Welcome to B-Movie Enema, my friends! This month, we’re kind of setting aside time to cover two things. The first will be sequels to other movies we’ve covered in the past. The second is to cover the first movie and subsequent sequel in a series that I’ve been looking forward to dealing with for some time. It’s the latter that we are dealing with this week and the final week of June.

Hot off the heels of two quite successful sword and sorcery films in 1982, Conan the Barbarian (grossing somewhere near $80 million on a $20 million budget) and The Sword and Sorcerer (grossing around $40 million on a much more economic $4 million budget), audiences were hot for these types of movies. It’s kind of funny that the early 80s saw the rise in three distinct genres: fantasy, which sword and sorcery falls right smack-dab in the middle of, science fiction, thanks to Star Wars, and ninja action films. I think it’s safe to say that the fantasy genre lost the battle relatively quickly. More on that in just a moment.

It was thanks to Conan the Barbarian and The Sword and the Sorcerer that this week’s movie, Deathstalker, was made and was a modest hit, bringing in nearly $12 million against a $457,000 budget. This was brought to screens by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures. This was the first of ten international co-productions with Argentina. I’m not being facetious here, but I can’t name any other U.S.-Argentina co-productions. But this was definitely Roger Corman doing Roger Corman things. He quickly jumped on the fantasy trend and loaded this full of tits.

God, I love Roger Corman.

It’s kind of funny because the Roger Corman of it all, the limited budget, the tits (you get it), really offer the main reasons for both positive and negative reviews. Contemporary reviews were probably mostly negative, but The Los Angeles Times kind of praised it for being what it was, a sort of funny and silly romp in a kind of silly genre. Today, there is a single review from a critic on Rotten Tomatoes, but… guess what! It’s positive! It’s the audience scores that seem to kind of trash this movie. I guess people don’t like titties on RT. When we get to the sequel later on this month, we’ll see where the series kind of shines best.

So, yeah, this was a fairly decent success for that Corman deal with Argentina. The breakout star of this movie is Lana Clarkson who is a warrior lady who wears only a cloak and thong panties. She’s tits out for almost the entire movie and that’s just swell. But she would go on to be the titular Barbarian Queen in two films, the first of which was one of the other Argentine co-productions. Between Deathstalker, Deathstalker II, and Barbarian Queen between 1983 and 1987, the deal between Corman and the South American country produced four more fantasy films – The Warrior and the Sorceress (1984), Wizards of the Lost Kingdom (1985), Amazons (1986), and Stormquest (1987). Only Amazons is listed as being just a straight fantasy with the others falling more in line with the sword and sorcery subgenre.

The great thing about these types of movies, though, are the promotional art. I mean look at this poster…

Isn’t that just one of the loveliest posters you’ve ever seen? That poster was done by Boris Vallejo. Vallejo is still with us, and has done a bunch of cool as posters from this to Barbarian Queen to the first two Vacation films to Q, the Winged Serpent, to even the first Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. Vallejo is a contemporary of Frank Frazetta. The two are often compared because of their contributions to media like posters and covers to books. They also would, from time to time, share characters that they would both draw for different projects. Vallejo would also produce the posters for each of the Deathstalker sequels.

Our lead in this film, Rick Hill, is kind of an interesting guy. He has several credits to his name, but ultimately stopped acting around 20 years ago. With a buff physique fit for this type of role, you’d think he was a stuntman, but… not really. He did stunts in a couple movies, but he was an actor. He appeared on several television shows as a guest star, including my all-time favorite, Cheers, and had bit parts in a lot of movies, but nothing huge. As was the case with each Deathstalker film, he would be replaced as the lead in the next film. Hill did end up becoming a bestselling author when he co-wrote the 2000 book Pete Rose: My Prison without Bars with the baseball great. Much more recently, he wrote another biography, The Apostle: The Miraculous Journey of Dr. G.B. Espy, about an admired humanitarian and OB-GYN.

Deathstalker also reunites this blog with Barbi Benton, the star of a movie that I am inexplicably drawn into each and every time I begin watching any moment of it – X-Ray (aka Hospital Massacre).

As I mentioned previously, the fantasy genre would be the biggest loser of the rise of that, sci-fi, and ninja action films from the early 80s. It was squeezed out by the richness and variety of big budget sci-fi movies on one side and the lower budget, but quick profit (thanks to cable and video stores), mass production of action films. The fantasy genre is a difficult genre to really offer a lot of variety. Normally, it can be boiled down to the same archetypes in characters and the same plots that usually involve an evil king who is, or in league with, a dark wizard of some sort. I’m being incredibly reductive, but I think it requires people who are really good fantasy writers to do something more. The problem then becomes that if you have a lush story idea, you gotta fork over a big budget, and there aren’t many studios willing to bet the farm on brutes and wizards and sexy warrior ladies.

But speaking of brutes, wizards, and sexy warrior ladies, let’s do the thing for this movie and go on an adventure!

As the credits play, some guys in ragged clothes and carrying swords, axes, etc. start wandering through the misty, foggy landscape of a stone garden or cemetery or something. Anyway, they appear to be sneaking up on a man who is just kind of chilling with a girl. But, of course, because this is a medieval type of story with warriors and wizards and warlords and shit, it appears that the girl is either a captive, a slave, or generally just no longer feeling this relationship she has with this dude she’s with.

I hate to break it to this babe-wench, but the guys sneaking up on her and this dude aren’t probably going to be much better for her. They seem extra dirty and bearded. In fact, a few of these dudes even look like monsters? Anyway, as the guy appears to maybe start having his way with the tied up girl, the ugly dudes finally make themselves known to the captor. He first tries to bargain with the raiding party, but he has to take off running. One of the raiders is left behind with the captive babe-wench, and, after sizing up her looks, just guess for a quick second what he’s deciding to do. Just… Just take a second to think. Time’s up. The monster looking dude with the raiders decides to make off with the girl for probable raping and what have you.

I should also mention that at the three minute mark, we already see this poor girl’s boob as she gets manhandled by the raider monster dude.

Anyway… The captor is still running away from the rest of the raiding party. He leads them through this stone garden or cemetery or fog forest or… I have no idea what this place is. It like a place where a bunch of stones are put, some are carved into faces and others appear to almost be like headstones or above-ground stone tombs/graves. However, it also just seems like a wooded area. It also is loaded with fog. It’s actually kind of difficult to see much. But, let’s not worry about that right now. The captor sees a horse he might be able to make off with to get away from the raiders, but, uh oh… That horse belongs to the motherfuckin’ Deathstalker!

Deathstalker makes it very clear to the captor that he’s not going to let him take the horse. Just then the rest of the raiding party shows up. The monster dudes say their fight is not with Deathstalker. They just want the captor and the captive babe-wench. Deathstalker has none of this shit. He almost single-handedly kills all the raiders. After doing so, the captor tells Deathstalker that he took some treasures and the girl from the town. Bargaining with Deathstalker, he says he’ll share with him. When Deathstalker approaches he then says Deathstalker can take it all.

Deathstalker says he intends to and then kills the captor. Now, in conventional movies or tales of heroic do-goodery, you’d think Deathstalker will return the treasures and fee the girl. Well… He does free the girl, but instantly starts honking her boobs. She seems to be somewhat pleased that this buff warrior is taking such an interest in her boobs. But, and I think it important here to understand our hero, he’s not said a single word directly to this girl. He just honks her boobs, and starts making out with her. He’s about to fuck her too, but that’s when an old man interrupts him to speak to him. As he tells the old man to wait for him to be done with this babe-wench, the girl sneaks off. Deathstalker quips that it doesn’t seem to be his day.

Okay, so let’s talk about this one more time. Deathstalker does kill the captor and frees the babe-wench, right? Those acts range from somewhat heroic to pretty heroic. Great! But then he is going to steal the treasures stolen by the captor. Eh… Now we’re getting a little morally ambiguous. He then decides, without saying a single word to the babe-wench, to fuck that babe-wench because, apparently, killing all those nasty raider dudes (another decent thing because they were pretty ugly and seemed diseased or something) gives him a raging hard-on to the point that he cannot communicate with members of the fairer sex. That’s… That’s not heroic. It’s actually quite villainous.

At least the babe-wench got away.

Alright, time to get to the meat and potatoes of what this movie will ultimately be about. That old man was sent to summon Deathstalker to speak with a king who was dethroned by his magician, Munkar. Deathstalker says that he knows of Munkar. In fact, he heard that Munkar, with a waive of his hand, defeated an entire army sent to battle the king’s men. The King is desperate. He says that an army is not what needs to be sent to win back his kingdom, but a single hero. Now, we know what kind of “hero” (at least in terms of the narrative purposes for this movie) Deathstalker is, and, at least, Deathstalker is willing to say that he thinks heroes and fools are basically one in the same. The King says that he would be happy to give Deathstalker a place to live where he no longer has to live like an outlaw. Deathstalker kind of scoffs at that. Besides, the King doesn’t have much of anything currently to give him. The King says that his daughter has even been taken.

Still, Deathstalker opts out of the plan to help the King.

Speaking of Princess Cordille, that’s Barbi Benton. She’s been taken to a room that Munkar keeps all his naked bitches in. It kind of reminds me of the scene in Flash Gordon when Ming decides to keep Dale Arden and puts her in his harem room? You know what I’m talking about? It looks pretty plush. This one isn’t quite as plush, but it still seems fairly well-decorated with naked and scantily-clad lady bitches.

Anyway, that was just a quick little interlude so that we can meet the King’s daughter. She seems fairly feisty.

Meanwhile, Kang, the general of Munkar’s army, and possible main villain of upcoming Marvel movies, is leading a party to retrieve some sort of magical sword. He attempts to shake down an old witch for this sword. She fights Kang off while Deathstalker comes to dispatch the rest of the party. Kang is able to escape thanks to an amulet that he wears turning him into a hawk.

Here’s another plot bit here. The old witch tells Deathstalker that there are three items that must be reunited. These are like super old or super powerful things that, if recombined, will maybe fix the world or something. It’s a lot of fantasy gobbledygook if I’m being completely honest. Kang the Conqueror has the amulet. The second item is a sword. The third item that he must also retrieve is a chalice. I guess this old witch is Deathstalker’s friend because he’s pretty much in for this quest. I mean fuck that old man and his daughter and the entire kingdom that’s being run by an evil sorcerer. This shit is what he wants to do. I guess everyone else should feel lucky that capturing these three items and defeating Munkar kind of intersect.

Deathstalker heads off. I kind of feel like the old witch didn’t really need him to do this. The reason why is that Deathstalker, within moments, decides to stop to get a drink of water in a brook. Right behind him is a cave. Inside that cave is a little imp guy. That imp apparently is the keeper of the Sword of Justice. When Deathstalker is attacked by an ogre, the imp tosses him the Sword of Justice to defeat the ogre. The imp, named Salmaron, was cursed by Munkar. With the help of the sword, Deathstalker can lift that curse. But in order to do so, Deathstalker had to be turned into a little kid, but when they get out of the cave and Salmaron falls into the brook, he is turned back to a person and Deathstalker is made into an adult again.

Do not even bother asking me why that had to happen.

Suddenly the movie realizes that Deathstalker isn’t exactly that heroic or charismatic. Salmaron tells him that he needs allies to defeat Munkar, but he also has to be very careful in who he chooses as an ally. That’s when we meet Oghris. He’s a pretty decent dude and a charmer. As Oghris tries saving a girl taken by thugs and toughs, Deathstalker comes to assist. They kill everyone (this movie already has an impressive body count), and Oghris asks if Deathstalker is headed to a tournament where all the best warriors are gathering to probably kill each other.

The tournament is to bestow the greatest power in all of the land – to be named Munkar’s heir. Deathstalker says that’s not much of a prize. As we learned earlier, Munkar cannot die. What use of an heir would he have?

That night, Deathstalker and Oghris have set up camp, and they are nearly robbed by a hooded figure. This figure and Oghris have a duel. It’s soon revealed that this figure in the hood is a lady. And, remember earlier when I said there’s a character in this movie that wears only a thong and a robe? Here she is! This is Kaira. She’s quite the swordslady. However, right now I am just trying to figure out how much sense it makes to have a lady fighting knockers out.

Deathstalker invites Kaira to join the party on the way to the tournament. He also kind of likes the idea of having this babe around. She likes the idea of him being around too.

Back at Munkar’s pad, there’s some food brought to the harem girls. Princess Cordille is too late to get an apple or a turkey leg. To make us wonder if there’s anybody to like in this movie, she throws a fit about her not getting anything. To make matters worse, she snatches a turkey leg from some other poor girl and eats it bitchily in front of the other girls who all kind of just look at her like, “What’s up with this bitch?” Elsewhere, Munkar has plucked a boy’s eye out and uses it for some sort of magic thing. Just take a look at this moment in the movie.

First of all, we went from Barbi Benton being a jerk to the other girls in the harem room to a smash cut of a closeup of that kid with his eye out. At first, I thought Barbi Benton was eating something taken off the kid. I know that’s kind of impossible to be the case because she had a turkey leg and he’s missing an eye. Of course, I know that can’t be the same. But it’s kind of a visceral cut from her eating to that kid missing his eye so it almost makes you think the two things are connected. But get a load of Munkar. That’s a hell of a wizard design there. Bald, goatee, head and face tattoo… That’s great! All the thought and attention went to Munkar. He just looks like a bad ass bad guy.

While Munkar is notified by one of his goons that Deathstalker is camped right outside his city, Deathstalker and Kaira go to town with each other by the campfire. First of all, Salmaron is awake. Second of all, Oghris is probably trying to not be awake. Third of all, is it smart to have a campfire that close to Munkar’s city? Is that how that goon found him so he can tell Munkar that Deathstalker is right outside the city? Oh fuck it.

The next day, inside the castle, Munkar’s men are having a shindig where they are sitting around feasting and drinking. A number of Munkar’s harm girls are also part of the party and celebrations. They’re mud wrestling and getting manhandled by the men and so on. There’s one guy at this feast that is awesome looking. He’s got a pig head. Now, I know ogres and imps are a thing in this world. Also those raiders at the beginning of the movie were more or less monsters. Is this an actual pig man or is it a man who used a pig’s head as a mask? He’s checking out the pig’s head that is part of the feast and wants to eat it. Is he a cannibal pig man? I don’t know and I don’t think I care. He looks freaking awesome.

Another random thought I had about this scene that I had was what did this scene cost to set dress, to bring actors in, and to film? I feel like this is the money shot of the movie. The action scenes have been bare minimum so those don’t look super expensive. This scene, that pig man, and the general setup of this scene feels expensive for a movie that barely cost $450,000. You know, if this was a big budget movie made in this decade, this would have been the scene shot with IMAX cameras for you to go see at an AMC.

Also I want to live in a world where Deathstalker was a big budget movie that had scenes, this one in particular, shot for IMAX.

I do also want to give some credit where it is due to Lana Clarkson. Is she tits out a bunch of the time during this movie (or at least very close)? Sure. However, she actually looks really good as a bad ass warrior woman. She’s not some blonde bimbo in this movie. She can both talk the talk and walk the walk of someone who you maybe don’t want to fuck with. For example, she’s at this debaucherously crazy party with women being groped and messed with the whole time and it doesn’t look like she’s fought off a single person. In fact, she pushes a girl away from Deathstalker and practically marks him as her territory. She’s kind of a bad ass.

She does finally have her limit at this party. Munkar comes out to welcome the combatants for the tournament. He gives the spiel about how he’s going to die someday and he wants to know who will rule after he’s gone and whether or not it’s for good or evil. He also announces he’s going to marry the Princess. He basically leaves her to be messed with by all the soldiers and such. Kaira decides to free her. Deathstalker only gets involved when she is pulled away from where the Princess is chained up. Deathstalker frees the Princess and plans to leave with her, despite Kaira being a little pissed at him having some sexy fun times with her. Munkar reminds Deathstalker that she’s his, but he’ll send her to his room after the party is over.

Later, Munkar reveals that there will be no such thing as an heir. Whoever wins the tournament will be killed and Munkar will retain all his power uninterrupted. As for Deathstalker, he needs to be killed tonight. Munkar assigns his goon to deal with this. The goon says that he’ll get some guards and do the deed. Munkar has another idea. He wants this to be a true sneak attack. He turns his goon into a copy of Princess Codille. He gives his fake princess a knife and instructs her to kill Deathstalker without the sword in his hand. The fake princess slips up and is overpowered. Deathstalker decides to try to tame the “Princess” forcefully with his dick. That’s when he realizes it’s a ruse and sends the fake Princess away.

Outside the room, Kaira finds the fake Princess and plans to help her escape and get some clothing. Funny, Kaira is back to wearing just her thong and robe. When the goon transforms back to his male version, they fight. The goon wounds Kaira before she kills him. Deathstalker finds her but she dies.

The next day, the tournament begins and it’s a lot of typical gladiator style battles. A lot of people just fighting with different weapons in an arena. People get stabbed. People get brained by a guy who carries a giant wooden mallet. I mean it, there’s one guy he kills who gets a bunch of bloody and brainy bits on the guy’s hammer. Oghris wins his duel and seems an early favorite to win the tournament. However, later, he’s tied to a torture device, but is eventually freed by Munkar. You see, Oghris was working with Munkar this whole time. He purposely befriended Deathstalker to bring him to the tournament where Munkar could both kill him and take the Sword of Justice.

Deathstalker knows of this betrayal and when Oghris tries to convince Deathstalker to leave or possibly be killed, the two fight. In order to kill Deathstalker, he must do so, again, without Deathstalker holding the sword. The Sword of Justice makes him invincible. Just as Oghris is about to get the sword, Deathstalker snaps his neck. One of the harem girls that took a shine to Oghris, and he to her, watches on while Deathstalker does this. I kept waiting for her to actually try to stop Deathstalker or possible wound him or something. Nope. That’s because this movie does some things, from time to time, that aren’t normal movie things. We just get to see her reaction, but why should we care? She’s the woman of the guy who betrayed our main character.

The next day, Deathstalker basically works his way to the finals against the pig man. It’s a pretty good battle. It’s not over quickly. Even as Deathstalker kind of slices into the pig man’s side with his super special neat sword, he still has to work a bit against this beast. Whenever it becomes a hand-to-hand battle, Deathstalker is outmatched.

At this point, we’re left with Deathstalker now needing to obtain the Amulet of Life and the Chalice of Magic. While he tries to figure out how to get those items, there’s a bit of a revolt in the harem. You see, Salmaron hasn’t really been part of the movie for a bit. That’s because he was caught sneaking around. When he escaped the guards, he fell down a shaft and landed in the harem room where he’s been making friends. Between Salmaron and Princess Cordille, they girls fight back against Munkar’s men.

Kang finally returns. He’s sent after Deathstalker to get the sword, but even with him using the amulet to lure Deathstalker, he’s not quite as tough as Deathstalker, so he ends up losing his head and the amulet. Now, Deathstalker and Munkar have to face off. Munkar uses his magic to put Deathstalker out into the courtyard where the tournament was and uses duplicates of himself to confuse Deathstalker. In fact, Deathstalker even nearly kills Princess Cordille when she shows up to lend emotional sexy support.

It sems as though that maybe the Chalice of Magic is more powerful than the other two combined. I mean, the illusions are making him think the sword is heavy and burning him. It requires the old witch to come as a vision to tell him that he can’t let the illusions become fear. Munkar tells him that the power comes from him and therefore he’ll always have that power over Deathstalker and everyone else. Deathstalker tells him that he doesn’t want the power, only to rid the world of him.

By overcoming that desire, he’s able to take the chalice from Munkar. He opines that these powers in these items have ruined men for far too long. He destroys the objects and turns Munkar over to the slaves of the town who basically tear him apart. And that’s it! Deathstalker wins. But kind of wins by rejection of the powers that come with the items. I guess the King is going to get his kingdom back. I’m guessing Deathstalker is going to absolutely plow Barbi Benton into the ground. I guess things are going to be pretty a-okay from here on out.

I know I spent a lot of time taking shots at the movie, but, honestly, it’s pretty decent mindless action entertainment. You get fights. You get boobs. Just about everyone in this movie is flawed, so don’t come here looking for people to look up to on how to be a hero or a leader, but what do you want? It’s a dumb fantasy sword and sorcery movie. I absolutely see where people can both adore and dislike this movie. I am positive this became a classic on cable. It’s unlikely it could have been shown on anything outside of HBO, Cinemax, or what have you. Maybe it got some play on USA Up All Night or something, but there’s a lot of nudity that would make it kind of hard to edit around. Still, I’m guessing a lot of teens in the late 80s and early 90s latched onto the just casual nudity that would pop up.

We’re going to revisit the Deathstalker character at the end of the month. Next time, we need to go back to cop school. It’s been long overdue for another series that excelled on cable throughout the 90s. Yup, we’re going to check back in with Ginger Lynn and Linnea Quigley with 1990’s Vice Academy 2!