{"id":11411,"date":"2025-03-12T23:16:50","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T03:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=11411"},"modified":"2025-03-12T23:16:50","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T03:16:50","slug":"ator-the-fighting-eagle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/03\/12\/ator-the-fighting-eagle\/","title":{"rendered":"Ator, The Fighting Eagle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Ator, The Fighting Eagle<\/strong> (1982)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Comworld Pictures\/Action-Adventure-Fantasy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 92 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (violence, mild sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Joe D\u2019Amato (as \u201cDavid Hills\u201d)\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Joe D\u2019Amato (as \u201cDavid Hills) and Jose Maria Sanchez (as \u201cSherry Russel\u201d)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Carlo Maria Cordio\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Federico Slonisco (Joe D\u2019Amato)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 1983 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Starring: Miles O\u2019Keeffe, Sabrina Siani, Ritza Brown, Edmund Purdom, Dakkar, Laura Gemser.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $1.2M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the wake of the many cheap knock-offs that followed 1982\u2019s Conan the Barbarian, Ator, the Fighting Eagle<\/strong> is the worst. It\u2019s absolutely bottom of the barrel sword-and-sorcery entertainment. It\u2019s even worse than Sorceress and The Warrior and the Sorceress combined. At least those two movies had an R rating going for them. This movie\u2019s PG rating means three things- 1) no graphic violence, 2) no gratuitous nudity and 3) no sex. WTH, guys?! Even the PG-rated The Beastmaster treated audiences to a glimpse of Tanya Roberts\u2019 boobs. What\u2019s left is a rather boring and pointless fantasy adventure that would be better off playing on a UHF station than a theater.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Ator<\/strong> plays exactly like one of those cheesy movies that used to play on the UHF channels on weekend afternoons. It also makes every one of those awful movies seem better by comparison. It\u2019s an Italian-made movie (that explains a lot!) that looks like it cost about $300 to make. They didn\u2019t even have any money to spare for fake blood which would explain the lack of splatter during the sword fights. You would at least expect the sword to have a little blood on it after the hero defeats his opponent, right? Not in this movie. One can only surmise that these swords are self-cleaning.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although the movie clearly defines its villain(s), the real bad guy is director Joe D\u2019Amato (going by the pseudonym \u201cDavid Hills\u201d). He previously directed the 1979 giallo Beyond the Darkness as well as several Black Emanuelle films. Any of those (presumably) look much better when compared to Ator<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Ator<\/strong> opens with a muddled explanation of a prophecy about the son of Torren defeating the Spider King (Dakkar) and saving the world from 1000 years of darkness. When this child is born, the golden eagle in the Spider King\u2019s lair will weep tears of blood. That\u2019s the gist of it anyway. Somewhere, in some random village, a woman gives birth to a baby boy bearing the mark of Torren which looks suspiciously like one of those stick-on tattoos you used to find in boxes of Cracker Jack. Realizing that the prophecy is about to come true, the evil sorcerer sends his \u201cBlack Knights\u201d to wipe out the entire village and kill the baby.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Fortunately, a mysterious man named Griba (Purdom, Pieces) takes him away before the Spider King\u2019s men arrive. He leaves baby Ator with a poor family, promising that they will never want for anything ever again if they take in the child and raise him as their own. He grows up into a muscular young man (O\u2019Keeffe, Tarzan the Ape Man) who falls in love with his own sister Sunya (Brown, Monsignor). Keep in mind this is before he learns the truth about his parentage. It sounds like an episode of Jerry Springer just waiting to happen.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For really terrible dialogue, you can\u2019t beat this hilarious (and somewhat disturbing) exchange between the two wanna-be lovers:<\/p>\n

Ator: \u201cI love you.<\/p>\n

Sunya: \u201cAnd I love you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ator: \u201cWhy can’t we marry?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sunya: \u201cAtor, we are brother and sister.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ator: \u201cI’ll talk with our father.\u201d<\/p>\n

What might have been an extremely uncomfortable father-son talk turns into a cause for celebration. Dad (and Mom) couldn\u2019t be happier about the shocking news because it means Ator will be their true son.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The newlyweds\u2019 happiness is short-lived when the Spider King\u2019s guards crash the wedding and kill everybody except Ator and Sunya. They kidnap the girl leaving her husband to go on a quest to rescue his beloved sister-wife. That\u2019s when he finally meets Griba who fills him in on his true identity and destiny. After what seems like an especially short training period, he sends Ator off with \u201cSword of Torren\u201d in hand to fulfill the prophecy. His quest includes being kidnapped by a gang of Amazons, travelling through the \u201cLand of the Walking Dead\u201d (a surprisingly sunny place) and fighting a bunch of blind warriors for possession of a magic mirrored shield (aka \u201cShield of Mordor\u201d) that will help him defeat the Spider King.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Along the way, Ator picks up a beautiful, blond-haired companion named Roon (Siani, 2020 Texas Gladiators) who happens to be a thief. He also finds himself in a hut with a beautiful witch (Gemser, Black Emanuelle) who turns into some sort of creature. Where have we heard all this before? Could it be a certain Arnold Schwarzenegger S&S epic?<\/p>\n

\u00a0To call Ator<\/strong> completely derivative would be a serious understatement. It\u2019s a shameless rip-off of Conan and any of the other imitators that followed. I don\u2019t know when it was shot, but D\u2019Amato apparently had enough time to give our warrior hero an animal sidekick (a bear cub) a la The Beastmaster. It would be one thing to make a Conan clone that ended up being reasonably entertaining. It\u2019s quite another to make one this boring, inept and cheap-looking. Ator faces off against a giant spider near the end. We never get a full shot of the jumbo arachnid, but what is shown looks totally fake. His web consists of rope tied together in a web-like pattern. Who do the makers think they\u2019re fooling?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Miles O\u2019Keeffe, the perfect mix of beefcake and bonehead, is one of the worst actors EVER! Remember his wooden performance in 1981\u2019s Tarzan the Ape Man? He\u2019s no better in Ator<\/strong>. He makes Lou Ferrigno look like a master thespian in Hercules (1983) and the 1985 sequel. Purdom looks ridiculous in that fake wig as does Dakkar sporting tacky gold eye-shadow. The actresses are basically eye candy, nothing more. Gemser is especially easy on the eyes. Unfortunately, the PG rating means we don\u2019t see any of the ladies in the flesh.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The production values are cheaper than any given Roger Corman flick. He would NEVER have even touched this movie.\u00a0There\u2019s not a single redeeming feature here. I can\u2019t believe the utter ineptitude of all involved with Ator, the Fighting Eagle<\/strong>. What\u2019s even worse is that there are three sequels to this movie although to be fair, the second Ator movie (The Blademaster) is a minor improvement over its predecessor. I didn\u2019t see the other two. I would have like to have seen an Ator movie in which Schwarzenegger and Marc Singer (The Beastmaster) show up and take down that bonehead for good. That\u2019s what I would call justice, sword-and-sorcery style!\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ator, The Fighting Eagle (1982)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Comworld Pictures\/Action-Adventure-Fantasy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 92 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (violence, mild sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Joe D\u2019Amato (as \u201cDavid Hills\u201d)\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Joe D\u2019Amato (as \u201cDavid Hills) and Jose Maria Sanchez (as \u201cSherry Russel\u201d)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Carlo Maria Cordio\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Federico Slonisco (Joe D\u2019Amato)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 1983 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Starring: Miles O\u2019Keeffe, Sabrina Siani, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11448,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-sci-fi-fantasy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Ator-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11411"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11450,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11411\/revisions\/11450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}