MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "Yor, the Hunter from the Future" (1983)

Yeah, I know that Spoony already covered this, but that was also more than a decade ago and I don't think he'll try and crucify me for it, even if his fans probably will (myself included).

Miss you, Spoony. Maybe some day you'll come back.

However, the topic of today's film review is not my inner fanboy being suckerpunched by entropy, but instead this: Yor, the Hunter from the Future! A 1983 Italian film based on an Argentinian comic series. Yor as you can probably tell from the title, is not a tax accountant from Connecticut, but a caveman living in a post-historic world aka "the future".

I can see where you might be confused, though. Reb Brown really doesn't look like a convincing caveman in a few ways.

Oh, yes, we haven't ever covered Reb Brown on my blog, have we? B-List movie actor who is the cinematic equivalent of an air horn, was in a lot of Italian movies (many directed by cult director Bruno Matei). Although his biggest claims to fame in America were Captain America and Captain America II: Death Too Soon.

...yeah, we'll get to those eventually.

Basically all you need to know about Reb is that he's blonde, somewhat muscle-y, a badass, and is effective at a grand total of one thing: being the human embodiment of the enraged screaming emoji. I'm not even kidding. Every time you use a screaming emoji, Reb Brown is paid five cents in royalties. Seriously! Look it up!

"We'll need a lot more oil before we're through!"

At any rate, Reb Brown plays the titular Yor, who is indeed a hunter from the future. Master of his domain, he walks across the rocky Italian wasteland without a hint of fear, stone axe in hand ready to rain some death down on dudes. Why? Because, like his song says word for word: he's the man!

I will knock on many things in this movie, but the theme song is catchy as hell. I am physically incapable of hating something so utterly awesome.

Yor saves a young woman named Kala (Corinne Cléry) and her grandfather Pek (Luciano Pigozzi) from a dinosaur. After killing it, Yor is taken in by their village and everything seems hunky dory until a bunch of purple cavepeople crash the party and steal away Kala. Yor vows to retrieve her, doing some insanely awesome and yet stupid things like kill a bat with a single arrow shot and then use it to hang glide into the cave where they're holding Kala and the other captives.

...said other captives are then killed with the other purple cavepeople in the flooding that follows.

Whoops.

By the way, this hasn't actually gotten into the actual plot yet, as absolutely insane as it has already been. No, the "shocking twist" has already been revealed from the very beginning of this review. In fact, from the moment you read the title, you already knew it: we are not in a pre-historic world, but a post-historic world. The world ended...and, given that Yor's parents were apparently survivors of the nuclear holocaust, society fell apart pretty damn quick.

"I will give you three shiny rocks for woman!
Tonight, we party like it's 9!"

Almost implausibly quick, in fact, given that almost everyone is using Stone Age or very very early Bronze Age technologies.

...except for one part where Yor has a flaming longsword, but never mind that, we have more insanity to get through.

So, the main antagonist is finally revealed after Yor's been either the cause or witness to the death of several civilizations and is a being called "the Overlord" who has sci-fi technology due to having survived the nuclear holocaust. After attacking the village with UFOs that were too expensive to be shown onscreen, he wants Yor and Kala to breed a "genetically superior" being and thus take over the world...which you imagine he could do with all the technology he has stockpiled considering he just atomized a village, but never mind once again. Clearly I'm thinking about this too much.

The last time this blog crossed fantasy and sci-fi things went bad so fast. Here, this doesn't really apply. Why? Because this isn't meant to be a sequel to a (mostly) serious previous movie and so there's no tone to preserve. In fact, it's not trying to be all that serious, really.  One review said it's a rip-off of Star Wars and Quest for Fire, and I'd have to agree with that notion. However, so many ridiculously and awesomely stupid things happen in it (several that I haven't even gotten into in this review) that I cannot help but admire it for it's sheer balls out insanity.

Director Antonio Margheriti, who sadly passed away back in 2002, would never get to see the cult status that this movie has garnered in the decades since it's release. However, he did have good humor about the film and wasn't afraid to take the piss out of it, calling it a "party film". From the sound of it, it didn't seem that he ever regretted making it. We see so many directors who get super defensive in the protection of their films or decry and disown the entire thing because of fan reaction or studio interference or whatever have you.

It's nice to have a director who can point and laugh at their work with the rest of us.

He's also the human embodiment of the the victory fanfare.

Is it bad? Yeah. Does that mean it sucks? No! I personally love it because it throws almost everything at the wall without a single semblance of shame. It's cheesy, it's awesome, it's stupid, it's wonderful! It's everything and nothing! It has purple cavemen! It has a man hang-gliding on a giant bat! It has Captain America beating dinosaurs to death with axes and screaming sci-fi robots into oblivion!

It's Yor, the Hunter from the Future.

And Yor? Well, he's the man!

Yor, the Hunter from the Future is brought to us by Diamant Film and RAI-Radio Televisione Italiana.

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