On "Deathstalker"

Last night I watched a movie on a format other than VHS for the first time in a while. I'm not sure why I did that when I have a Blu-Ray lying around from Netflix and a whole lot of tapes likewise languishing, but somehow it felt right a couple nights ago when I couldn't sleep to watch "Deathstalker", which was streaming on Netflix. It's a sword and sorcery film of the time that proliferated in the early to mid 80s in the wake of "Conan The Barbarian".

I had seen one of the later films in the Deathstalker series on the show "Mystery Science Theater 3000". "Deathstalker And The Warriors From Hell" is a predictably terrible, silly movie that richly deserves the ribbing it gets from Mike and the bots. Its predecessor turns out to be far less predictably terrible, although it is blessedly every bit as short as the films which followed it. It is, in short, not a well-made movie, but one which I enjoyed anyway.


Deathstalker is a sort of free-roaming Han Solo of the ancient realm, except that he is not just selfish. He has even worse qualities. One way to distinguish him from the villainous Lord Monkas (who came to power after dethroning the previous king, who he served as magician) would be to have him treat women with more respect, but he seem equally repulsive in that regard. In any case, the film unfolds with Deathstalker entering a brutal tournament (whose prize is to become the heir of Monkas) at the behest of the deposed king, whose daughter Monkas has kidnapped.

Deathstalker forms a sort of posse, which includes a pretty boy who tipped him off the the tournament, an older guy who transforms from some kind of goblin and gives him a mystical sword, and a female warrior (played by Lana Clarkson) who wears a cloak and mostly has her breasts exposed through the film. This is true of all the film's female characters, of whom only she and Barbi Benton have any substantial role.

The film tips back and forth between being a skin flick and being a repository of repulsive, grisly violence. Frankly, the sex stuff is pretty weird too. At one point, Monkas transforms his right hand man into the king's daughter and sends him to seduce and kill Deathstalker, who sees through the ruse and ejects the guy from his bedroom. There's an awful lot of peculiar stuff like that considering the film's short running time.

At the risk of spoiling a good time by telling how things play out, Deathstalker succeeds at combining the three powers (the sword, an amulet and some other trinket), destroying Monkas and restoring the rightful king, whose defining trait is habitually eating dogs, so it's debatable whether or not the film ends on a happy note or not. I still like the movie, which succeeds at exploiting the always-marketable content of sex and violence and also presents a film that runs no risk of failing to make a distinct impression.