Tag: fantasy

The Beastmaster (1982)

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Welcome to a new B-Movie Enema!

This week, we’re traveling to the kingdom of Aruk for this 80s classic from Don Coscarelli. Now, the origin of The Beastmaster actually goes back to 1959. Andre Norton wrote the novel The Beast Master about a Navajo war veteran set in a futuristic and sci-fi setting. When writers Coscarelli and Paul Pepperman adapted the novel, Norton was unhappy. We’re going to come back around to Norton in just a moment, but Coscarelli would eventually sign on as director for the film and Pepperman then took the role of Producer alongside Lebanese producer Sylvio Tabet. Tabet was a producer on movies like Fade to Black and Evilspeak. Later, he was a producer on The Cotton Club and Dead Ringers. So he was not an unknown at the time.

Interestingly, the only film Tabet directed was 1991’s Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time.

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Krull (1983)

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Happy Thanksgiving weekend, Enemaniacs! I’ve got a bit of a feast for you for this week’s B-Movie Enema review.

In the early 80s, there were a couple of phenomena going on. The first was the re-emergence of the sword and sorcery or sword and sandal movies. That was mostly due to the popularity of 1982’s Conan the Barbarian but I would also count 1981’s Clash of the Titans as also being an inspiration for the genre of fantasy action films. The other big phenomenon was the adventure sci-fi genre thanks to the huge success of 1977’s Star Wars and 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back.

If you really think about it, Star Wars isn’t really science fiction. More accurately, it would be called space opera. That means it’s a little more fantasy than true science fiction. Star Trek is the more true action science fiction type of movie where it both features some action and adventure but also tackles other concepts that are more sci-fi in nature. The advancements made in special effects also made for movies that could feature more lasers and spaceships and different types of creatures, though maybe the last one would be more due to advancements in makeup effects and artistry. That brings us to this week’s topic, 1983’s Krull.

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Yor, the Hunter from the Future (1983)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle2 Comments

We had ourselves a rough one last week, my dear Enemaniacs. The only way to make up for that? Reb Brown.

Oh yes, save us all, Reb! We need salvation from shitty robot ladies who weren’t robots but also maybe brainwashed but weren’t brainwashed. We need something Italian. We need something French. We need something Turkish. We need Yor, the Hunter from the Future!

Welcome to this looooong overdue review for B-Movie Enema. I picked up this Blu-Ray when it was released several years ago with the intention for this to be covered here. I don’t know what kept me from fulfilling that promise the day it arrived, but here we are.

This movie is, indeed, an Italian-French-Turkish co-production. I’ve only once before delved into the world of Turkish cinema, but know they like making movies. They really like making movies that look and play out like American films. But you know the Italians like doing that too. With the Italian side of the production comes director Antonio Margheriti. Margheriti did a lot of lower-budget stuff and was mostly doing the typical Italian genres of crime action films, science fiction, spaghetti westerns, and horror. Notably, Margheriti made films like Castle of Blood starring Barbara Steele, Cannibal Apocalypse starring John Saxon, Death Rage starring Yul Brynner in his final role, and several action movies with David Warbeck.

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Deathstalker II (1987)

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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.

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Deathstalker (1983)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle3 Comments

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.

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Hercules (1983)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle3 Comments

Here’s the first of two more movies I’ve wanted to cover on B-Movie Enema for quite some time – 1983’s Hercules. This is Luigi Cozzi’s update of the 50s and 60s tradition of the Italian sword and sandal movies that ran from 1958 to 1965. You might think that, oh, there were only five or six or so Hercules movies released in that time frame. NO! there were a total of NINETEEN Italian Hercules films starring a handful of various American stars with bodybuilder Steve Reeves being among them.

Yeah, the Italians loved them some Hercules. It kind of makes sense. These movies were almost like comic book style movies. You have a beefy hero, scantily clad (and absolutely gorgeous) women, and high action and adventure. It basically offered something for everyone. They were badly dubbed when brought over here and they were kind of goofy. After all, a few of them would be lampooned on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Still, they were popular enough to continue to be made with multiple movies released each year.

Hercules, the movie character and Italian cinema was so well tied together, I’m honestly shocked that it took 18 years between the last of the Italian produced Hercules movies to this one released by… OH BOY… Yup, this is a Cannon Films flick.

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The Lost Empire (1984)

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Jim Wynorski returns to B-Movie Enema this week.  And, to be completely and totally fair with everyone, I’m a bit of a fan.  I don’t think it takes too much to understand why.  Sure, he’s worked with Roger Corman on some of Corman’s less memorable 80s fare, but not only will Wynorski bring the camp and the fun…

He also brings the babes.

That’s exactly what we have here for you this week.  The Lost Empire is a 1984 fantasy action movie with a lot of boobs and bullets and bo-blosions!  This is what Andy Sedaris could be if he had the opportunity to release movies in theaters instead of late night Cinemax.   Continue reading “The Lost Empire (1984)” →