{"id":1471,"date":"2024-08-01T02:06:27","date_gmt":"2024-08-01T02:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=1471"},"modified":"2024-10-14T11:26:50","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T15:26:50","slug":"deathstalker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/01\/deathstalker\/","title":{"rendered":"Deathstalker"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Deathstalker <\/strong>(1983)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World Pictures\/Fantasy-Action-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 79 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (graphic violence, rape, lots of nudity, sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: James Sbardellati (as \u201cJohn Watson\u201d)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Howard R. Cohen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Oscar Cardozo Ocampo\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Leonardo Rodriguez Solis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 1983 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Rick Hill, Barbi Benton, Richard Brooker, Lana Clarkson, Victor Bo, Bernard Erhard, Augusto Larreta (as \u201cAugust Larreta\u201d), Veronica Llinas (as \u201cLillian Ker\u201d), Marcos Woinsky, Adrian De Piero, Jorge Sorvik (as \u201cGeorge Sorvik\u201d).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $11.9M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0The tagline for the sword-and-sorcery cheapie Deathstalker<\/strong> could have read \u201cMade in Argentina where life is cheap…. and filmmaking is cheaper!\u201d 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\u2019s no wonder they were so popular with teen boys at video stores.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As a teen, I LOVED S&S movies. It started with Excalibur in \u201981 and really took off with Conan the Barbarian and The Sword and the Sorcerer the following year. It didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I didn\u2019t get to see Deathstalker<\/strong> at the movies because it didn\u2019t open in any theaters near me. It was an all too familiar song in my youth. I could never convince anybody with a driver\u2019s 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\u2019t impressed then and I\u2019m still not.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Rick 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\u2019ll be endowed with something called \u201cThe Power\u201d 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\u2019s wielding it impervious to harm or death. With his curse lifted, he joins Deathstalker on his journey.<\/p>\n

\u00a0En route to the kingdom, Deathstalker meets another traveler, Oghris (Brooker, Friday the 13th<\/sup> Part 3), who tells him about a tournament being held by Munkar to determine who will inherit his kingdom. He\u2019s invited all the mightiest warriors in the land to take part. It\u2019s the perfect way for Deathstalker to sneak in and steal the other two magical objects from Munkar. They\u2019re joined a little later by a sexy female warrior named Kaira (Clarkson, Barbarian Queen). Apparently, the idea of \u201cwardrobe malfunction\u201d began with her, not Janet Jackson. She goes around with her boobs hanging out almost the whole time she\u2019s on-screen. Not that there\u2019s anything wrong with that.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Once they arrive at their destination, they\u2019re 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\u2019t intend to hand his kingdom over to anybody. He has something else in mind with the tournament, something nefarious.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 No matter how you slice it, Deathstalker<\/strong> is a bad movie. It almost makes Ator look like a cinematic classic. Calm down, I said almost<\/em>. It\u2019s 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 \u201cJohn Watson\u201d) 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!).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Despite all this, I don\u2019t hate Deathstalker<\/strong>. Quite the opposite actually. This is one of those so-bad-it\u2019s-good movies. At times, it\u2019s positively laughable. Take the scene near the end where Deathstalker drops his sword into a pit. This is where we learn \u201cThe Power\u201d and \u201cThe Force\u201d 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\u2019s missing is a disembodied voice saying, \u201cUse the Power, Deathstalker.\u201d BTW, is this Deathstalker guy any relation to Yor? There\u2019s certainly a strong resemblance.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I don\u2019t 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\u2019s just a theory, one supported by the fact that Hill can\u2019t act to save his life. Ordinarily, this would be a bad thing, but it actually works in the movie\u2019s favor in this particular case. Cheap S&S exploitation movies like Deathstalker<\/strong> 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<\/sup> 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!<\/p>\n

\u00a0There are more boobs in Deathstalker<\/strong> than the average issue of Playboy. Nudity appears to be its raison d\u2019etre<\/em>. I\u2019d be lying if I said I don\u2019t appreciate a nice body. HOWEVER, I\u2019m more interested in graphic violence, something that\u2019s not missing in Deathstalker<\/strong>. The hero loves to decapitate his opponents. A few heads fly through the air and roll on the ground. There\u2019s 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\u2019s arm off and beats him to death with it. Oh, I forgot to mention that guy. He\u2019s a hulking monster with a pig head and human body. This is one crazy fantasy world!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Like I said, Deathstalker<\/strong> 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\u2019s 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\u2019s a Roger Corman production. Those five words exonerate Deathstalker<\/strong> of any and all perceived crimes against cinema.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deathstalker (1983)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World Pictures\/Fantasy-Action-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 79 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (graphic violence, rape, lots of nudity, sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: James Sbardellati (as \u201cJohn Watson\u201d)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Howard R. Cohen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Oscar Cardozo Ocampo\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Leonardo Rodriguez Solis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 1983 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Rick Hill, Barbi Benton, Richard Brooker, Lana Clarkson, Victor Bo, Bernard Erhard, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1602,"comment_status":"open","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-1471","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\/2024\/08\/Deathstalker-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\/1471","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=1471"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2028,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471\/revisions\/2028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}