Welcome to the final B-Movie Enema article for June!

So we spent a lot of time this month catching up with sequels to movies I’ve covered before. We started June with introducing ourselves to a series I’ve wanted to dive into for a while – Deathstalker. In the interest of keeping up with the whole point of this month, we’re going to round things out with Deathstalker II. If you think this is going to just be more of the same from the first film, well, you’ll be surprised to hear it isn’t. This is actually more of a comedy.

There could be multiple reasons why this sequel, that came four years after the original that was a success, decided to go this route. First of all, this was the final sword and sorcery film made in the Roger Corman-Argentinian deal. (To find out more about that, hit that link the paragraph above to read the review of that first film.) Honestly, the window had closed on these types of fantasy films by 1987. So why not try doing something a little different? Maybe wink and nod at the audience that these movies are kind of silly. Bringing Jim Wynorski in as director of this sequel certainly changes the mood. Wynorski’s pretty good at infusing a little bit of cheeky self-deprecation into his films. But then also the film was fairly low budget.

Now, the biggest change is quite obvious. Rick Hill was replaced as Deathstalker for John Terlesky who is most notably featured in Wynorski’s Chopping Mall. Terlesky is a much more relaxed type of actor in both his kind of smarmy, yet charming, attitude, but also not exactly built quite the same way as Hill. Maybe think of him as a little more like a Chris Pine type of actor.

Joining him in this is beauty Monique Gabrielle. She was a Penthouse Pet of the Month in 1982. She had a lot of bit parts early on before around 1984 when she started getting more named roles. By 1987, she would start becoming a B-movie queen of the era. She would work quite often with Wyrnorski and Fred Olen Ray. She’s since retired from making films and appearing on TV. Finally, we have John LaZar who has been in movies all over B-Movie Enema, but maybe none more important than as Z-Man in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

Sure enough the movie starts on a kind of odd note. It starts with the castle on the cliff in a thunderstorm that was often seen in Roger Corman movies and I think even appeared in a few Wynorski films too. We see Deathstalker sneaking around with a babe who he kisses and sends off while he goes to look at a treasure that he plans to steal. Right away this is a very different character. He’s less a barbarian warrior and more of a rogue. While Deathstalker said in the original that he would steal to survive, most of the time it seemed like he just bullied stuff from people, like how he dealt with the babe-wench’s captor in that film’s opening action scene. Here, it seems like he’s Han Solo stealing shit from tombs to ultimately sell off at pawn shops to get by.

He takes a jewel out of the box he was poking around in and some guys that look like ninjas with swords come out and try killing him. He kills a few but also kind of toys with them a little bit too. He even does the Han Solo thing where he runs down a hallway but has to run back the other direction because a bunch of ninjas are coming toward him. Eventually, he does get away but not before an evil babe comes down a hallway with a couple ninjas and watch Deathstalker ride off. She turns to her goons and tells them, “Don’t worry. I’ll have my revenge… and Deathstalker too!”

Then it shows the Deathstalker II title card. Brilliant.

I’ve heard this opening scene compared to something like a fake scene where it looks like something legitimate but turns out to be a movie set. It has that feeling. It feels like we’re watching something fake. I think this was specifically put in, and maybe by Wynorski who seems to have done some uncredited writing on this movie’s script, to set that tone. This isn’t medieval Deathstalker so much as it is this other guy and he’s a rogue and, dammit, ain’t he charming and, gosh darn it, isn’t this fun?

After the credits we meet the lovely Reena the Seer, played by Monique Gabrielle. Reena’s being tossed out of an establishment. She says that where she’s from, the lord of the region would be happy to hear that his wife is with child. The guards who’ve dumped her into the dirt out front basically tell her to beat cheeks. I think she might also be a bit of a scoundrel that fakes her talents to rip people off from town to town. When she says these guys will be sorry for throwing her out because she’s a princess, they say she’s the princess of beggars. Sick burn.

Deathstalker comes along to stop the guards from roughing Reena up. What’s funny is that his name is Deathstalker and that tends to mean that he would be dealing out death. The guy in the first movie sure dealt out a lot of death. In this, it’s way toned down. He uses a shovel in a bucket of dirt to blind the guards before dealing out a little bit of a beating. This forces the guards to run off humiliated. Come on, Deathstalker! Stalk that death!

He goes into a tavern, and guess who’s there!

The pig man from the first movie! Yeah, this movie is cutting corners. It’s lit more like a low budget movie, even though the first film was a seriously low budget movie. The sets don’t look medieval. They look very much constructed. The film also reuses stuff from the first movie like insert shots of some of the naked women entertaining people at the tournament pre-party and the pig dude. It’s a little shameless, but, you know what? It’s also a little charming. If you can’t afford good looking set decoration, and you can maybe reuse some of the stuff from the first, who cares. That pig guy, I guarantee, is the best looking thing in any of the four Deathstalker movies.

Deathstalker is romancing a couple ladies and inviting him upstairs to his room at the inn. Reena comes in and begs to talk to him. He tells her his policy is only one rescue a day. Clearly this is a different character all together because the first movie’s Deathstalker didn’t want to save anyone. When she starts getting roughed up again by guards, a barfight breaks out. He also can’t seem to overpower anyone either. Original Deathstalker would have killed everyone in this town if given the chance.

Don’t take that as me being particularly down on this movie or Terlesky being cast in this much lighter version of a sword and sorcery movie. This does have a much more friendly vibe to it that ramps up the more high adventure elements with him escaping a castle and now a horse chase with Reena to get away from the barfight.

Okay, he and the girl take off on horseback to get away from the pissed off people back at the inn. She introduces herself as Evie, not as Reena. He tells her that his name is Deathstalker and that he’s in the wealth redistribution game. She asks if he robs from the rich to give to the poor. He says he robs from the rich and pretty much keeps it for himself. Again, and I don’t want to keep coming back to this point, I really do think Deathstalker is a title more than anything. He’s not like this at all in the previous entry. So, let’s try this on for size… Deathstalker is a title that is given in replace of a name by the guild he works for. Then, it’s passed down. Sometimes you get beefy guys like in the first movie and sometimes you get skinner guys who seem to be more apt at thievery. He even refers to himself as “the Prince of Thieves”.

Once they escape the guards, they stop to get food that she cooks and is apparently bad. She then tells Deathstalker that she can read the future. She tells him of a princess being held captive by an evil sorcerer named Jarek. She says they have to go to the kingdom of Jzafir to battle Jarek and save the princess. If they do, he’ll be well rewarded. She says it will make Deathstalker a legend right up there with Conan. Knowing there is a reward to be had, Deathstalker is ready now to go on this adventure.

In Jzafir, Jarek is wasting guards by doing some sword fighting practice. He’s talking to Princess Evie. But… Wait! Princess Evie looks like Reena the Seer, who also says her name is Evie. What gives?!? Well, Jarek made an evil duplicate of Evie and installed her as his puppet ruler of Jzafir. Evil Evie wants Good Evie dead. However, Jarek can’t do that because the spell that created the evil clone is not perfected. If Good Evie dies, Evil Evie dies too.

He’s then visited by Sultana, the luscious babe from earlier who dropped the title into her first line of dialog. She apparently helped Jarek create the clone. She has no problem Jarek having Good Evie so the clone can be perfected, but she wants Deathstalker for herself. Jarek, being kind of slimy and she being kind of no-nonsense in how she carries herself, isn’t really in a position to piss this lady off so he agrees to giving her Deathstalker.

She goes to meet this pirate goon of Jarek’s who’s been following Deathstalker. Sultana wants to know what he’s doing to try to deliver Deathstalker to her. He has total confidence that he’ll get him. She’s not so sure. He says he’s got the best gang of hitmen to help him do his thing. This includes an entire cast of baddies that have worked for all of the worst madmen, butchers, and barbaric conquerors throughout history… and a little person who is the worst of them all. This doesn’t entirely inspire that much confidence in Sultana.

They get to work fast. They use exploding arrows to try to stop Deathstalker and Good Evie. But they really need to be careful. Sultana wants to kill Deathstalker herself and Evil Evie will die if Good Evie is killed. Deathstalker surmises that if these goons wanted to kill them, they would have way back down the road. He thinks Evie is holding out on him. Single-handedly, Deathstalker sneaks up on and kills each of the hitmen. One, I guess he is going to do the killing thing. Two, I guess Chin’s guys suck.

When Chin reports back to Jarek that it’s bad news and that the hitmen were unsuccessful, Jarek does the typical bad guy thing and kills his own henchman.

While Deathstalker and Good Evie raid a crypt to level up their money, I do want to say something about Monique Gabrielle. I’m not so sure she’s that bad of an actress. I mean, she’s bad in this, but it’s almost charmingly bad. Wynorski said that it was a little bit more difficult to get the Good Evie out of her performance. She was a little more attuned to being the evil version of her character. I think he’s being kind that she’s doing great with the lighter, comedic side of her performance. That said, I do also think that a lot of what Wynorski’s made in his career tends to tip toward over the top and campy performances.

I’ve once said about Wynorski’s stuff that I feel like he’s enamored with an older style of movie, and particularly older style comedy. He enjoys camp. He enjoys big reaction and characters to be a little more arch in their character types. Deathstalker is overly confident and almost comes off as that smiling, Errol Flynn style swashbuckling hero. Monique Gabrielle plays almost cartoonishly in how she speaks her lines. She’s not that bad with timing her delivery. But there is a weird tone to her voice that almost comes off like she’s unsure about what she’s saying and if it’s how she’s truly feeling. I’ve seen other things she’s been in. It’s a little bit better in other things, but she still has a particular tone of voice and cadence in her speech that does come off like a poor performance.

But yet it is also endearing to this silly sequel that doesn’t feel anything like the first movie it’s sequelizing.

Anyway, when Deathstalker and Good Evie get separated while he’s inside the tomb to get the riches from the dead people inside, he’s contacted by Jarek. While Jarek and Deathstalker trade introductions, Good Evie watches corpses rise from their graves. After Jarek’s astral projection fades, Jarek reveals that he’s booby trapped the tomb to have a wall of spikes crush him. He gets through a grate in the ceiling. Just before she is completely surrounded by zombies, Deathstalker drops down and saves her and they are able to get away.

This movie somehow has everything and nothing all at once. It’s got sexy babes. It’s got zombies. It’s got Z-Man from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. It’s got footage from other movies. It’s got a little person hitman. It’s got a different Deathstalker. It’s also taking its sweet ass time getting to much more than just some action set pieces.

Back with Evil Evie, she seems to have some corporeal issues going on as she watches her hand fade before coming back. She calls for her pig guy guards, almost like Jabba’s pig guards, and they bring in a young boy and call him dinner. It cuts away and we hear him scream and what sounds like ripping flesh. I think she has to eat people to keep from disappearing.

Deathstalker starts to consider those hitmen and the zombies and tries to figure out if these various video game character villains know they are traveling to Jzafir. She plays it off as it being coincidence. The next morning, Deathstalker and Good Evie get captured by Amazons. The Amazon Queen thinks she recognizes Evie as Princess Evie, the Demon Princess, who steals their men and raids their camps. She convinces the Amazon Queen that she’s Reena the Seer, so she’s technically free to leave. As for Deathstalker, he’s to be put on trial for his crimes against womanhood. He’s to have a trial by combat where he will battle the Queen’s champion, Gorgo.

Of course Gorgo is a giant lady.

While credited as “Queen Kong” for this movie, Gorgo was played by Dee Booher. She was famous for being Matilda the Hun in the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling in the late 80s. She actually started as a mud wrestler known as Queen Kong. She often did stunt work or other things that involved wrestling. Sadly, Booher died in January 2022 at the age of 73 after years of suffering from lupus, peripheral neuropathy, and spinal deterioration that came from her wrestling career.

Deathstalker does eventually defeat Gorgo in the 15th round of his fight to the death. However, disgusted by the Queen and the other Amazons chanting to kill Gorgo, Deathstalker tells the Amazon Queen to kill Gorgo herself and walks out victorious. After the battle, Deathstalker tells Good Evie that he’s pretty upset at her for not being truthful to him.

Meanwhile, Jarek thinks he has a breakthrough for Evil Evie. He duplicated a peasant and had the copy drink this elixir he came up with. He then has Evil Evie kill the original and the elixir works meaning Jarek doesn’t need to keep the original Evie alive to keep his version of her alive.

Deathstalker starts making out with the Amazon Queen which forces Evie to leave the Amazon camp and be done with him. Deathstalker decides to hightail it out of the camp himself when he learns that the Amazon Queen plans for them to be married. It’s a good thing he goes after Evie because she’s captured by Sultana to find out where Deathstalker is. He arrives in time to kill Sultana and save Evie before she drops into a vat of bubbling acid or water or tar or something.

Sultana’s body is taken to Jarek who uses the magic of a strobe light to revive her. I always knew strobe lights were magical devices. The bad news, though, is that after he revives her, Jarek makes out and plays grab the melons with Sultana while Evil Evie, unbeknownst to either of the wizards, watches and seethes.

Later, Deathstalker and Evie sneak into the castle. He’s captured by Jarek. When Evie tries to escape back into the forest, she’s tackled by some of the guards who rip her clothes off and plan to rape her until the Amazons arrive to save her and provide backup. Sultana plans to kill Deathstalker with a swinging axe. However, Evil Evie’s pig guards turn off the pendulum and take him to her.

While they fuck, she starts to growl and plans to eat him, but Good Evie knocks her evil version out and saves Deathstalker and returns his sword. They walk into a trap set by Sultana and Jarek, but they are bailed out by the Amazon army. This leads to a big fight with Amazon babes sword fighting guards and John LaZar while Deathstalker kills some dudes too. It’s what you’d expect here. Someone is making lightning strike. It’s kind of crazy.

Anyway, Jarek goes inside the castle with Evil Evie while Deathstalker and Good Evie follow. Good Evie plans to kill her evil doppelganger. This leads to one of those cartoonish hallway scenes where one passes by, and the other peeks around a corner, and then the other sneaks by, and the first one peeks around the corner. Anyway, When Evil Evie tries sneaking up on the Good Evie to kill her with a dagger, Good Evie gets the drop on the Evil Evie and kills her. Evil Evie dissolves into nothing.

Deathstalker and Jarek face off in a sword fight that’s actually pretty good. It follows the two actors all over this room and it looks fairly well choreographed. Also, for the vast majority of the fight, it’s the actual actors. There’s no stunt guys doing the majority of this fight. It’s actually pretty tense when it comes to high energy sword fights. Eventually, Deathstalker is able to get the upper hand in the fight and stabs Jarek in the throat. The kingdom is saved and Good Evie is back in charge.

Also, peoples of Jzafir, your princess is hot, bros.

There is a quality to Deathstalker II that makes it a lot more of a fun watch than the first. However, I think you could watch either one depending on your mood and, if you like these types of movies, you’re probably going to be well entertained. Again, what do you want? Medieval action? You got it with the first one. A silly romp? The second has that one. Hot babes? You can watch either. I would say the first is a much more real movie. This one is kind of just a lark. Still, I had a good time with it.

There are outtakes during the credits that are fun here too. Again, Monique Gabrielle is interesting to watch in the outtakes. She doesn’t come off at all like her characters are in this. It makes for a curious study to go over every inch of her… uh… career. When she’s not putting on a character, as we see in these outtakes, she seems so natural and, for a lack of a better word, normal. When she’s doing her lines and scenes, that’s when you get trapped with that nagging question if she’s hampered by her tone and cadence. It’s a really interesting thing because I like her. I really do. There’s something endlessly watchable about her and, no, it’s not just that she’s a Penthouse Pet.

Anyway, I think checking out these two films are worth it for people who like some cheesy sword and sorcery. Deathstalker and Deathstalker II are available, for free, on Tubi (with ads). Even the third film in the series is there if you want to watch that Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode. I’ll need to dig around to get Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell and Deathstalker IV: Match of Titans. Both of the subsequent movies drop the comedic elements seen here in this one. The fourth film even brings original Deathstalker Rick Hill back as the titular hero.

Generally, I’m happy to have finally covered these movies and will look forward to doing the third and fourth movies probably sometime next year. For now, it’s time to put a bow on the month of June and these fun look-ins on sequels and movies I’ve long wanted to do. To kick off July, the hottest month in the northern hemisphere, I might as well check another off the long-wanted-to-do list and do it in hot lady fashion too by picking up a membership at David A. Prior’s 1987 Killer Workout! So you know where to be next week. In the meantime, go out there and stalk some death for our favorite barbarian!