Watson”) whose only other directorial credit is the 1988 action-comedy Under the Gun starring Flash Gordon himself, Sam J. Jones (I have to see it!).
Despite all this, I don’t hate Deathstalker. Quite the opposite actually. This is one of those so-bad-it’s-good movies. At times, it’s positively laughable. Take the scene near the end where Deathstalker drops his sword into a pit. This is where we learn “The Power” and “The Force” are one in the same. He reaches out his arm and the sword magically flies back into his hand just in time to dispatch a bad guy. It even lights up like a light saber. All that’s missing is a disembodied voice saying, “Use the Power, Deathstalker.” BTW, is this Deathstalker guy any relation to Yor? There’s certainly a strong resemblance.
I don’t know how Hill came to be cast as the titular Conan-wannabe, but I have a theory. Corman took a trip to Venice Beach and randomly chose one of the weight-lifting muscleheads that live to show off their strength and physique to bikini-clad babes. He slapped a blonde wig on him, handed him a fake sword along with his lines and told him to have at it. Again, it’s just a theory, one supported by the fact that Hill can’t act to save his life. Ordinarily, this would be a bad thing, but it actually works in the movie’s favor in this particular case. Cheap S&S exploitation movies like Deathstalker call for terrible actors in the lead. To its credit, it has a neat supporting cast. The late Brooker played Jason in the third Friday the 13th movie, the 3D one. Benton is a fox. So is Clarkson, the late B-movie queen shot to death by record producer Phil Spector in 2003. Erhard, sporting a mean-looking tattoo on the left side of his bald head, tears it up as the main villain. BTW, I mention the exact location of the tat because it switches to the right side in one scene. Oops!
There are more boobs in Deathstalker than the average issue of Playboy. Nudity appears to be its raison d’etre. I’d be lying if I said I don’t appreciate a nice body. HOWEVER, I’m more interested in graphic violence, something that’s not missing in Deathstalker. The hero loves to decapitate his opponents. A few heads fly through the air and roll on the ground. There’s a bit of splatter during the clumsily choreographed sword fights. A man is tied and torn in half by horses. Munkar has a slimy pet to whom he feeds eyeballs and fingers. In one humorous scene, a pig-man warrior tears a guy’s arm off and beats him to death with it. Oh, I forgot to mention that guy. He’s a hulking monster with a pig head and human body. This is one crazy fantasy world!
Like I said, Deathstalker is a really bad movie, but fun to watch in the right frame of mind. For me, it’s one of those nostalgic deals where I enjoy watching because it takes me back to my misspent youth, most of which was spent watching and enjoying such movies. It’s a bit too dark at times and at 79 minutes, feels half-assed. The narrative is jumpy and jumbled. It has a lot of faults. NONE of it matters. It’s a Roger Corman production. Those five words exonerate Deathstalker of any and all perceived crimes against cinema.
