Since I'm still doing this for free after almost ten years.
So, here I am with reviews of not one but two Sword and Sorcery flicks of the 1980's, both of which I very much enjoy in contrast to lesser forms of "art". This first is known as Hawk the Slayer, which contains a funky fresh "Please, 1970's, you need to die more quietly" soundtrack and what is possibly the best performance of Jack Palance's entire career.
No, I'm not joking. It's absolutely fantastic.
Hawk the Slayer concerns itself with the titular Hawk (John Terry) coming upon his father, who was just slain by the terrible and insidious Voltan (Jack Palance) in order to gain the ultimate power of total badassery. With his dying breath, the father gives to Hawk a sword with a pommel shaped like a human hand and holds the mystical "last of the elven mind stones". With a sword that he can now control with the power of his mind, Hawk vows to slay Voltan for what he has done.
Some years seemingly go by and Vultan masses an army that stretches his influence across the world. His battle with Hawk will eventually lead to a convent where they will have their definitely last epic struggle that will not lead to cliffhanger. Before that, however, Hawk has to acquire the help of a few comrades - the giant Gort (Bernard Bresslaw), the elven archer Crow (Ray Charleson), the dwarf Baldin (Peter O'Farrell), the one-handed crossbow-wielding badass Ranulf (W. Morgan Sheppard), and the enigmatic sorceress (Patricia Quinn). Will they succeed? Well, obviously. Did you not read the part where Hawk has a sword he can control with the power of his mind?
Writer/Director Terry Marcel and Writer/Producer/Composer Harry Robertson were both sword and sorcery fans, and Hawk the Slayer is entirely their brain child. Originally, Marcel did not want to include any magical elements in the story, but later changed his mind - giving us the glory that is silly string Web spells, hoola hoop teleportation, and the glowing glory that is the Last Elven Mind Stone in Hawk's sword.
The film itself is a loose remake of A Fistful of Dollars, which is itself a loose remake of Yojimbo (I know if I don't bring it up, someone will complain), set in medieval England. This makes for a weird mix of the mundane and the mystical, magic being a rare thing and mythical creatures existing alongside man in that era. Rather like Krull, there's a lot of lore that is dropped that really gets no explanation. Unlike Krull, Hawk the Slayer doesn't focus so much upon it or have characters having prolonged conversations about it that take up run time.
No, to give Hawk credit, there is a good balance between characters talking (just enough that everyone out of the main heroes - maybe with the exception of the Sorceress, but she's not so much a character as a plot device) and the action. It is, after all, a sword and sorcery adventure. Some of the action may not be good, per se, but I'm more inclined to give a film made in 1979-1980 on a budget of the change someone had in their pocket a little more slack.
John Terry plays Hawk and he's...alright. He's kind of going for the whole stoic hero thing and it sort of works. He loosens up a bit more through the film, particularly once he gets the band back together.
The supporting cast are pretty good on the whole. The only one I really raise a brow at is Baldin mostly because...he's really more hobbit than he is dwarf. Besides having a beard, he doesn't really do anything particularly dwarf-like. He runs around in leathers, with a whip, and eats raw fish. So he's essentially a aquatic BDSM enthusiast. He does have a pretty good sense of humor, though, and the few scenes of him messing with Gort are hilarious.
Gort is an exceptionally tall person, which counts for "giant", I suppose. Realistically, it was 1980 and I'm sure they got the tallest guy that they could, but I can look past it. It's just flavoring, after all. He does pretty well and, like Thor Odinson following him, he has a mean swing.
Also, this has nothing to do with anything, but his actor - Bernard Bresslaw would go on from this to play the Cyclops in Krull. Neat!
Crow the elf is an elf named Crow. With all the powers of jump cuts, he puts Legolas to shame with his archery abilities. Also, five o'clock shadow.
Ranulf loses a hand and just becomes more badass as a result.
Then there's the Sorceress, who Hawk saves early on and she assists in his endeavor by transporting him across the land to gather his friends and later by using the aforementioned sticky string Web spell. We're not given much detail about her and this leads me in particular to much speculation. She is a seer, has knowledge of future and past events (either because of that or other reasons) and she sounds suspiciously like a non-distorted version of the Dark Wizard that Vultan serves. It makes me wonder if that was intentional, maybe leading to something that would have been revealed in a sequel, or if they simply reused actors due to convenience.
As I stated above, Jack Palance as Vultan is just absolutely the best. The absolutely perfect amount of cheese and ham to really coat this film. Jack Palance himself is known for being the height of camp in his performances, and he plays Vultan as over the top as possible in every single scene.
And I do mean every. Single. Scene.
He does, however, manage to stay menacing and a credible threat even through the fight with Hawk at the end that lasts 45 seconds and was filled entirely in slow motion.
No, I'm not joking.
Hawk the Slayer is a fun sword and sorcery fantasy adventure film. It does have some problems - largely in special effects, the not at all fitting soundtrack (as good and catchy as some of it is), and a bit of the hokier acting moments - but those can be overlooked and the film enjoyed for what it is.
The Sword and the Sorcerer was a film that followed two years later. As we've seen several times by this point in the genre, Talon (Lee Horsley) is a prince whose family is put into the crosshairs of the evil sorcerer Xusia (Richard Moll) and the evil King Titus Cromwell (Richard Lynch) after the latter awakens the former for an ancient slumber. His father is executed, his mother likewise killed, and Talon himself barely escapes with his life and with a sword with three blades.
Vowing revenge, he spends the next eleven years adventuring and becomes a scarred warrior, still wielding that three-bladed sword.
Princess Alana (Kathleen Beller) enlists Talon to rescue her brother from Cromwell, only managing to pull this off by agreeing to sleep with him.
...did I put in Deathstalker again by accident?! OH, MAN!
To give Talon his due credit, he actually keeps his mind on the job until it's done. I can't give him much more credit than that in this regard, but I can give him that. From an out of universe perspective I can give his actor, Lee Horsley, much more credit. He plays Talon well in both the past and the present of the film, coming off during the main action as very professional in his work. He's sure of himself, skilled, but not particularly willing to join up with hopeless causes (as he puts it himself in the film he will "risk, not throw away" his life).
It also helps that Horsley is an actor instead of just an emotionless cardboard cut out of a human being (I'm looking at you, Rick Hill!).
Other than that, there are not so many moments of over the top acting from the actors in the film. If anything, it feels a bit more sedate and restrained than most S&S flicks. That being said, this leads itself to the overall tone of the film taking itself too seriously, which I think has led to at least one Rifftrax's being done on this film and deservedly so. It does have incredibly cheesy moments, but then what film in this genre doesn't? Even the really good ones we've discussed have some inherent corniness in them and that's part of the appeal.
I think that really exemplifies Sword and Sorcery at it's purest: the acting may be ridiculous and the effects laughable. If the characters are likeable and the story is even halfway decent, these films can go far. A testament to that is that fact that The Sword and the Sorcerer retains a cult following even almost forty years after it was originally released.
Also, to be fair, while you do have the raw glory cheesiness that is the three-bladed sword (the scene where Talon launches the two rocket blades is the stuff of legend), some of the effects in this film are really good. In particular, the opening scenes in Xusia's cave prison, where some of the walls morph into a grisly display of screaming human faces.
Xusia's form upon being awakened is also considerably demonic and horrifying.
The Sword and the Sorcerer is a great little film. An independently-made picture on a budget of only four million, it managed to be quite the spectacle. Sure, there may not be substance in the spades as so many critics were apparently wanting (for some reason), but that isn't really the point. Some character is given, and it's enough. Like most good sword and sorcery, it's about the adventure and excitement, and The Sword and the Sorcerer delivers on that but good.
Well, there you have it. Two good films in the genre. By the laws of karmic rebalance, this likely means the next film is going to suck ass.
Yay!
Hawk the Slayer is brought to us by Marcel/Robertson Productions Ltd.
The Sword and the Sorcerer is brought to us by director Albert Pyun and Group 1 International Distribution Organization Ltd.
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