VHS Cover of the Day: The Black Crystal (1991)

The Barbarians (part 3): The Beastmaster Trilogy

The Beastmaster (1982)

There is not much I can say about the original Beastmaster movie that will do its awesomeness justice. What I can say is "URRRAHHH!" which for the uninformed, is the call of the hawk.

Anyone who had cable in the '80s had a chance to bask in the glory of Marc Singer's beastmastering and Tanya Peters' red-haired boobs. The story goes that Dar was kidnapped as a fetus from his mom and dad, King Zed, by evil dude Maax (may-ax) and his hot-bodied underweared witches. Before one witch can kill baby Dar (who was transferred to an ox belly and then birthed) unnamed Farmer guy kills her and saves Dar. He then raises Dar and hilarity ensues. Ok not really, but they do realize Dar can communicate with the beasts and then years later their village is destroyed by Maax's mens, the Juds. Dar survives though, through the help of a beast ally, and sets out to take vengeance on Maax (played by Rip Torn, by the way).




Along the way he meets hottie Tanya Roberts and bad dude John Amos, both end up helping him in his quest against Maax and his hordes. He also meets hawk worshipping monster people and insane death guards. As one might expect, Singer and his band of heroes win, and Dar learns of his heritage. He however decides not to be king and remain master of the beasts. He relinquishes control to his now revealed younger brother, Tal.





Director Don Coscarelli's movie rules in a cornball adolescent macho way. It definitely has it's flaws, but they don't detract from the fun. Plus Tanya Roberts shows boob. The sequels, however, are like someone shit on your favorite pizza right as the delivery dude delivered it. You were so excited to have a still hot bite of your favorite pizza, but yeah, there's shit on it now.


That same year Tanya Roberts did a Beastmaster inspired pictorial in Playboy!



Trivia: In Japan, The Beastmaster was known as the The Miraclemaster!

via wrongsideoftheart

The Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time (1991)

Almost 10 years later, thanks to the original's popularity on cable, producers thought, "Hey! Let's squirt out a new Beastmaster for cable!" But this was a time before SyFy and the massive run of made for cable fare, so Through the Portal of Time's theatrical release became a formality really, the step before the step they wanted. Ok the movie:

First off, HOW IS PODO ALIVE? He was totally sacrificed for the greater good in first movie. It might have been kodo who died, I cant tell the difference, and if they are Podo and Kodo's kids from the first movie, why are they named Podo and Kodo?? But this is the point you realize this movie is going to be an unwelcome addition. Actually, before that when you see Marc Singer's awful wig, that's when you probably should have known. So anyways, Dar is again fighting a bad dude, this time his name is Arklon, played by Wings Hauser.

Dar escapes his opening encounter and meets a weird swamp monster who after trying to kill him, sees the brand on his hand (oh yeah, the witch branded him as a baby before trying to kill him) but he has two startling revelations: This swamp monster is related to Dar AND Dar has an evil twin brother! I know what your thinking, Arklon, right? Yeah everyone was. And you don't have to wait until the final act for me to confirm your thoughts.

So back to Arklon, whose witch friend, Lyranna, says she discovered a parallel world through a rock formation called LA and has observed them for some time to learn they have a NEUTRON BOMB! So many questions already, like how did she discover this portal, how does it work, why does Lyranna wear so much makeup when makeup doesn't exist in this parallel world? If I were Lyranna, I would say eff off to Arklon, who just slaps her around, and just go live in LA, who cares about getting his approval when you can go to a Milli Vanilli concert, am I right??

So we're then seeing life in 1991 LA, where a police chase gets underway with cutie pie Kari Whurer, who is an idiot here by the way, or at least she's written that way. She unwittingly discovers the dimensional portal when she neglects to hit her brakes and drives though a brick wall, and then the cops follow her! This whole scene is retarded, but we do get another brief but memorable Robert Z'Dar sighting! "YOU shall remain silent!!"




Biggedy boom, Dar meets up with Jackie (Wuhrer) and seems totally fine with her 1991 weirdness. Biggedy boopedy Boom everyone goes back through the portal so we can have dumb fish out of water humor with Dar, Arklon and Lyranna, man, I really get tired of that "WHAT'S A TV?!" and people-cheerily-exclaiming-new-swears-they-learned humor. Singer is overall pretty boring in this flick too, so Uncle Phil steps in to handle some biz and make shit fun again.




Not only does this movie reject some basic logic of the first, no one's decision making abilities are up to snuff here. As a kidnapping victim, Whurer helps Arklon and Lyranna discover new fashions. Of course.

I couldn't help but think of the 1987 Masters of the Universe movie while watching this; it's basically the same thing. This movie spirals into greater levels of absurdity, almost parody, like those dumb Epic Movie or Date Movie turds. this could easily have been Barbarian Movie. The most ridiculous part? Arklon manages to go to a zoo, when his twin brother is the damned BEASTMASTER! Good one dude.
Admittedly, I do kind of enjoy this movie on a different level than the first. It tries way less, which is what made the original so endearing. It was sincere in it's efforts, while here, everyone just wanted to hit paydirt on cable again. I might also enjoy this a bit because it's co-written by Jim Wynorski, whose brain is full of baby farts. There's apparently a "Making of the Beastmaster 2" on the original home video release of this, which I would love to see. Has anyone seen it?

The Beastmaster 3: The Eye of Braxus (1996)

Hold onto your loin cloths! They're at it again! Dar returns, and so does Tal, his brother from the first played by Casper van Dien! And a new, Seth, played by Tony Todd aka Candyman. He also has a new, different Ruh, his tiger who changed in the first two and is a lion in this adventure. The professor from TMNT 2 (David Warner) in it as evil sorcerer, Lord Agon, looking for the eye of Braxus, a mystical amulet thing that will give him the power of an ancient god.






The whole middle is pretty boring, if not more earnest than part 2, but Dar meets various new buddies and baddies, but I couldn't get into this middle section; it's just too by-the-book yet underproduced to make it fun. I think this was intended to be a TV pilot, at least that how it's supporting cast appears to be scripted, which by the way, the script sucks. There's so much bad dialogue, "You're not going to trust her are you? She knocked you down!"

So finally Lord Agon gets the eye, releases Braxus, and the fun begins! He ends up getting possessed by Braxus and turning into a lizard man! Jesus! I think the costume was recycled from that show Dinosaurs. You be the judge:




Braxus eventually falls for the old throw "the amulet over your head and then get stabbed in the back trick," and Dar throws him in a fire pit. Yay!

This was followed by a Canadian produced TV series for SyFy (then Sci-Fi) that developed kind of a cult following as I understand it. I mean, I don't understand it, it looked awful. I would really love a kick ass Beastmaster video game instead of movie mediocre film and TV, though. You play as Dar and have to chop shit up and throw people in fire pits, banging hot chicks along the way. And get Marc Singer to voice it, I hold no grudges after the last two movies, so I think he should end his run as Dar in a sweet game. Now make it happen.



As a final treat if you've managed to read this far, you'll find both out of print scores for the first two films below. The first is by Lee Holdridge and second by Robert Folk. I can't recall where the first is from, but the second from cinemageddon's fine vaults, so thank you to the original sources of these!

The Beastmaster Score

The Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time

Fuzzbucket (1986)

My dad is one of those awesome dads who taped a handful of quality videos for my brother and I to watch as youngsters. And I mean complete quality, movies like Star Wars, Clash of the Titans, Flash Gordon, Godzilla 1985, Winds of Change...I could go on for the better part of a day about the great cinema my brother and I indulged in by way of dad's tapes. But today I will go on about one specific tape that seems all but forgotten by the rest of the world...Fuzzbucket! Check out the Disney Sunday Movie intro below:



My dad taped this after I bugged him when seeing an ad while he was already taping the Ewok Adventure for me, so he dropped it on the same tape right afterward. I couldn't ask for a better double feature as a 7-year old. Fuzzbucket finds Michael talking to his imaginary friend through the first half, asking him all sorts of questions and generally looking like a maniac as he yells to the empty seat next to him. Fuzzbucket reveals he was out past midnight so his guts are invisible. Weird Gremlins-like, curfew-supporting, logic-suspending reason, but as a kid, I bought it. But then the awesome stuff happens when Michael makes a magic potion to make Fuzzbucket visible.

This movie rules. No questions. No doubts. It's difficult to find more info on this, but what little was found suggests this was originally intended to be a TV pilot, probably to pull some of Alf's audience, I'd imagine.




Fuzzbucket stars Chris Herbert, John Vernon, John Regalbuto, Teen Witch, Fran Ryan and Phil Fondacaro, who's starred in Troll (including the new one), The Garbage Pail Kids and as an ewok in Return of the Jedi. It comes full circle. I'm sure the ewoks will get their own post on here someday...

Alas, there is no official release of any kind for Fuzzbucket to my knowledge.

UPDATE: 9.2011  -- Disney has since released this as part of the Generations collection, grab a copy now! YEAAAHHHH

The Barbarians (part 1): The Soundtracks

Ok so remember waaaaaaay back when we first started this mess known as Camp Movie Camp, and we began the Barbarian series? We haven't forgotten, and as a show of good faith that there is much more magic and muscle ahead, we thought we'd bring you the way out of print soundtracks for both our first movies in that series.


Ok we admit it, It was kind of a tease to only offer you the butt-rock anthem "Yor's World" last time, but thanks to the power of community, and whoever the original source for this might be, you can now get epic with the whole damned score.

Yor: The Hunter From the Future (1983) Soundtrack

Remember the Fulci mind scramble that was Conquest? Well then your mind obviously wasn't scrambled enough, let this score by Claudio Simonetti of Goblin finish the job.

Conquest (1983) Soundtrack

New Flash Gordon movie

There isn’t a film theme that gets me excited the way Queen’s epic Flash Gordon theme does, that’s for sure. The film that follows is everything you can want in a camp-classic with it’s evil ruler of a far off planet, hawk-men, rebellions, football, you know, the stuff that dreams are made of. And with all the remakes of late, I’m not entirely surprised about a Flash Gordon remake, but I did die a little in my heart when I saw this item from Breck Eisner on /Film:

The thing about Flash is, you’ve got to throw away the 80s version of it. I want it to be intense, agressive, gritty and real. For me it’s about reinventing Flash - we’re still staying true to the adventure origins of it, and the adventurous spirit in that movie, absolutely. It’s this man brought to another planet and uniting the disperate groups on Mongo, but there is a gritty, intense, dynamic, active quality to the movie. Very modern. It’s not camp.

I do love a good action flick also, so I’m not boycotting the idea, but throw away the DeLaurentis ‘80s version?? Come on! The planet is named MONGO for christ’s sake. How can you not love this?!



Perhaps though this means a new Flesh Gordon will be in the works. I guess that’s for the best.

And here's the theme from Queen:

The Barbarians (part 1)

Before Asylum films, the world had Italy and Turkey, whose film industries in the ‘70s and ‘80s in large part consisted of popular hollywood copycat films. We’ve previously mentioned the ‘80s “Barbarian” craze that Conan started, but today’s features from Italy really...uh...shine...

Yor (1983)

I know what youre thinking “I love Conan the Barbarian and Star Wars and Wayne’s World, and can’t pick which one is my favorite!” Now you dont have to! Let me explain. The movie opens with Yor doing some kind of aerobic runs through the highlands. Barbarian, check. In the end, yes, Yor realizes he’s a hunter, from the future, and him and the barbarians he lives with become expert laser marksmen against the foes from the future. Lasers, check.

Just prior to the credits (and the epic outro music), the knowing voiceover reveals that Yor now has a chance to change the past, “Yor returns to the primitive tribes on the mainland, he is determined to use his superior knowledge to prevent them from making the same mistakes as his forefathers, will he succeed?“ I always appreciate a sequel set-up, but, uh, we've got to be talking at least 300,000 years of history and, unless I missed something, he’s not “Yor, the Immortal Hunter from the Future.”

Yor, Hunter from the Future kind of gives away huge plot details just in its title and poster but it’s still really fun to watch, espceially because Yor looks like a muscley Garth. Check.





Check out the whole thing on YouTube

Or buy it on VHS

And, as one extra added bonus of sweet magic, here’s a piece from the now out of print epic soundtrack!

Guido and Maurizio De Angelis - Yor’s World (from Yor, Hunter from the Future)

Conquest (1983)

Goddam Lucio Fulcio knows how to make a movie! Also released in 1983 Conquest has the most banging opening 10 minutes evar: exposed brains, lots of boobs, talking werewolves, a lady being ripped in half, cannibalism and serpentine-eroticism. Fulci is the Italian grandaddy of gory-epic-awesome who also made other great films such as Zombie 2 and the New York Ripper. This film is totally weird, set in an unknown ancient land, has a sexy Destro villain with trippy monsters and lasers and lots and lots of fog. See for yourself below.



Buy Conquest

Or rent it from Netflix

Stay tuned for more absurd barbarianism in future posts.