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The fantasy movies from the 1980s has something about them that seems to hit a little differently – they’re harsher and seem to take the concept of lawlessness awfully seriously. even movies like Dragonslayer and The Dark Crystal that lean more towards the younger audience have a darker undertone to them that is rather astonishing.
However, children movies always played rough. And with more adult movies, there are no boundaries. Wall to wall displays of violence, gore, and sex is now the norm. Whether it is John Milius’ uncompromising work of art Conan The Barbarian, Albert Pyun’s The Sword And The Sorcerer, or John Boorman’s Excalibur. These movies show a weird mix of adolescent fantasies with extreme gore and nudity and don’t seem to have an age group in mind. But all these movies have one thing in common… They are all perplexing and confusing, just like Deathstalker.
Changing the world for the better generally takes time, but within this specific facsimile of our earth, it starts with two people with a common goal: an enslaved warrior named Deathstalker, who possesses immeasurable power, and a witch who saves him from the tyrannical Munkar after he gets caught in a web of treachery.
With every powerful being trying to clasp their hands around the sole enchanted sword that carries the power to kill Deathstalker, the witch tries to seek out Deathstalker’s offspring in order to end the tyrant’s corruption. Along with the enchanted sword, Stalkar had stolen the amulet which granted him omnipotence the moment he put it on. Deathstalker put on the amulet out of sheer curiosity and was enslaved to Munkar while the sword lay dormant without a master. The witch together with the hero finds solace with Salmaron, a charming swordsman Oghris, and a female warrior named Kaira who proudly displays her undying loyalty by showing off her body.
So, even after Deathstalker managed to acquire one of the items, the evil sorcerer already possesses the other two – a necklace and a chalice; without these, our hero cannot hope to stand any chance against the enemy. As a result, he and his half-nude band are required to participate in some tournament that Munkar organized to find an heir.
However, this sign up process does only appear to be an excuse to engage in some lewd activities (it seems like any excuse will work with these sorts of groups), The battles begin, but with an evil sorcerer to dethrone, a giant pig man to subdue, magical items to collect, and even a petite princess that needs to be saved, can Deathstalker really manage to do all of that? Will one of his companions have the audacity to betray him?
From what I stated already, fantasies during this era really are weird, no wonder there are tons of sex and violence with childish plots, it all seems to be senseless, however the better ones (I am looking at you Conan the Barbarian) seem to create a world that does exist and tackle the silly issues.
Deathstalker exemplifies the ‘so bad it’s good’ subgenre, where it does everything wrong on purpose. Instead of focusing on the plot or the target demographic, the film has placed all their chips on the envelope of “nudity.” More than the film, it is the ideology and concept that devours logic. Deathstalker is a classic and earns the title of cult favorite, if not for its unsettling softcore porn natures. The dramatic shifts on what was the most beloved Marxist icon to this is blurs the lines on what is deemed acceptable. Yet here we go again, Schwarzenegger sawed Conan’s spoon and in all glory of the first film and repeatedly threw his end away. My arguments lie once again with lewd and the nudity in Deathstalker which envelopes everything I find disturbing; the nature. Even on repeat watches, every 15 minutes of rape is a little excessive and the alter ego is a slayer in the film.
Nevertheless, it appears like the producer Roger Corman probably noticed on how outrageously awful this movie was, and so he decided to increase the quantity of sex in order to distract from a storyline which persistently refuses to make sense at almost every opportunity. Deathstalker does not want to go on the journey that was given to him by the, now dethroned, king but is more than willing to accept the same task from a decrepit old hag and then proceeds to locate the very first mystical object on his wishlist without breaking a single bead of sweat. On the other hand, his ally Oghris betrays him with no explanation whatsoever and minimal buildup, and there is no reason provided as to why Kaira is so eager to plunge into every fight nipples first other than the fact that the director of the movie thinks that you can only appreciate his fantasy epic if you are at least partially aroused.
The issue is that Deathstalker actively tried to turn every male character into a willing sex criminal, which makes him superior to other bad movies that could’ve been on par with the atrociously bad Hawk The Slayer. The films incessant attempts at graphic art, like Munkar getting gruesomely dismembered by angry villagers, or our hero brawling with a pig-man, are so jarring that they are dwarfed by the fact that the film simply is unable to repress its adolescent obsession with its fantasy sword.
Without a doubt, the most sexually bizarre scenes in fantasy cinema are housed in this film. Munkar suddenly intends to use a bungling henchman to kill Deathstalker. Rather than a willing participant, an underaged, party-loving victim awaits the henchman upon his entrance. As for what did take place in the film, Deathstalker attempts to rape the subordinate even as he is aware of the mental state of the supposed victim. I must admit, I cringe at the depiction of the mind of the writer who sought to include such an utterly perplexing scene without any reasoning. Curiously enough, Deathstalker gained the greediest and most magocratic popularity, which in turn guaranteed it had three more sequels, all dazzlingly covered in poster art, which no doubt tricked many an impressionable child into replaying this sexist nonsense.
Think of it as a weird mix between softcore porn and He-Man. If you are the kind of person who thinks that Lord of the Rings would be far superior if the characters simply had more non-consensual sex, why not check out Deathstalker. For other people, however, you might want to be sure that you get a restraining order on Deathstalker before he realizes that the one villain he could never conquer is a severe case of syphilis. The Molesters of the Universe.
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