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What the hell? Seems to me this movie only ran for an hour! Ah well, at least the experience wasn't too painful in that respect. Well I would say that this is a film aimed at kids except for the fact it opens with a scene of a woman stripping naked and being captured by mutants! Nothing is too weird for a film that comes from Charles Band's Empire Pictures, a studio renowned for making rubbishy movies before it went bust (and was of course replaced by Full Moon instead). Apparently this film is based on the once-popular Dungeons & Dragons game although you wouldn't realise from watching it.
Basically, this is a film which exemplifies the '80s: the special effects are plentiful but cheesy and tacky, the monster suits look rubbery, the moronic humour is unwanted, and the acting is generally wooden. Most of this takes place in the dark, to either a) be atmospheric or b) to hide the edges of the sets. I would bet on the latter. The film's hero is played by the unremarkable Jeffrey Byron who doesn't convince for a second, and his character is even worse. To show how dated this film is, he has a talking computer which helps him out via a wrist-pad (!) and special computerised glasses which can withdraw money from a bank machine. It's pretty poor.
The action begins almost straight away, with Byron being transported over to a fire-lit netherworld where his girlfriend hangs in chains for the rest of the film. The big bad wizard (Richard Moll from SURVIVOR) tries really had to be scary but his efforts go in vain: instead he just looks ridiculous and rather camp. From then on Byron must battle seven dangers in a bid to rescue the girl. These seven segments are so short that they can't really even be called "segments" as they have no story - they just show Byron battling various enemies. I find it hard to believe that seven directors were brought in to direct each of these few minute sequences!
My favourite segment is the "Stone Canyon Giant" one in which Byron finds himself up against a huge statue which suddenly comes to life to kill him. Yep, it rips off JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS again but here they fight with lasers. Pretty bad but at least the stop-motion animation is cool, even if only on screen for a couple of moments. The second segment is entitled "Demons of the Dead" and as you would guess, it's a horror-themed one. Byron here fights a hideous gargoyle creature (pretty good effect from John Carl Buechler, who also directed) and some disappearing zombies. After a brief interlude with some animated dragons which seem to have come from a Disney film (!), there's a plot less heavy metal scene there just for the hell of it (directed by Charles Band, go figure). After a fight in an "Ice Gallery" where Byron and his character's girlfriend fight reanimated ice statues of historical killers (an idea later echoed in WAXWORK), the longest segment arrives in the form of "Slasher". I probably liked this one the best, as it actually has partly-developed characters in it and some okay action. It's still below average though.
Another interlude shows a demon head in a flame special effect - cool stuff. Then the film stoops even lower as Byron lobs rocks at a demon in a cave (the "Cave Beast" apparently) and things are rounded off with an inevitable MAD MAX 2 rip-off scene involve chasing dune buggies. The only interest of these scene is that cult dwarf actor Felix Silla (from BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY) appears in it for a minute. There's not really much else to say about this film, only that I wish it had continued in the same vein as the opening.
score 4/10
Leofwine_draca 6 July 2016
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3499751/ |
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1-12-2019 04:36:39