The Beastmaster (1982)

 From the guy that brought us the wonderful 'Phantasm' comes a sword-and-sorcery film that is among the better of its genre. Yes, it does tend to get overshadowed by the fact that so few people take this genre seriously, let alone the fact that so many of these films are pretty awful, but this one is a lot of fun. 

Yes, the very best one in this respect will probably always be 'Conan the Barbarian', but hey, this one is a close second. 

All is not well in the kingdom. The high priest of Ar, Maax, wants to sacrifice children to appease the god, but the king will have nothing to do with that. So, in order to strike back, Maax orders his witches to destroy the king's unborn son. They way they go about it, is a little convoluted: they magically place the baby from his mother's womb into that of a cow. The mother is killed and the witch then kills the cow in the forest, in order to ritually sacrifice the baby and so give Maax ultimate power.

Insert evil laughter here, by the way.

The baby is saved by a passing farmer and the boy - now called Dar - grows up, rather happily. They do discover pretty early on that Dar can communicate with animals, thanks to that cow displacement thing. When Dar is fully grown and now looks like a very ripped Marc Singer, his village is razed by the barbarians of the Jun Horde, led by... Maax. Dar swears revenge (of course!) and heads out to the city where Maax now rules. Along the way he picks up friends, to wit an eagle, two ferrets and a black tiger. 

Yes, they actually painted a tiger completely black. Why? Who knows.

He also comes across a beautiful girl named Kiri and because the power of boners is strong, he immediately falls for her. Good thing she is on the level and played by Tanya Roberts, who is always hot. She could be covered head to toe in fifteen jumpers and still look hot. So here she only wears loincloth type flimsies. 

Ah, the 80s, when women ran around half-naked in films and made us young boys dream away of meeting such a barbarian girl... Oh, and some glimpses of our first boobs as well. And all in PG, mind you. 

Dar also meets up with Seth, a former guardian of the king, who now also wants payback on Maax. It seems everyone wants a piece of this guy. Not the best way to rule a kingdom, I'd say. 

Have I mentioned Maax is played with gusto by Rip Torn sporting the most bizarre fake nose ever? It really is distracting. 

Possibly the most bizarre encounter Dar has, is on top of a hill with some weird bat/bird people, that liquify their victims when they embrace them. Dar is not killed because he is friends with an eagle, and these people apparently worship birds of prey. Lucky break.

Yes, they manage to take over the city and kill Maax, and then it's on to the final battle when they have to stand up to the Jun Horde. Who will come out on top? And will Dar get the girl? 

You know the answers to those questions, but it is still satisfying to watch. 

'The Beastmaster' is a lot of fun. It is silly and goofy, yet manages to capture the imagination and nicely balances between fantastical and more grounded. It does feel like some far flung past, because everyone involved gives it their all. It looks as though they had fun making this, which makes for an enjoyable watch. Sure, some things are silly, like the Death Guards who don't look as imposing as they sound and who wobble around in a funny way, probably because the masks were hard to see through. And yes, the Jun barbarians all wear hockymasks painted black and if you get down to it, Dar wants to do the dirty with his niece, but hey: for any sword-and-sorcery flick, you need oodles of suspension of disbelief. 

You can call it campy and at times its budget does show, but in spite of this, 'The Beastmaster' is one of the better 80s action adventures with loincloths and swords. Now it just depends on your tolerance for this sort of thing. But if you're open to it, you will undoubtedly find plenty of enjoyment here.