So, Paul.

So, Javi.

A bit of a hiatus here, right?

A little unexpected break. Things got a little crazy and busy in both of our worlds, but also it gave us some time for some introspective reflection.

That's right, because look, we originally recorded a trigger warning for this podcast, because this is a sword and sorcery movie from the 1980s, and that can only mean one thing, sexual assault, right?

Yes, I mean, it means a lot of things that are completely wrong, like eating dogs, like, you know, just things that are unacceptable, but treated very casually and even whimsical in the spirit and context of the film and the time, but obviously are not to be treated such in our real world.

Which is why we're recording this, because we just want to remind our audience that when we talk about the movie, we're speaking about the context of this very, very misogynistic piece of art. Well, kind of art. Yes. Certainly misogynistic, not sure about the art. And we just want our audience to know that in our conversation, we discuss what's going on in the movie and all of that, but we're not talking about our own attitudes about any of this. So it really is a trigger warning, but it's also saying we're talking about a very specific kind of movie here, and we apologize. Not for the filmmakers, but just if the podcast in any way triggers you and the way that we're discussing it. Does that sound fair?

Yeah, absolutely. And I just want to say that while a lot of the films from this period that we're covering make light of certain things, we don't want anyone to think that we are making light of such serious issues like sexual violence or anything else. But trying to just really unpack and look at the film as it was made and presented and shared and continues to endure for better or worse.

Sometimes for quite worse, just as we'll find out. But with that in mind, ladies and gentlemen, we give you our dissection of the film Deathstalker.

Deathstalker! Deathstalker!

Get any poorer, you're going to have to eat that dog.

I hope it will be as tasty as the one you're enjoying. Real kings live in castles, like Lord Munkar. Munkar was my magician. That castle was mine and will be again. It is said that once an entire army marched against him. A real army.

Munkar waved his hand and turned the whole army into a flock of sheep.

An army isn't the way a brave man could get inside Munkar's castle and kill him.

You need a fool?

No, a hero.

Heroes and fools are the same thing.

You know, Paul, the thing I love about that music thing, it goes, dun, dun, dun, and then it could just stop, but it doesn't.

No.

It gives us like three more notes just to make sure we know where we are.

It's glorious.

It is. Wow. Paul, you know, so last week.

Yes.

Just to bring, first, I want to address some things about last week because, you know, like last week we saw Mr. Mom.

Yes.

Which we saw instead of the film we're going to talk about this week, a little a little slice of goodness called Deathstalker.

Yes, because because we were fools.

We were well, were we fools to fools? Can you say can you say for the word fools without like just saying it like a like a villain from a fantasy? Fools.

Not anymore.

Not anymore. Paul, you know, look, I feel I feel like I owe our audience an apology because I really dislike Mr. Mom so much that I feel like I just wasn't on my A game last week. And and I want you to know that for Deathstalker, I'm back. I'm back like John Wick. Like, yeah, I'm guessing I'm back.

We're back. We're back in the biggest way with our first ever bonus round episode because we were not satisfied to let the summer of 1983 end on the downbeat of Mr. Mom.

Yes. And of me just being so annoyed with the movie that you can just sense it. You know, you can just sense it in the podcast. I don't like that. I want to be here for you, man.

Yes. Yes. And we heard the sirens call of another kind of oversight, so egregious that we had to correct it, which is today's film.

Yes.

The great immortal epic that is Deathstalker.

Deathstalker.

And I want to revise your assessment of the summer of 1983, retroactively. Go on. Because last week, you, and I think with an abundance of evidence to support your assertion.

Quite an abundance, I might add.

Describe the summer of 83, and I'm going to paraphrase as sort of a summer of shit.

I said it sucked butt, I think is what I said.

Yeah. Yeah. It's all in that spectrum.

In that wheelhouse. Yes, sir.

Of shitty suckage.

Yes.

I will hear by counter.

Oh, my God.

That this summer has emerged out of that, let's say, cauldron of excrement, to reveal itself rightfully.

Right.

As a fountain of revelation.

And this is because of Deathstalker, really?

No, no, it's not just because of this. I think that this is just the capstone, the flag at the top of the hill that we have gone through a lot this summer.

But what has changed your mind? What has done this for you?

So on the one hand, we have gone to, let's say, scary places for us personally as genre geeks.

Yes, that is true.

To remedy omissions in our cinematic experience that many would consider essential.

Yes, that's true.

Such as Flashdance and Risky Business.

Indeed.

That turned out to be great.

That is true. Also, not to mention our spring, it actually began with The Hunger.

Well, yes.

It was phenomenal. And lest we forget, Paul, we started with a five-hour podcast about Return of the Jedi.

Well, absolutely. I mean, that's at the bar. But we knew that and we kind of knew that everything after Jedi was going to be rolling downhill like the sad carcass of a stormtrooper shot Ewok in the forest of Endor. But then we got, you know, that we were excited about Krull, but then Krull, it turns out, not real good.

Not real good. Just fully deserving of its reputation.

But then, Javi, we experienced the wonders of, and I don't presume producer Brad still has this cue at the ready, yours world.

Yours world.

Which, by the way, top of my playlist still, and it is not only great wake up music, rivaling our own theme song. Indeed. It's also really satisfying driving music, which I recommend. Buy it on iTunes, yours world, it's waiting for you. But now, the dessert, the dessert that is Deathstalker.

The cherry on top, my friend. And on that note, dare I say, I am Javier Grillo-Marxuach.

And I am Paul Alvarado-Dykstra.

And this is...

Multiplex Overthruster Summer of... Your!

Okay.

Javi, why are you surprised each time that plays?

Because, because, Producer Brad, I know you to be a, dare I say, a purist.

A professional.

Yes, a professional. And I just figured that at a certain point. But you know what, Producer Brad, having known you as long as I do, as I have, I should know better than anyone that you will commit to the bit. So, yeah.

It makes me smile.

Producer Brad and I once filled a friend's car with popcorn, so we're not. Yeah, we pulled some practical jokes when we were much younger. Paul. Paul.

Can I add on to what Paul was saying before the thing?

Please go on. Please.

I think the important thing that just happened was in season one, 1982, we had two weekends that we saw multiple movies, and it took to the last weekend of 83 for that important thing to happen for us to have a double feature.

Yeah. I think, but you know what? I think summer of 83 is just a very different, very different summer.

Yeah.

Well, that's when the comparisons to the actual films come in. Where it's Poltergeist and Star Trek 2, or Grease 2D2, or Blade Runner, Megaforce, or the thing.

Yeah. We didn't really have any Sophie's choices any given weekend this summer. It was kind of decided for us.

There's a real, any port in a storm quality to the summer of 83, if you know what I'm saying.

But the sun is shining now. The storm has passed.

Okay. I'm going to give a quick summary before we go into this. This is the story of Deathstalker.

Yes.

Who, like every character in a fantasy epic, is a lone hunter who finds adventure.

In this case, adventure finds him.

Adventure finds him. Yes. Well, I mean, here's the thing. You see the Deathstalker or the death dealer, because he's dealing a lot of death and I don't see him stalking death. Anyway, the point being Deathstalker, Lone Warrior, happens upon a number of rapes in progress and in doing so, winds up tasked with going to the castle of Lord Munkar, who is staging a competition, which nobody realizes is actually a culling. He's trying to get all of the best warriors in the land to come to his castle to get killed.

Yes.

But Deathstalker knows that if he gets the chalice, the amulet and the sword, he'll have all the power and will be able to defeat Lord Munkar and end his alleged reign of terror.

And Munkar has also captured a princess.

Oh yes, yes, that's right. Munkar has captured a princess. But you know, it's funny because Deathstalker says no to going to rescue her. He doesn't go there until he's promised the sword and ultimate power. So Deathstalker has his priorities. Well, anyway, Deathstalker goes to the castle. He kills the evil wizard and...

And there's a twist.

Oh, there's a twist.

About his choice.

About his choice, yes. So let's get into this, because this is something.

There are actually like three twists in this film that I really appreciate and enjoy.

And they're the only plot points in the film, so I'm glad they all worked for you. Yes. All right, producer Brad, let's ring the bell. Let's get into some Deathstalker action here.

Ding, ding.

First thing out of the gate, New World. Remember New World?

Oh, yes. New World Pictures.

Roger Corman's company that he made.

Wow. Yeah.

And boy, that he keep up the tradition that he established earlier on. I have two observations on just the opening titles of this film.

Okay. Yes.

The first one is, holy fuck the music. I literally wrote that. It's the music in this film is just insane. And I've got a cue I want to play later on to demonstrate. Now the film. You know, Paul, in giving producer Brad the freedom to play that at will, it's like we've literally become Daffy Duck and Duckamuck. It's like you gave him the magic eraser, and he's gonna start chasing us with that eraser. You know that.

I could not be more excited to have that cue stalk us.

It's on a trigger. He's on a hair trigger, my friend. So first of all, the title opens with a number of shots of people jumping over the lens in loincloths, which is really weird.

Yes. In my notes, I refer to them as freaky mutant barbarians.

I call them cookie dough face man, because they look like they have cookie dough smeared on their faces. Yeah.

Yeah.

But the thing is, if you're going to start, like if you literally don't start your movie with an upscritch shot of your villains, that's just is that a thing?

It's a choice.

Next. My next note is daggers for tease on the title treatment.

Very metal.

When the word Deathstalker comes up, it's very metal. It looks like the font is very much like the just every Iron Maiden cover ever, right?

Yeah. This movie is gloriously metal.

Well, this movie is so metal and it reflects the egalitarian sex positive and feministic values of metal quite well, doesn't it, Paul?

Yes. I think quite impressively so.

I think that if you bottled Incel and it would be this movie, I mean, this movie is literally like the most Incel movie I've ever seen.

Well, yes and no, because I think it also takes some decidedly anti-Incel stance, but there is considerable Incel representation.

Our hero rapes like three women.

Does he?

Is it?

Okay.

Yes, he does. Just because they start enjoying it.

Three? Well, there's the one case where I would dispute that character. Because I, given the foreshadowing of the lovey-dovey eyes that are exchanged, that I feel then cutting into that following scene seem to have pretty clearly signaled this society's version of consent, but that may be overly generous, a reading of the film.

Can we agree that I have converted a woman from repulsion to attraction through the sheer strength of my love-making prowess is a trope we see frequently in this film?

Yes. And that is not right. That's not right. And there are other things in the film that are not right or good in this film. But it is first with some intriguing surprises.

So the cookie dough face men are actually stalking a human kill, a human robber who has tied up a nubile young lady, robbed her and is about to rape her. But then the cookie dough guys, because it looks like their faces are, they're some sort of orcs, right? They're goblins, they're orcs, I don't know what they are.

There's some kind of inhuman or semi-quasite human.

What does that mean? Pretty sure, Brad?

They look Neanderthal-like.

Yeah, yeah, like, okay, Cro-Mags, okay.

Kind of, sort of. And yeah, they're in some kind of ruins, this setting in the forests.

Not that we're told what it is.

Nondescript, it's just some fantasy terrain.

And they come upon this asshole who has literally tied up a girl and is about to rape her. He's counting the money he's stolen from her. And then they get in a fight, right?

Yes.

And then Deathstalker shows up, right? Well, first, the asshole is running away from the cookie dough people and he tries to steal Deathstalker's horse.

Yes. Yes. Because first they see a horse and they're like, oh, a horse we can take. And then Deathstalker emerges because it's his horse. And he does not just emerge. No, he emerges in a headband because as we've established, this is the summer of headbands.

Yes. But, you know, Paul, I just want to say, you know, this movie reminded me of, you know what? The guy, I don't even know the people. For me, they're Deathstalker. The guy who plays Deathstalker, you know, Deathstalker? Yes. Yeah. So, you know what he reminds me of? What I imagine every time he shows up, because he doesn't seem to care. He doesn't seem to be very present in the movie. He just sort of seems to stand around a lot with his arms akimbo, kind of looking at everybody with great contempt. And he lounges around a lot in this movie, he's standing looking around. This reminds me of when one of the football players talks his way into your Dungeons and Dragons game when you were a kid. And you're like, oh great, the football player is going to play Dungeons and Dragons. And then you realize he's an asshole. He fucking hates us. That's how this guy plays Deathstalker, like that guy plays D&D. And I know that this was in an episode of Freaks and Geeks, but this actually does happen in real life. And it's horrible. It's horrible.

I, just to pick up on that observation, which I think is astute, also anchors what I feel is a legitimate and surprising arc in terms of an ethical revelation that the character has at the film's conclusion. The other thing in terms of reminding, and I'm going to call back a couple of things we teased last episode, setting up for this film. It might just be me, but he reminds me in visage and presence and tone of voice, not directly, but kind of sideways, like Anson Mount a little bit. Captain Pike from Strange New Worlds? Yes, for some reason I'm getting an Anson Mount Pike vibe from Deathstalker, which I mean is a compliment in both directions.

An email from the Nobel Institute. They are once again putting you up for the Nobel Prize in Generosity. Congratulations.

They have it in a mold now. They just keep spitting it all out.

They just keep stamping them out for Paul.

I'm just looking for more and more creative ways to collect. The other thing I want to mention before we forget again, and I believe we mentioned it as part of our tease last episode, the esteemed composer of this contender for best score of Summer of 83 Oh my God, yes, it ever. is Argentinian composer Oscar Cardozo Ocampo.

Yes, whose other work includes what? This is the part, Paul, where you surprise us.

A bunch of stuff I do not recognize.

This is the part where you surprise us by saying, just because the score wasn't so good, you don't realize he also scored out of Africa. And you're like, whoa, oh my God, I thought that was John Barry. No, it was Ocasio-Cortez. And you're like, well, that's the Congresswoman. And the point being.

I have down that he did 42 other movies.

It's very prolific.

Obviously, much like your, this movie was a tax dodge. It was shot in Argentina with a mostly Argentine crew to save money. That's what I got.

It was one of seven films Corman did in Argentina.

Also, not to skip way ahead, but this may also be the film with the briefest, shortest end credit sequence. Not just of the summer, but one of the shortest end credit sequence I've ever seen on any movie. Do you know how many crew members are listed in the end credits of this film? Just take a ballpark guess.

Ten. I don't know. How many? How many?

You're clearly drunk from the chalice. Thirty. Thirty.

Okay.

Thirty, which is, I mean...

What a commentary on this film that I thought it took ten men to make this film.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that doesn't include the main credit, the opening title credit crew, like department heads. But still, it's a very lean and mean crew.

Yeah.

Yeah. That made this film and I think pulled off quite an achievement.

To be... Look, look, I will be honest with you. I think that this and this is not this is not great praise. This is a certainly better made movie than YOR. You know, there is certainly... Yes, it is. I think I think that when you look at the shots, when you look at the way... Look, I'm... We're painting with a very wide brush here, okay? In terms of quality. But what I'm saying is, there actually seemed to... Like, this movie didn't feel like they all got really, really drunk and stoned the night before and then just shot whatever. As bad as this movie is, it does feel like there might have been a shot list composed at some point by someone, perhaps the director.

I will say that this film definitely feels more cohesive.

Yes.

In part because I think it is the most minimalist plot. I mean, it's an 80-minute film. It's also the shortest film we've ever covered in the podcast.

The length of this film certainly covers the scope of its ambition, plot-wise.

Yes. So comparatively, it kind of makes your look like dude by comparison in terms of scope and ambition.

Ambition and just content and the amount of ideas in it. Yes.

This is a fairly humble, straightforward D&D quest, but the kind of D&D quest you play when you're on a clock. Yeah. When you're like, we don't have time to do a multi-day campaign. We're going to do just a quick and dirty, nuts and bolts, basic D&D campaign, but with two or three unexpected twists.

Yeah. Ultimately, look, this is what I call an ass village movie, because there's a village, there's an ass that needs to be kicked. He goes, he kicks the ass, the movie's done. Yeah. There's an ass that has to be kicked so the village can survive.

An item, a treasure that needs to be gotten.

Kind of. Well, the thing is, let's get into it.

Again, we'll get there.

Can I just say that I think of all the films this summer, I think this is the one film that whatever it was aiming for, it hit it with a bullseye. It's exactly what it wanted to be.

I do get the sense that when they screened this movie at the premiere, the director turned to Aldo Hiscrony, someone like, nailed it.

Yeah.

Like these guys. Yeah. These guys, this, unlike Your, which has a kind of humility to it, Your is a movie that for all of its bombast, seems to know it's not, they knew they were higher than I before. This movie does seem to have a certain kind of belief in itself that is almost heroic in its delusion.

Yeah, I think producer Brad is on to something because Your, you can tell, the scope of its ambition exceeds its reach in places.

Oh, absolutely.

But there's a nobility in its failings and limitations in that it teases what is beyond. And we still have not seen the four hour mini series, which is probably just a lot of talking.

And also, I wanna know what these future people are, what kind of ships they have. You're left with a big, wide open space where I can put a lot of imagination into about what this movie leaves you with nothing.

Yes. This movie checks every box on its list. It ties it all up in a bow made of, I don't know, some kind of animal skin. And it's happy.

And it gives you a completely non-homoerotic greased up bro hug and goes on its merry way.

Yes. And for those who, again, may have not listened to or saved for later potentially, or maybe are just live life non-linearly, and have not yet listened to Mr. Mom, I also feel I should mention the director for the film, James Spardelotti was the first AD on The Beastmaster, another film that we saw, and Battle Beyond the Stars.

He learned from the best.

Yeah. And you can definitely trace that lineage of experience.

And he was AD on Fletch Lives.

Yes.

Yes. You know, the second best of all of the Chevy Chase Fletch movies.

Right.

And just to get out of the way, and again, apologies for the listeners, the most loyal listeners who heard this last time, written by Howard Cohen, whose credits included The Young Nurses, Vampire Hookers, and then went on to write for Care Bears and Rainbow Brite.

Yep. And he wrote the movie Striker, which also opened September 2nd, 1983, which was one of the options we could have watched.

Wait, he wrote a movie that competed against his own movie in the same summer.

Yes.

He wins the John Badham Award.

Yeah.

Wait, was that this summer? No, that was this summer. Did we watch Wargames this summer?

Yes.

Okay. So that was good. Okay. So, okay. You know what? Literally, this summer has been like a blur because the drop-off in quality was so precipitous that... Let's get on to the plot here. So of course, Deathstalker kills the cookie dough people and the asshole who's trying to rape the girl. And then what does he do? He rapes the girl. What's that about? Literally, our hero shows up and it's one of those things where like the bad guys are like, we have no coral with you. He kills all of them. And then he sees the girl tied up to the train. He goes, hey, I just saved this girl. I'm going to go ahead and rape her.

So two things. Yes. One, it's worth pointing out. We've seen other warriors who are specialists in terms of their acuity with a particular weapon. That they have honed a very particular skill.

Are you going to talk about his signature move?

Well, that is, he does have a signature sword twirl move.

No, he also has another signature move that is like insanely dumb. But yes, make your point. I don't want to interrupt you, Paul. You go ahead, make your point.

In this opening sequence, we establish that Deathstalker is not a specialist. He is a generalist because he slays these mutant barbarians with a sword, with a bow and arrow, and then with a dagger throw to a thief. And he has a great punctuation line at the end of that kill where he says very droll-y, this just isn't your day, is it? I will say, and again, I do not disagree at all in terms of there is no explicit verbal consent. And that is...

I mean, he walks up to this girl who's tied up to a tree, they lock eyes, and then he like literally drops, like rips off her top.

Yes. The captive woman that he's freeing appears to be quite smitten with Deathstalker. And so this puts it in a challenging place.

I find Deathstalker to be a rapist. But, you know, and that's just kind of my opinion, and you seem to agree.

Yes.

And there are nuances to that in this film, in terms of perhaps in the... I'm watching this movie going, what is this, an episode of Outlander? I mean, it's like literally, there's so much rape in it. And the thing about it is like, I understand that there may have been issues with... Consent might not have been as clearly defined in the time period this film represents as in our time.

Yes. And or even in 1983, unfortunately.

But that is no way... Multiplex Overthruster is a podcast in no way supports the treatment of women in any of these films. How about that?

Not even close.

But Paul, when you said she's quite smitten with Deathstalker, it brings up a very interesting point about this movie that I want to make. Let me make it early.

Please.

Roger Moore once said, Of course, James Bond could never be a spy. Everybody knows him wherever he goes. People like, oh, Mr. Bond, your usual suite. Of course. So everyone in this world knows Deathstalker. They call him Deathstalker. He doesn't seem to have a name. His name is Deathstalker. He's not like Drist. He's just Deathstalker. He's not like, you know, Miroc Conan the Destroyer.

And it begs a very important question that the film leaves tantalizingly unanswered, which is, is his name actually Deathstalker? Was he named by his parents? Deathstalker? Is it one name or is Death his first name?

His last name, perhaps. And then you've got his last name, like, you know, Muslansky.

I don't know. Or is it a title that has been bestowed upon him?

Right, right.

We don't know. It doesn't matter. He just is, in a very Zen way, Deathstalker.

Does he sign it like, you know, Death S. Hanrahan? You know, or DS.?

We don't know. Don't know. There's one moment, and I meant to flag it, but I might have just hallucinated it, where I thought I might have heard...

Heard the rest of his film.

Yes. It does have, in some stretches, a hallucinatory quality, particularly in some of the edits that are a little incomprehensible. But there was a moment where I thought, maybe I heard someone referring to him by another name, but I might have imagined that. And I don't know that I want to go back and find out.

Is it like the way that every once in a while, like I'll forget to say producer Brad, and I'll just call him Brad, you know?

Might have been. Might have been. Maybe someone was calling him by his real name, the actor's name.

But the thing is, which happens quite a bit in these low-budget movies, I might add.

Yes.

Well, here's the thing like this, it's the equivalent of if we're watching Conan the Barbarian, and everybody referred to him as the Barbarian. Hey, the Barbarian, come here, you know? Hi, the Barbarian.

By the way, we should mention and properly credit Deathstalker, played by, you all know him, Rick Hill.

No, we don't all know him. Who's Rick Hill?

Yeah, I never heard of this guy.

Is he like, I mean, I just know that guy said looked like him used to beat me up in high school, but that's about as much as I know about him. I don't know. What else was he in?

He's been on a lot of things that in unmemorable fashion, fairly or unfairly, and including apparently Deathstalker 4.

Wow. But not Deathstalker 2 and 3?

No.

There are two different actors who were in 2 and 3. He's the only one to be Deathstalker twice, but not continually.

They couldn't make his deal.

Producer Brad, but they couldn't make his deal. Now, as those of you who listen to this podcast know, Producer Brad prepares a kind of cheat sheet for us before everything with credits and things like that. Producer Brad, there's a credit here in Rick Hill called Fertilize the Blaspheming Bombshell. What the actual fuck is that?

I do put things in there just to grab your attention.

Is that a real movie or is that something you put in there just to like...

No, no. It's real.

Is it like a giallo movie, like one of those Italian crime movies that have weird names like the bird with the crystal plumage and the strange odor of your body's tears or like...

You know, Javi, I have good news for you. It is a 1989 film, so it is conceivable that should this podcast endure through the decade of the 80s...

We might see Fertilize the Weeping Bombshell.

Maybe we will end with that very film.

Here's the IMDB description. Sheila Khan is menaced by Satan worshippers on her journey from Brooklyn to Vegas. In an effort to find out what happened to her twin sister, she undergoes many treacherous journeys, a number of Satanist slayings, and a number of showers.

That old chestnut.

And so, producer Brad, let's put a pin in that for the multi-awards as the tangent of the summer.

Okay, guys, let's get on with the plot, such as it is. Deathstalker's girl runs away because a guy, there's quite as interrupt as a guy stops him from raping the girl.

An old man.

Yeah, and he's there to bring Deathstalker to this king who has no castle. He's sort of like King Bonfire. He just sort of lives, like you could tell, they didn't have money for a tent for this guy. So he just sort of has a throne in the middle of a field.

Yeah, it looks like he is a king in exile, a king of refugees.

Yes.

That are in tattered rags. Right. Roasting a dog.

Roasting a dog. And that leads to our first plot point, which is, you know, we started with it. And I just want to go to quote number three, which kind of tells us where that leads to.

Yeah. So our opening clip, our opening quote was Deathstalker approaching this ragged king.

Yes.

She's taken my daughter from me. In olden times, there were great heroes, men who'd ride off to save a maiden with never thought of their own lives. Well, those days are gone. I steal and kill to stay alive, not for the luxury of glory.

So Deathstalker has refused the call. He literally has said, I'm not going to go get your daughter. He's really refused to save a princess. So, wow, what an anti-hero. What a, wow, it's like a Chris Nolan movie. Oh my God, it's so edgy.

It's sort of the first twist in the film because again, it is-

Your hero's a raping asshole who doesn't give a fuck. Yeah, that's a twist.

Yeah, and you'd kind of think, oh, princess, whatever. But yeah, he is unimpressed by this so-called king and his people.

And his dog-eating ways.

Exactly. And he also has now laid out his very particular worldview.

Yes. He is a rogue, a rebel, a loner, Dottie.

Yeah. So he rides away and then we cut to the castle that's been referenced.

I'm Paul Plot.

Oh, apologies. I did not mean to overstep. Yes.

No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, no, no.

I'm just excited because we're about to then see the reveal of the Princess Cadet.

No, we see the reveal first of pubic hair and boobs, which is what this film seems to be most interested.

How would you describe the room, the environs that we cut to in this castle?

Well, it's that kind of, well, here's the thing. It is like if they saw Conan the Barbarian the previous year, but they only had like, it's like the Timu version of the Orgy Room from Conan. It's got a water feature, much like the soup, and all of that, and in the water feature are Two Naked Women. Do you have a different description other than Timu, Conan, Orgy Room?

No, I think that may very well win. I have in my notes, because I kind of struggle, I was like, well, this seems to be a very, let's say, inventive, multifunction room in this castle.

It is the evil sorcerer's multipurpose room.

Yeah, I have it in my notes as the Dungeon Spa Brothel.

Well, let's call it the multipurpose room of darkness.

Or harem might be more appropriate.

Harem, yes, yes.

From a legal standpoint.

And Barbie Benton is brought into this room. She is the princess, just so we know. Yes. And weirdly, she's wearing pants.

Yes. I think that is in part to denote her spunkiness.

Okay, okay.

She is a spunky princess.

Yes, yes. Now, Paul, just a side note for those of you who were not born in the late 60s, early 70s. In this time, I remember Barbie Benton was like a thing.

Yes.

And I remember that Barbie Benton was in an episode of Fantasy Island probably around this time. And she was, again, she was the kind of young lady that my brothers were really into, you know?

She was in multiple episodes of Fantasy Island.

Yes. And I remember that we had to watch all of them because she was in them often in very revealing garments. So-

Eight episodes.

Yes. And really-

And six of The Love Boat.

I mean, she was a staple. She was a staple, but she was kind of like babylicious. She was very much an object of desire for a certain kind of man in this time. Yes.

She had been in Playboy.

Oh, is that what happened? Okay, there you go. All right. Was she in Playboy and then this fame and fortune came? Or I don't- This was-

I believe that was first.

There you go. So, yes. But this is just the pop. It's just for the evil wizard to say, aha, princess, your life is about to change. And I think it means she's going to be naked a lot more. Then we cut to a guy being dragged by horses. And it turns out this guy is being dragged. So he's being dragged by the minions of Munkar, right?

Yes.

And he is leading by- A Kang.

General Kang.

General Kang, because everybody's got to have a getter General Kang, you know. Why is Kang such a popular name among evil doing generals? Just Paul, do you have any insight on this?

I don't know. That's an interesting question.

Oh, yeah. But anyway, so there's a hag who lives in a cave and she has a, she understands how to get to the sword that is one of the talismans that this, apparently this wizard doesn't just want the princess. He's also collecting a number of talismans of power and the hag knows where the sword is. So it's a cup, a sword, and an amulet. So the guy who's being dragged by Kang is leading them to the cave of the Chrome, who's going to tell them-

I think it's a hut.

Yeah, it's something. I don't know. Yeah, so of course. Now, here's my theory. I have a theory. So they start harassing the Chrome, and my theory is that Deathstalker has a police scanner. Because basically all of the plot in this movie happens when Deathstalker stumbles upon an attack in progress. Okay. Like literally, there's a rape in progress. He shows up. Somebody's hassling a hag. He shows up. There's another rape in progress a little bit later on. He shows up. It's like he's- I think he's just literally sitting in a hut or a cave with his little scanner going, oh, okay, time, you know, thoughts.

Yeah, it might be his kind of unaddressed mutant power that he has this kind of latent telepathic police scanning ability. Oh my God.

Yes, he- rapes in progress are like- he is driven to find them and stop them, I like, and then commit them.

Yeah, that's kind of an unfortunate twist.

Kind of an unfortunate side effect of his mutant power. He said he can't hold back. Okay. So by the way, the- so here's what happens. The- so Deathstalker shows up and he starts kicking ass, and this leads to another theory of mine because he decapitates a guy saving the hag who also knows who he is. And I believe they only had one decapitated head that they used multiple times in this movie because the head- he decapitates three different guys, but the head kind of looks really similar and the guys- anyway.

Well, Javi, I mean, if you go to all the trouble of crafting-

A decapitated, yeah.

A dummy decapitated head, you're going to want to get the most use out of that as you can. This is the rule of optimal amortization.

This is basically like low-budget filmmaking 101.

Yeah. There's another cool moment in here when General Kang confronts the witch at her hut, demanding the sword for Lord Munkar because it is the one missing item of power that he does not possess, and they believe she knows where it is. She transforms her staff into a snake. Into a snake.

Yes. But then after all that, so basically she's using the snake staff to basically hold down General Kang.

Yeah.

Right.

But then how does he escape?

Oh, big twist. General Kang, and I actually made a note of it because General Kang reveals himself to be actually Lord Munkar. And he is Munkar. He's Munkar in disguise.

Yeah.

That's how he's got the power.

That's how I took it too.

Oh, interesting.

And then, I just thought he had been entrusted with the amulet.

Oh, no, no, no, no. It's Munkar. No, because what happens is that they take the amulet from the witch, I think. No.

No, he has the amulet.

He has the amulet. And then he does the Thulsa Doom morph, which you do remember in Conan when Thulsa Doom is turning into a snake. And at one point, you just see his hand going into his sleeve.

Yes. Retracting into the sleeve, yeah.

However, but they also had a really cool snake transformation that they all made. However, this one is all just limbs going into sleeves. He literally transforms into a crow the same way that the Wicked Witch of the East dies, which is that his feet sort of curl into his body. And then it's a crow with a huge amulet. And the crone says, don't let him get away with the amulet. And then the crow just kind of like literally like they can't, they can't fly the amulet. But yeah, but it's very slow. It's like, it's like, I know.

And we've established that death.

So I have to be badass and he can't catch a crow that's just sitting there with a huge amulet in its beak.

Yeah, I think we've established that this movie is is unassailably awesome. But but among my few quibbles with it is we established in the opening action sequence, Deathstalker's facility with both a bow and arrow and a throwing dagger. But yet he lets this crow escape with the amulet, the crow being surrounded by people.

It's holding a massive amulet in its in its paws or whatever. What do you call what do you call the things crows used to grip things?

It's talons.

Yes, it's talons, you know, and yet they can't anyway.

Which is the name from Sword of the Sorcerer.

That's right. I bet Talon could have could have caught a crow. So so then so then, of course, by the way, the best thing about this movie is that like exposition crone, that's what I call her.

Oh, yes.

Is shown in broad daylight and her makeup literally looks like 18th century stage makeup. Yeah, she just has a bunch of a bunch. And she just isn't like she says her face is painted white and she just has like shadows on her face.

Yeah. And some paper mache like maybe that dabbled on or something.

And it's supposed to look and it's supposed to look like, you know, like darkness. Like, but she's in broad daylight.

Yeah.

So it just looks like she has shadows painted on her face. Anyway, exposition crone gives us clip number four producer. Brad, please regale us.

What was that amulet?

It is one of the three powers of creation. Munkar controls two powers. He came here as king to get the sword.

The sword?

Join three things separate to be the power.

All right. He came here as king.

Yeah.

So that was definitely Munkar.

And exposition crone basically has now told us that Munkar wants the talismans. He wants the sword, right?

To clarify, we now have the quest, which is that Munkar is searching for...

He's got the cup and the amulet, but he's searching for the sword.

Yes, yes. And so it's the amulet of life, the chalice of magic, and then the sword is the instrument of justice. And this is the missing third item that...

Yeah, we...

That Deathstalker is now on a quest to retrieve, and then once he unites it with the other three items, whether it's he or Munkar...

We have this clip. Let's let Exposition Crone tell us.

The power will come to he who becomes a child.

Toralva, you're sending me into battle like in Sorcery. Would you stop talking to me in riddles?

Power is nothing if it is given to you. Go! Reunite the three powers.

And after they're together?

You can do anything. You will be the power.

Yeah, so if he unites the three items of power, he then will become the power.

He will be the power. Now, we don't know what it means to be the power, but he will become the power. He'll just become the power.

It sounds kind of cool.

Who doesn't want to be the power? Look, if you told me, go rescue your princess, I'm like, bitch, please. I got better things to do, but you tell me I can be the power. I'm in, right?

Yes, and the power of life and magic and justice? Like, yeah, that sounds like a pretty good deal.

That sounds like a really interesting power. I mean, yeah. So then, so he keeps... But the thing is, here's the weird part. Now, it seems like Deathstalker just kind of knows where the sword is anyway, right?

Well, he's sort of sent in a general direction, but first...

No, he just leaves her, kind of ignoring her, right? He just goes out, wandering.

But then, here's the thing. He goes to this cave.

Well, first though...

No, he goes to the river.

Yes, he stops for a drink at the river. But before that, this is crucial. We get a full actual first glimpse of Munkar in his true form, back in his throne place.

That's right.

And it turns out...

He has a death muppet.

Yeah.

Yes. I don't know if you came to this, but you know what I call this a muppet? I call him Crumblefly, because he looks like Salacious Crumb if you put him through the machine from the fly.

That is as apt a description as I could hope for. I looked at this thing, which I have written down as his freaky, slimy pet.

Yes.

This weird tentacle thing.

Right.

And I could not find words to properly describe what I was seeing.

Well, I got to say, it's a cool scene because it really... Look, it starts like this. The scene cuts in and there's this poor guy with his eye missing, and he's in real pain. You can tell the eye was removed recently. He's not in good shape, and he's kind of like a boy, and he's really upset, and he's sort of crying, except he's not gonna have an eye. And then you see the death muppet, and what you realize is that Munkar is slowly cutting pieces off of this kid and feeding them to crumble fly. And it goes on for the rest of the movie. And I gotta admit, that's kind of a really good villain flurry.

It's a good bit. There's no explanation of what this pet that he kind of keeps in a little chest, like a little treasure chest on his table or his desk. And it's just always kind of like, this is a creepy, weird thing. And yeah, he's just periodically feeding it body parts, which tells us.

He's got the guy tied up in his office.

Yes.

And he just every once in a while comes by with a knife, cuts some piece off and feeds it to crumble fly.

Yes, which is just a and I think a very efficient way to demonstrate to us that Lord Munkar is a freak.

It's just not a nice guy.

No, no, he is a freak.

But then yes, we're very similar to Game of Thrones and Reek.

Oh yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Sure.

You know, there's a couple of things here that, that could have gone well, let's keep going. Yeah.

So, so before we leave, the actor who played Munkar was in Firefox.

Yes.

What did he play in Firefox?

He played a KGB guard.

Oh wow.

Which one? I don't know, but he's listed as being it. Yeah.

And he's done a lot of animated voice work.

And the thing we find out here is that Munkar also knows Deathstalker by, by his proper name, you know, Deathstalker Hanrahan. So, DS Hanrahan. So, so he knows Deathstalker is out there. He, cause, cause, you know, the amulet and all of that, and now he wants Deathstalker killed, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And meanwhile, we then cut to Deathstalker, traipsing through the forest.

And the thing that's funny about this scene is that Deathstalker, this scene opens on Deathstalker, just kind of shaking his head like, what the fuck am I doing in this movie?

Yeah.

Like he literally, he literally is just like, you took some jock right off the grid iron, and then you put him in a loin cloth and give him a headband. And he has no fucking clue who he is or what he's doing here. He's just shaking his head like, what the fuck, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

But Exposition Crone now shows up as a reflection in the river to tell him, dude, get on this quest.

I love this so much. This might be the moment. Well, and the scene that follows are just a great doubleheader of geeky goodness, because yes, he just wants to drink. He just, hydration is important, especially for a body as buff as his.

And yeah, I mean, barbarians need a hydration.

And he's not even allowed to sip from the clear crystal waters in peace before the visage of Toralva, whatever her name is, appears to him and says, Dude, get going! No, she says, Your only thirst should be for the sword.

I mean, come on.

I mean, okay, I kind of am loving this movie at this point. This is great. This is really fun.

And she tells him to go spelunking for the sword.

Yes, she sends him into a conveniently adjacent ogre cave. Yes, that that's just to his right or something.

Except it turns out, so the ogre, so he spelunks the cave. The ogre is like this weird golem muppet, right? Who talks in a strangely 20th century vernacular.

Yeah.

Right. And he's like, how you doing, Deathstalker? And it turns out they know each other. So he's like, hey, Deathstalker, how you doing?

I've been here eating grubs and I don't know that they know each other, but he knows Deathstalker or knows of him. But there's a familiarity. Yeah. But there's also this Ogre Guard that Deathstalker has to fight.

But he doesn't because the Ogre Guard, like Goblin Puppet at one point just says to the Ogre Guard, oh, stop fighting Deathstalker. And he does. Yeah.

Yeah. It's kind of abrupt. And then there's the sword.

And then Goblin Guard says, hey, if you let me out of here, I'll give you the sword. And they walk out of the cave. And the Goblin guy's like, I've been eating bad food, toadstools, spiders. Yeah.

But what happens? It's not that simple. The sword glows and Deathstalker turns into a boy.

Because of the prophecy.

Oh, that's right.

Yeah.

The whole thing.

Yeah.

Yeah. There's a prophecy about the boy will lead him out, whatever, blah, blah. But it's like reverse Shazam. Yeah. And he leads, then, this weird ogre, Muppet Crotch, the Oscar the Grouse guy, out into daylight.

And I got to say, like, look, look. I mean, I just want to go in. I just want to say something. This is a statement. And I, you know, the Stegosaurus in Yore was a much worse puppet than this puppet. You know, I think we can agree that the craftsmanship that went into this puppet goblin golem creature was superior. But I think the puppet performance in Yore was much more committed. I don't know, man. Look, I worked on Dark Crystal. I know a thing or two about puppetry. Yes. The puppeteer did not. I don't think they had a real puppeteer. I think they just had some guy kind of clapping his hand.

I will concede that the puppetry does not match the dynamism of the VO. And also, also, also in the spirit of the actor voice.

Yore and the other actors in Yore were much more committed to the bit. Whereas this guy is just like, hey, I'm Deathstalker. Okay, you're whatever, you know?

Yeah. So the cave muppet stumbles into the river after being led outside by by young boy version of Deathstalker.

Right, right.

And he somehow now his curse is lifted. He returns to his human form of Salmaran.

Yeah. And he had said that he was handsome, but in fact, he looks like an accountant from Encino, right?

Yeah, he's some schlubby guy.

And my accountants are in Encino and they're pretty handsome guys, but you know what I mean.

Respect, respect to them in all ways and forms. And then meanwhile, in the magic of an edit, right, Deathstalker has now returned to adult form and we never see him change back into his boy form again. Nope. It just seemed to be for that. And then, of course, another rape in progress. What goes off? It's another kind of forced marauder melee.

Yeah, exactly.

That Deathstalker must intervene in.

Yes, because obviously he doesn't, he always seems to intervene in these attacks in progress. And he always is on the side. He never kills the good guys by accident, but I guess he just kind of surveys the scene and sees who's threatening who and goes in. But yeah, so there's another, he's another rape in progress.

Yeah, which seems to be a startlingly common occurrence in these woods.

The guy he fights in this, the guy he stabs real good, because he fights a bunch of people, there's another, probably what I believe to be the most perfunctory decapitation in history happens here. Yeah. Or that might be the first one. It's the same head, it doesn't matter. But then he has a fight with this guy and they kind of eye fuck for a while, right? And then Deathstalker does this weird, kneeling backwards move where he plunges his sword into the guy's. But then, Paul, you know, that, that, look, I've never seen a pornographic film, but I've heard some of the guys in Bible study talk about it. And the way that the guy's blood kind of spurts onto the sword copiously is, there's a very weird sort of, like, I don't know, the structure of that scene and the way the blood runs onto his sword is just, I, it gave me, it gave me a bad feeling in places I don't talk about in parties.

I don't know. It's a little, it's a little itchy in its decisiveness of, we're going to make you look at this insert shot and we're going to hold on it. Of this oozing blood, kind of gargling over the crossbow blade.

Yeah, after, the other question I had is, is the guy who played that fight or the same guy who played the king? Because otherwise they got two guys who looked uncannily like Richard Lynch, one of the protagonists of The Sword and the Sorcerer. So I was trying to figure out if the king and this fight are kind of like, if they shempt each other in those scenes, you know.

It wouldn't surprise me before, because this film is nothing if not efficient.

So then, now does he rape this girl too, or does he, I can't remember.

No, because there's like this family unit that appears to be there, because we also seem to see a child come out, and so there's a couple. But this guy, who is, is it Nekor? I'm not sure who that, which kid, what his name was on this. Anyway, then we get this other crucial bit. Oh Chris.

Oh Chris. No, no, wait, wait.

No, no, no.

Before we go anywhere. Before we go anywhere.

Yes.

I would like for, so here's the thing. I have a note on the score. Producer Brad, could you please regale us with this clip from the score? It's clip number six. So, this is the music that's playing over this modestly kinetic sword fight, right? And what I realized is the score here is more about a vibe than it is about actually matching the action, you know? They just, the score is more like telling you, hey, this guy's a badass, worship him, you know? But it's not, in no way does the score in any way augment or match what's going on on the screen in any way. Would you agree with this observation, Paul? I think it's more of a vibe score, you know?

I think it matches in our heart.

The other thing I want to say is, if you listen to the score closely, there's a lot of Ennio Morricone in here. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of mariachi going on with the Ennio Morricone. A couple of times since some brass goes on and I'm like, did Herb Alpert come in here?

There is a decidedly transatlantic...

Yes, quality...

.fusion quality of the score that I find potently evocative. Yes. It adds so much enjoyment to the proceedings of a film, because as we've long established, a great score can elevate a not great film.

Well, there's this clip you asked from earlier in the film.

That's the part where you hear the mariachi horns. Let's hear it.

It also sort of sounds like a spaghetti western. Here you go.

So I'm listening to this going, am I watching Zorro or am I watching Deathstalker, right? I mean, the Tijuana brass showed up for this one.

I swear to God, I am saying this with complete honesty and truth.

Do go on.

The thought that manifested in my mind upon hearing that music, that little bit of score, was, I want to wear clothes that look like this music sounds.

You know, so every time you open your closet, is this going to play?

You know, that cue and your wardrobe are literally two whip cracks short of perfection. You know that? Because literally when you open your wardrobe, it's that it's clothes that look like that music, which I assume means a lot of leather, chaps might be involved, and there has to be a bullwhip. There has to be a bullwhip.

I need some good gaucho wear.

Yeah, or maybe like a matador, like with a matador jacket.

Yeah, with some good, some fine embroidery.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And now I want to steak with Chimichurri.

And like a bolo tie.

Should we just stop the podcast and go to Carlitos Gardel, get some... Carlitos Gardel, Los Angeles' most famous Argentinian steakhouse. Literally name check. It's been around since like the 70s. Name check by Harlan Ellison in one of his essays. OK.

Yeah.

So, Paul, so then then after this, after the police scanner has taken us to an incursion we needed to stop, we meet Ogris, Ogris, whoever this is.

With a G.

Yeah. OK. I wasn't sure what his name was, if that's who this was, who is heading to the castle for another reason. We get another incentive.

Yes.

Because we've established, OK, rescue the princess. Yes. Get the sword and unite the three pieces. Now, there's a third thing, which is the tournament.

I call these the three plots of Deathstalker. Yes. Save the princess. He says no. Get the amulet becomes the power. He says yes. And then it basically, the movie becomes Enter the Dragon. Yes. Because now it's like, oh, this big guy is holding a tournament and all the best warriors in the land are going, that's where Ogris is going. So they go.

And the tournament is to decide what?

Who will be the heir to, what the fuck is his name?

Lord Munkar.

Lord Munkar's throne. Yes. Lord Munkar has trumped up this notion that he's dying and that he's at the end of his life in order to summon all the greatest warriors in the land to a tournament, to see if he's going to be his heir, but his real plan is to kill them all. Which by the way-

Or just to have them all kill each other off.

It's a great plan, by the way, a great plan, very poorly executed, but it's not a bad plan.

Again, this film should be studied for lessons in efficiency. And as far as plans go, that's a really impressively efficient plan. Have all your enemies kill themselves off.

I mean, you're right.

You know, this efficiency can be demonstrated in an equation.

It could do go on.

More boobs than action and more action than plot.

Absolutely. And by the way, here's the one thing in terms of the rapiness of this movie is that this movie misses no opportunity to show you a breast. This movie opens scenes with just a breast. As just there.

As evidenced by the very next scene.

Okay. The very next scene is so insane.

Yeah.

So Ogres has joined them because we've got to form our D&D party.

Exactly. So now we have a fighter and a fighter.

Yeah.

And a former Ogre. I don't know.

He's not a mage.

He doesn't have any skills or powers.

He's just some asshole.

He's like a tourist at this point.

Yeah, exactly. And by the way, which is weird, because now Deathstalker and former Goblin Muppet guy, they're like best pals now, which is like, huh? I mean, I'm shocked Deathstalker didn't try to rape him, to be honest with you, but that's another...

Oh, we kind of get something similar to that unexpectedly later. But then they're camping at night in the forest.

This cloaked warrior shows up and they start fighting the cloaked warrior. Ogre starts fighting the cloaked warrior and manages to rip, to using his sword, cut off the rogue warrior's cloak, revealing that this cloak warrior wears no armor, no shirt, no vestment. She is just literally a warrior who walks around. Her entirety of her clothing consists of a G-string and some sort of crossed straps around her bare breasts. And she literally spends the rest of the movie... There's no less vulgar way of saying it, tits out. Like, this is it. She's just literally with her breasts exposed the entire film.

Not entirely.

There's one thing where they give her kind of a very revealing top.

Yes. Yeah, very, very minimal.

But by the way, she loses that for her last scene also. And then she's...

Yes.

So for some reason, this warrior played by Lana Clarkson...

Yes, Kyra.

Kyra. Now, and they're not even clever about it, because what I thought was, you know, the moment that he cuts the thing and her vestments fall off to reveal her bare breasts, I imagine it's like Batman in the Dark Knight, you know, where like Batman gets shot in the chest and he says, Of course you shot me in my bulletproof armor that I have on my chest. Why do you think I wear a target on my chest? Right? He's got the Big Bat logo on his chest. And I thought this was her move. This is her signature move. You know, she lures you in, you fight her. Then you like rip off her vestments by accident. And then you're so distracted by her bare boobs that she kills you. That would be clever.

Dare I say, she puts the whammy on you.

Exactly.

In order to then defeat you. That would be a very difficult.

But alas, it turns out she's a mediocre fighter who couldn't afford a shirt. Now, can I tell you a story about Lana Clarkson? Because it's a grim story.

Oh, grim story.

Lana Clarkson famously and very tragically, her life ended because she was shot by Phil Spector.

Oh, right.

That's who Lana Clarkson is, right? Now, here's my connection to that. So I actually am friends with somebody who long before this whole thing happened, dated Lana Clarkson, right? And that's neither here nor there. But I got called to jury duty sometime in 2009. And I went on jury duty, and we were told, if you have the free time to be on a long trial, put your sheet over here, right? So I put my sheet over there because I was unemployed at the time, and jury duty is not something that I shirk away from. If I've got jury duty, I'm gonna go. And then I get in the elevator for the lunch break, and in the elevator was Phil Spector and his legal team.

Oh my god.

And it was the creepiest shit I've ever seen. Literally, he was there with his double Winster Knot, the Frightwig, everything, like it was, and I realized that was going to be the longest trial they were on jury selection for.

Oh my god.

So I promptly went and took my sheet off of that because I would have been disqualified immediately from that trial. But yeah, it's a very weird like, wow, thing to have had your life cross over with. So yeah, grim, tragic, awful. And it made me sad because Lana Clarkson is so exploited in this film. Like it's literally just like her performance is literally just, she doesn't do anything in this movie other than travel with our characters and show her breasts.

She has one moment of decisive heroism. Yes. Where she steps up when no one else will or does, including Deathstalker. And that is impressive. But that is arguably, I think inarguably, the biggest failing of the film is that- Right.

Is that-

There is no well-developed female character.

And they have the opportunity to make this character interesting, smart, strong and clever. And because it's 1983 and this movie was, again, in cell in a bottle, they don't do anything. Like, again, it's like-

Well, and compare and contrast with Conan. Right.

Where Valeria is just the bomb. I wanted to be her. Yeah. And Paul, here's the thing. Again, the pitch I just made with the boobs, I would have made that in the writer's room. If the showrunner wanted the boobs that badly, I would have been like, look, it's your show. You got however you want, but can we make her clever about it at least? And I would have pitched that. But sadly, you don't even get that.

Make it a mechanism of empowerment. Yes. As opposed to, or at least in contrast to-

As opposed to just a mechanism of having boobs.

Just simply exploitation. Yes.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So anyway, so that happens.

She did get her own film from this barbarian queen.

She did?

Written by the same writer. So I saw that back in the day and I don't remember if she gets more of a character in that film, but she is the lead.

Well, then I should hope she would. Yes.

Okay.

So now the question is, does everyone in the movie call her barbarian queen or does she have a name? If we could triangulate from that, we might actually find out what that's.

1985, we've got two years to go.

All right.

Anyway, so then we go to what I call the, so then we go back to Barbie Benton. Now she has been put in a diaphanous gown along with the rest of the women in the harem. No, she's actually in some sort of bikini and somebody brings in a basket full of what appears to be animal parts.

Well, the two things I was able to identify were apples and pork chops. Which is an interesting combination to put in a basket. There might have been other things.

Isn't one supposed to be pork chops with applesauce? Because it might have been some sort of primordial version of that, you know?

Maybe.

What if Lord Munkar invented that?

Yeah. Wow, the mind boggles.

What a contribution.

Okay. I mean, that is the true power.

So the point of the scene is Barbie Benton dresses down all the other women in the harem. She goes, where's my part? And then she grabs a piece of pork chop or a piece of mutton. So she is assertive for mutton.

Yeah.

She takes it from her.

Yes.

This kind of feels like a women in prison movie scene of her asserting dominance in her cell block. It kind of follows the same beat and dynamic.

Well, pretty much a lot of those types of movies, yes.

Yes. And again, whenever we see her, there seems to be a necessity for the film to demonstrate her spunkiness.

And there's something else I want to talk about this scene, which I don't know if either of you noticed, but did you notice that she's got a big old hickey on her neck?

I did not notice.

Producer Brad's nodding. She has like a total hickey on her neck. I'm like, what the hell, Barbie? What the hell? Make a person, like, come on.

I didn't make the effort to go forwards and backwards and see if it was present elsewhere.

What was the foundation budget on this film that low that they couldn't like slap some powder on that? Come on. Okay. Anyway, so in the next scene, Munkar is now feeding the boys' fingers to a crumble fly.

And he's informed by General Kang that Deathstalker is camping near the castle.

And again, everybody knows Deathstalker. Everybody knows Deathstalker. Everybody knows him, no matter what, no matter who.

And this apparently is all part of a plan that Lord Munkar wants to lure Deathstalker.

So then we go back to the campfire. Now that Kyra has joined the party. And of course, Deathstalker goes up to her while she's sleeping, starts groping her and consent again, very loose. It is intimated in the scene that she's into it. But wow, his approach is not, yeah, not cool.

It's assertive. It's assertive. They had been trading sexy eyes in the prior scene very assertively.

Yes.

And yeah, it is, but it is nebulous in the scene to what degree she is inviting his advances in this particular moment.

I think that in modern times, we can be like, this is not good.

No, it's not good. It's not explicit.

But she very quickly then is shown to be, yeah, greatly pleasured by Deathstalker's rapey stylings.

Very enthusiastic about how things proceed. And meanwhile, being well, Salmaron is watching. Because Salmaron clearly, a bit of a perv.

A bit of a perv, yeah. But look, in his defense, he spent like 100 years being cave muppet.

Well, yeah, he has not gotten out a lot.

I don't think there was a lot of porn in that, in that cave.

No, no, so good for him.

Now, my next note for what happens next in the film is, this reminds me of how The Force Awakens stops dead on its tracks for 30 minutes, halfway through, so they can go to a restaurant. Do you remember The Force Awakens? There's a perfectly good movie happening. And then Han Solo's like, we gotta go see Mas Kanata. And then 30 minutes, we're in a fucking restaurant. It's just literally like food service, we're walking around the restaurant, people are chatting in the restaurant, we're just in a restaurant, right?

It's a showcase for the creature shop, creature team.

Yeah, it's basically the bad, it's the Cantina scene with no plot need whatsoever. So the next half hour, it feels like, we're basically in the multipurpose room of evil, where Munkar is running his welcome banquet slash orgy for the fighters who've come in for the tournament, right? And he opens it by saying, here's my new bride, played by Barbie Benton, who's wearing kind of a diaphanous white sheet, so you can see her boobs. And whoever wins in hand-to-hand combat gets to rape her.

Yeah.

And who steps up with a guy who looks like a Gammarine guard from Return of the Jedi? There's a pig man, an orc man.

Yes, a pig man. I want to elaborate a little bit on this multipurpose room and the...

Of evil...

.that are underway. Of evil. Of much evil, considerable evil. When this scene opens, it is not clear at all where we are. I thought, are we in some kind of pub, in some kind of tavern? But it's made out of stone? But then it's like, oh, no, this is like... It turns out it's the throne room slash banquet hall of debauchery in Lord Munkar's castle, where he's invited all these people in, mainly the warriors who are participating in the tournament, plus a lot of, let's say, using his presumed vernacular, wenches.

He says, we have the best of everything here.

Food, drink, women.

Yes, yes. And, but it's a very curious combination of activities on display. Right. First and foremost, front and center, there is mud wrestling.

Again, again, the movie starts with, this scene begins with a half naked woman being thrown in a pit of mud. Yes. Because this movie will, like literally, like literally.

And then who wrestles another naked woman in the mud. Then we get, we get Pigman and there's a feast happening, which includes Roast Pig.

Yes.

Which Pigman then proceeds to start cannibalistically consuming.

No, Pigman has not, Pigman has very, has very weak ethics.

Yes. The head of the Roasted Pig.

Right.

There's dancing, there's gymnastics. There's just all sorts of hedonism.

There's like these dwarves dressed up as yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

I say dwarves in the context of fantasy, obviously.

Yes. Yes. But then yeah, Munkar comes in, he sees that Deathstalker has arrived and has a sword. And then he gives his welcome address.

I have ruled longer than most of you have lived. Now I'm old. My time is near. But only the strongest will take my place. We shall see in the battles of the next two days who will claim my kingdom and whether good or evil will rule. Evil!

Cheering for evil.

Love it.

Evil, E-V-I-L, evil.

It's little choices like that. Evil! That delight me so much in this film.

Yeah.

I think that's the term that most people find in it.

It's so funny and stupid, but it's funny.

So Pigman is going to go rape Barbie Benton. Somebody tries to fight him.

He steps up first.

Yeah.

And then there's a brawl, and it's the stupidest brawl, because it's really the brawl that's going on. For most of it, Deathstalker is just kind of hanging out. Like he's just lounging around, looking around, going like, Oh, I'm going to brawl with him. Like people are sort of milling around this brawl. It's very weird.

I have a question for you about this, because I was intrigued and puzzled by this, but again, I can only assume that this is just an extension of my constant state of overthinking. Is Deathstalker purposely holding back in the interest of not too conspicuously revealing himself, even though he's freaking Deathstalker, so he's conspicuous just by existing in the world, that apparently everyone knows him.

He's promenading, waiting for the boss battle to begin, because he's not going to dirty his hands with blood.

Or he's thinking strategically in terms of, I'm going to save my strength. Like, I don't need this yet. There's nothing. This is not my whatever. Or is he just...

Stupid.

Horribly aloof and indifferent.

To the suffering?

Yeah. And again, just not ethically, morally sound of character.

I mean, look, I think that he's an asshole. Okay. Like, I mean, if you put him and Ace Hunter in the same room, Ace would walk out going, man, that fucking guy.

Do we need an asshole hall of fame for the show?

Yes, we do.

Oh, yeah. How many people are in it?

Everyone in a sword and sorcery movie, every protagonist of every sword and sorcery movie. Conan, The Beastmaster, Talon, this asshole. I mean, they're just little assholes.

Ace Hunter.

Ace Hunter.

Oh, boy. Big time. So a corollary to my question is then, Kyra is clearly moved by what's happening and has strong empathy for the captive princess, who she does not presumably know is a princess, just as another woman who is being exploited, chained to this rock in this diaphanous gown. And she repeatedly tries to get up, and Deathstalker holds her back. And you can read this two different ways or more than two different ways. One is, what an asshole, the other is, don't get yourself killed. Think this through. Look at the odds and the numbers in the situation. And don't we need to choose our fights, battle, blah, blah, blah. Again, none of this is expressed. This is all open to interpretation.

But finally, ultimately, my interpretation was, she's mine to save. Sit down. I will save her when I'm ready.

Interesting.

The good thing about this movie is that it lets the audience figure it out for themselves. It's not like one of these movies where it's spoon fed, you know. It's like this movie trusts you to get it. And I believe we and I believe we got it.

Yes. But ultimately, Kyra prevails.

Yes.

And she leaps into action to try to, and he finally lets her, basically. Yes. But she's vastly outnumbered. There's this crazy brawl happening around her, and she fails to free her and then gets sucked into the brawl.

Right.

Yeah. But then this is finally the moment where Deathstalker steps into the fray.

When they have the obligatory, hey, look at everybody fighting, only they're not because a bunch of people are milling around and kind of looking at the brawl indifferently. And the pig man quite literally rips off someone's arm and hits him with it.

Yes.

And by the way, that is fucking great.

Yes. Yes. He does not. And this is important. And I appreciate it.

So I wish Deathstalker had done that. That would have been a great Deathstalker move, by the way.

It is so great. He is fighting a guy who seems to inexplicably be semi holding his own with the incredibly imposing pig man. He literally is this giant man with the head of a pig.

Yes.

And he grabs some passerby, like someone who is presumably in another fight with somebody else.

Or by the way, this could be like a waiter. This could be just some chef who says, Hey, honey, I got a job at the castle. Isn't that great?

Yeah. Somebody who is largely out of frame.

Right.

And he just rips the arm off and then starts beating the shit out of the guy in front of him. He's fighting with the severed arm. It's a great bit. It's and yeah, it's like, oh boy, you don't want to mess with the pig man.

And winds up killing the pig man in the same way he kills the other guy. Which is that?

No, no, no, no, no. He has a pig. No, no, no. We're saving the showdown between Deathstalker and Pigman until the finale.

Oh, that's right. That's right.

Yes, that's the big finale. But he rescues the princess.

Yes. Here's the thing I was going to say about that, though, if I may.

Briefly.

Really? You're asking me briefly?

No, no, no. He rescues the princess.

OK, good. Because I'm like, Mr. Pott, Mr. Pott, Black Courtesy phone. It's Mr. Kettle, you know. OK. OK, so Deathstalker does have a signature move, and it is the wipe of the blood from my blade using the back of my knee. He does it twice in the movie where he literally does some flourish and his sword winds up behind his knee and then he kind of lifts up his knee and he goes, that's how he cleans the blood from his sword. That is this guy's cool, cool badass move.

Yeah. OK.

So he saves the princess briefly, but then she gets taken.

Well, he's blocked by Munkar and his guards. Yeah.

Who's like, he's like, you think you're saving her, but she's mine. And then they take her away.

Right. Yes. And then we get.

Mine, you know. But I think she fancies you. I'll ever send to your chamber when the excitement is over.

Again, the score is more about the vibe. It's not about matching anything on screen.

It's like happy medieval music.

Yeah. Paul, okay, so then we get the payoff to this plant, which is that Munkar uses his magic ability. And by the way, Munkar has like a weird son, scorpion snake tattoo on his bald head, which is phenomenal. I was gonna say, Paul, you and I, as men who shave their heads, should really look into that.

And he's got this little goatee, facial hair thing happening.

Would you like to go the full Munkar? Is that...

No, I don't think I can pull off the Munkar look.

So Munkar, in one of the most awkward and just awful and creepy and stupid and cringe-worthy scenes in this movie...

The sequence is insane...

.transforms his henchmen into Barbie Benton. But again, you see it, there's not a transformation shot, there's not like a big Rick Baker... It's literally the guy grabbing his chest and his crotch, and then he's going, I don't have a penis anymore, you know, whatever.

He literally says, it's gone. What he realizes is his penis has vanished.

Yeah, and then he's Barbie Benton, and then, yeah.

Wow, just a moment.

Yeah, a moment, yeah.

This scene and the successive scene that follows are insane. It boggles the mind. First of all, we get the little creature, Muppet from Hell, who apparently is referred to by General King as Little Howard, if I heard correctly.

Yeah, he said, he called someone Howie, it was really weird.

Yeah.

To me, he's Crumblefly. That's all I can say.

Okay, Crumblefly. We get the plan, Munkar Fierce is where he finally reveals the plan. He's going to have all the wars, kill each other, no winner or heir.

Which by the way, it's a problem because they didn't have enough money to put a mezzanine in the multipurpose room of evil because this plan could have been a lot easier if you just had archers on the mezzanine, shoot them all while they're drunk and feasting and ordefying.

Like the secret red wedding origin that we saw in Sword and Sorcerer.

But they did not have enough money for a mezzanine in the multipurpose room of death.

But General Kang says, but what about Deathstalker? And he says, well, you are going to assassinate him to night, but in disguise, transformed into a doppelganger of Princess Codile. Yes, and this transformation, it's insane and funny.

And awkward and creepy.

Yeah, it's very creepy. And then he sends him with a dagger.

OK, yeah, OK, so it's a Deathstalker's room, right?

Yes.

And she and Deathstalker have chemistry and all that. But what does Deathstalker figure out? Because Deathstalker, I couldn't figure out if he was raping her because he wanted to rape her or if he was raping her because he knew he was because the rape looks like he's doing it as a punishment. But because he finds out he's somebody else and he's going to rape them as punishment. It's weird. I don't know what happened in the scene, Paul.

This is so disturbing and unsettling.

It is.

Because it's General Kang in the form of Princess Cadil.

Right.

Who Deathstalker is expecting, because as we just heard from the clip, he's going to have her watch and take. Lord Munkar has promised to send the princess to his chamber after the the excitement is over. The excitement is over. And so he's patiently been patiently waiting and he or she appears. But it's it's not her. And credit to Barbie Benton for playing the general king in disguise.

Yes, as it's not Kang, it's the other henchmen, though.

But Paul, is it so?

But what is it that's happening because they do get in bed and he does start kind of raping her.

But I is well, first, first, he tries to stab Deathstalker with the dagger.

Right.

Okay. Quite feebly.

Right.

Maybe because he's not used to being.

He's not used to this body. He says, he says this is after the transition. He says, this is very uncomfortable.

Yes. And then Deathstalker retaliates, defending himself and he's like, what is going on? He pins who he thinks is the princess.

Right. Down.

Down in bed.

Right.

And then, yeah, is in the process of assaulting who he thinks is the princess.

Yes. Because whether he's trying to kill me or not, F it. I'm just going to go ahead and rape this person. That's just what I do.

Which was presumably, again, his plan expecting her arrival anyway, but now has the added dimension of punishment.

He's really excited about this now, because like he's tried to stab me now. I'm really into it.

Yeah. Yeah.

It might be a turn on for him. But at the same time, we in the audience know that that is not the princess. That is who I thought it was.

Henchman.

Henchman. Whatever.

General Hench.

Yeah. Who is freaking out. Right.

Because he's about to get fucked by Deathstalker.

Yes.

Yeah.

And it's so messed up. It is so messed up.

Deathstalker does say, who are you?

Yes.

At a certain point.

Yes.

But then there's an awkward, ongoing moment where he's still kind of on top of him and being rapey.

Deathstalker senses that something is amiss, but he can't quite put his finger on it because one can only presume he has never encountered this form of magic. Right. Much less maybe even knows such a thing as possible.

I guess. Okay. Yeah.

But his spidey sense goes on off that like, oh, I don't know, there's something weird about the vibe I'm getting from the princess that's not like...

I'm getting a real hench-y vibe.

So he then stops and sends her slash him away.

Instead of interrogating, torturing, or killing this creature, he does not think it's Barbie Benton, but he just goes, oh, well, I guess since you're not the person I thought I was going to have sex with, get out.

Yes. Who has now failed in the mission assigned by Lord Munkar to assassinate.

All right. So I'm Deathstalker. Let's say I'm Deathstalker. I'm not, but let's say I am, right? So the woman I thought I was going to have a tryst with tonight shows up, tries to kill me, and I go, I'm still having the tryst, f it, right? So I start the act of raping this person, right? Because obviously, Consentus is not here.

Yes.

And this movie is awful. And then I suspect that there's something other.

Yeah.

And I go so far as to say, what are you, right?

Yes.

And then this person, and then realizing that this is not somebody that I necessarily want to rape anymore, I let them go.

Yes.

There will be questions. Who sent you? What are you? Why did you try to murder me? Who? Right?

Yes. Yeah.

Okay.

So apparently, overriding all of those questions is a question that he just doesn't want to know the answers.

Which is what?

Which is that he's like, whatever this is, I don't think I want to know, because I'm getting a weird vibe. But I mean, unavoidably...

And I kept trying to make it happen, even after I got the weird vibe. So get out of here. Yeah.

This trio of scenes, the one preceding the transformation, this scene and then the next one, this is essentially highly problematic trans representation.

Oh, it's horrible. It's horrible. So unexpected. It was so bad to me that I didn't even look at it that way, because I just thought... But you know what? I mean, having a man turn into a woman and go again through this, it is awful on every level. It really is.

Yeah. And it's sort of mind-boggling, the numbers of ways, the creativity of wrongness, that it contains in so many ways.

Like, you know, look, I understand that there are times when you write something and the times are different. And, you know, I've spent many a year and many a moment with queer and trans friends apologizing for the episode of Charmed that I wrote in which Shannon Doherty becomes a man. It's awful. And it literally came at a time when I had absolutely no knowledge of any of this, right? Yeah. So look, I can imagine, but I also remember when we used to play Dungeons and Dragons, there was a and we were and we were kids, you know, we're in 12, 13 years old. There was there was always tell of a game in which there was a room where you went into the room, a strange mist went into the room and you change. Every character changed sexes. Right. And I remember how terrified we as kids were in the 80s of the possibility that that could. And I remember we threatened our dungeon master with like, if you fucking do that to us, you know, the game, we're not going to have this game anymore. Like, so I understand how in this particular genre with in this particular year, this is perceived as not being a great outcome, but knowing what we know now, it just sucks on an every level.

It does. It is a reflection of the ignorance of the time and the lack of sophistication in which still sadly persists in too many ways and circles and corners and even the real centers of our society. But tapping into this fear that, because you can look at a lot of this film and there's a lot of bare-chested Deathstalker and a lot of things that can be interpreted as shamelessly homoerotic.

They are not above showing beefcake in this film.

Yes, a lot of beefcake, but at the same time tapping into this very homophobic, transphobic fear of constructing a scenario where the assumption must be that the audience is going to be like, oh, my, what's the scariest thing we can think of is that, oh, you're about to bet a princess, but in actuality, it is an unattractive male henchman in disguise.

But then, and also, and then this is where Lana Clarkson, like literally she goes, she starts fighting the, she ends up fighting the Barbie, the, the Barbie, the, the Benton ganger.

And yes, because she finds, yeah, she finds her in the hallway, in the passageway, and, and, and, and Kyra is, is sympathetic thinking, you know, again, connecting the dot, only dots that she's aware of, of seeing who she thinks is the princess emerging with a sense of downcast failure and defeat from Deathstalker's room, to try to be, you know, this moment of, of feminine solidarity, only to then be turned on and stabbed. And then we get the transformation back.

Back into, into, yeah.

Yeah. And then we get a duel, which is actually kind of, kind of cool, because we have maybe the best woman empowerment kind of fight scene from her. And she slays Munkar's henchmen once he's revealed.

But, but he gets, he gets her.

She has been stabbed.

Yeah.

And Deathstalker emerges and she dies in his arms.

You know, this is this film that Lana Clarkson real dirty.

Yeah.

This film just like, first of all, I can understand why you wouldn't want to be a woman in this world. Okay. In the world of this film, like literally, it's pretty fucking bad to be a woman. As bad as it is in sword and sorcery movies, this is probably the worst we've seen. Lana Clarkson, like, I mean, just, why couldn't they just make her formidable? Why couldn't they do that? I don't understand. If you're going to have a female warrior like this, why do you, and then she goes out from a sucker punch. Come on.

Because of course women are not allowed in the tournament.

Right. She dies.

And we cut to the next morning and the tournament begins.

With a minimum of morning or comment. So the tournament begins.

I have a note that there appear to be an impressive amount of extras in the tournament proceedings.

Yes.

There are a whole lot of people there. And I don't know how they got them.

And all of them costumed. It's kind of odd, right?

Yeah.

I mean, that's not where I was spent. That's not where I was spent the money.

It is an unexpected leap in scope in the film. And then we there's this montage that's kind of chaotic of a variety of gladiatorial duels.

This tournament makes no sense. Although there is a great part where one of the fighters hit someone with a hammer and like literally they just disintegrate and that was like a giant mallet. And they literally just go, you know, and then there's that's on the I mean, that was pretty cool. And by the way, when that guy dies, you can tell that this was not made in the United States where they would like, oh, well, we need to get caro syrup and, you know, use use this. And they just went to the butcher shop and got some guts and spread them on the ground. I mean, it's like, yeah, this is like old school.

OK, so the tournament exhibits, let's say, quite a variety of fighting styles and weapon choices. Yes. So there's a lot of wrestling moves.

Yes.

And random things from Malice.

I don't mean wrestling. You don't mean wrestling. You mean rasslin.

Yeah.

Yeah. Also, did you notice the hand knife guy?

Yeah.

So there's one guy, this little skinny dude, earlier on, they throw him against the roof and he sticks there because his hand is a knife. He doesn't have a hand. He's got a knife for a hand. And the pig man picks him up and throws him and he gets stuck on the roof with this. And then he's fighting and he's got this really wing-chung kind of fighting style. He sort of speed punches you with his knife hand and then he dies. Yeah, he dies. So anyway.

And then the buddy, road buddy of Deathstalker.

Oh, Grace.

Yes. We see him fight and win and he has apparently a new girlfriend.

He made a special friend during the brawl, yes.

In the brawl, tavern, debauchery scene. Who is impressed by his victory.

Deathstalker is not only kind of not taking part in the tournament. He's just kind of promenading around with the smirk on his face. Like it's not whether he'll have sex tonight, it's when. He's just walking around like-

Yeah. A lot of his performance and portrayal of his character is aloofness.

There's smug, contemptuous, lecherousness to his performance that I find totally not fascinating.

Yeah.

I think he may be the least compelling leading man we've seen so far, you know?

You, if you were being generous in interpretation.

Which you are.

Which I try to be. You could read him in situations like this sequence of him trying to, say, fly casual, as a Han Solo would instruct, but is actually being very coolly calculating in seizing the opportunity.

Saving his energy.

Survey the competition and study the participants to learn their moves and to plan his approach when he is put in to the tournament. Now, what's weird though, in terms of how the tournament is structured, you presume that everyone goes in the first round, and it's just this round robin and you just work your way up and through. For some reason, he has been exempted from fighting on the entirety of day one. And it's not explained at all, other than, I guess, well, maybe he gets a pass because he's Deathstalker.

Yeah. And then while this is going on, the Gollum, former puppet Muppet Cave guy, is stalking around the castle. No, last night, the cave Muppet guy was stalking around the castle and falls into the harem. We didn't talk about this. This is a scene that happened somewhere in the Lana Clark.

Yeah, this actually kind of happens next. Yeah, once night falls after the first day of the tournament, what's his name? Who's... Cave Muppet. No, no, no. Ogre, Ogre-y, whatever.

Well, that's where we find out who Ogre wins his fight.

Yeah, we haven't gotten that yet. So he's... But he is captured by guards. And then Tal Moran, the non-wizard, former Cave Muppet, is following him stealthily through the castle because he sees his being captured and taken to a torture chamber. But then he is caught and busted by a guard who chases him. He falls out of a tower window into the harem, very conveniently into the pool in the harem. He emerges from the pool and this fall that... He must have thought he was falling to his death. Surrounded by beautiful, scantily clad women. And he says, I've been waiting 30 years for this.

So there you go.

Which is nice.

And then we go back. So then we find out the big twist.

Yes, they reveal.

Ogress is on a wheel. He's being broken on a wheel. But then it turns out he's not. Because Munkar walks in and he slips off of the wheel. And basically, we learn that Ogress was tasked by Munkar to bring Deathstalker to the tournament.

He's a spy. And he reveals this by when Munkar arrives in the torture chamber. He says, this is no way to treat the man who brought you Deathstalker.

Deathstalker.

Yeah, right. He's like, oh, my God. Who would have thunk it?

Yep. Then. So so Ogress agrees that tomorrow he'll kill Deathstalker. Tomorrow I'll kill him. So they're going to fight. He's going to get him away from the sword and kill him.

Yeah, kind of. So because Munkar's first assassination attempt failed. So now he's put it on him, right? To to kill Deathstalker. But he now goes to Deathstalker's chambers that night and tells him to flee because Munkar plans to kill everybody, including him, but then tries to kill Deathstalker. And they get into a bare-fisted fight. Munkar, I mean, Ogre and Deathstalker.

My note on this was Ogre and Deathstalker stare at each other's greasy pecs, then fight.

Yes, they're both very bare-chested.

And very greased up.

Very greased up, too.

Yeah. And like Alan Bates, kind of like Alan Bates and Oliver Reed in the adaptation of DH. Lawrence's Women in Love.

Yes.

Only completely not in any way like that. The other thing that's interesting about this movie.

Not a reference I expected in this episode.

You didn't think I was going to remember a Ken Russell movie from the 70s, really? The other thing that's really interesting is this is a Punch the Lens movie, which is, you know, it's that shot that's completely out of style, but you saw it a lot in those Clint Eastwood, Bear Fist movies, Any Which Way You Can movies, where they're fighting and then you see them and they're like in a straight shot, center punch, and they throw punches right at the camera, right at the lens.

And then cut to the reverse POV.

And then you cut to the reverse POV, yeah. It's delightful to see that incredibly integrated technique.

They have a close quarters brawl.

Yeah.

The Deathstalker refuses to use his sword. He defiantly says, I don't need a sword to fight you. Even though he's been warned by, or, you know, O'Gurri, whatever his name is, was warned by Lord Munkar, when you try to kill him, you must make sure he's not holding the sword. Because while he's holding the sword, he's invincible.

You know, giving the protagonist of your movie a sword that makes him invincible seems to defeat the purpose of a movie. Because the whole idea in a movie is you have an arc, right? And so if he really starts the movie with the sword of invincible and he just can't be killed, what's this guy got to learn from anyone about anything? He's got nothing. There's no stakes for Deathstalker other than smugness.

Because I read this in a slightly different way.

Do go on.

He, in a way, this is foreshadowing the climax because he is refusing the power. He's refusing to cheat code of the sword of invincibility.

In this fight specifically.

Because that ruins the fight. Right. And that kind of ruins life. And so he also, I think, is Deathstalker. So he's arrogant enough to think, I can beat this guy without that, without the cheat code. So he plunges the sword into the floor, and fights him. Meanwhile, his opponent is now thinking, if I grab the sword, I'll be Deathstalker. And I'll get the power of invincibility. So that adds a dimension of suspense to the sequence, not super well executed, but present nonetheless.

Yes.

And also somehow his new girlfriend wanders and peeks in and is watching, and then gets to see her new boyfriend killed by Deathstalker for his betrayal.

I think that there is a vestigial whisper of narrative intent here. Yeah. That you have caught in a way that I never could.

I mean...

No, Paul, here's the thing. Like, I kind of, you know, look, on a lot of movies that we've seen, I just kind of, at this point, this late in the movie, we're like, you know, an hour and 10 minutes in or whatever. I'm just like, fuck it. You know, then they fight. Then, you know, so anyway...

And how does he kill him?

You tell me. I can't even remember. And I just saw this movie an hour ago.

So again, speaking of wrestling moves, he gets, Deathstalker gets him in a choke hold.

Right.

He has him at his mercy. He says, goodbye, my friend. And then...

Snaps his neck like a snake?

Snaps his neck.

Wow.

Takes him out. Wow. As mercifully as I guess his options offer him. And then the next morning, round two, I guess, day two of the tournament, Deathstalker still alive after two assassination attempts. And now...

He's gonna fight?

He re-enters the tournament and Lord Munkar proclaims from his elevated...

Plinth.

VIP box, Lord Box, when the sun sets tonight, one man will stand as the greatest warrior of all. And it comes down to which two warriors?

Pigman.

Deathstalker and Pigman.

And Pigman, yes. Which I love because...

And this is a good fight that goes on for a while.

But here's the thing. This is not a very well-thought-out thing. Because what if Deathstalker loses, then Pigman is king? Can you imagine that guy being king of anything? I don't know. Anyway, so we have the fight. And it's a fight.

Yeah, there are twists and turns. You know, Pigman gets the drop on Deathstalker, and then it like flips and back and forth.

And then we have another blood spray kind of explosion.

Yeah, a lot of pig blood gets gets splayed down the shaft of Deathstalker's lengthy sword.

Yeah, and much. Yeah. And then and then then we get to the end game of the movie, which is the brawl sort of ends.

And we get one of the most abrupt cuts of the film because the crowd is celebrating and cheering the tournament. He's Deathstalker is victorious. Then we cut to night and Deathstalker is stalking through the castle.

Yes. Yes. So it's almost like the brawl ended. Things got out of control. And now he's running into the castle going after Lord Munkar. This is obviously taken from Enter the Dragon, where, you know, like the brawl goes to shit, you know, and everybody's running. And then, you know, the guy with the knife hand runs into the Hall of Mirrors. Like that's what they're doing here. But again, this is much like everything you got from the previous scene is a whisper of vestigial narrative intent, you know.

Also, it may or may not be worth mentioning, there is no sense of geographic coherence to the layout of this dungeon.

No, nope, not in the least.

Ever at all. It's just wandering around these sets, but then we see Lord Munkar, who apparently is lying in wait. He transforms himself into a guard or something, I guess, to disguise himself and to hide among his guards to find him. The guards raid the harem.

And then start roughing up the girls, but then Salaxalan, what the fuck is his name? Dervilan?

Yeah, yeah, the Princess Cadel and Talmoran fight back.

Talmoran, yeah, and he winds up saving some of the girls and they love him even more even though he's apparently been there since the previous night.

Yeah, he's just been.

He never left.

He moved in. He lives there now. That's just his home and he's clearly charmed many of them. They seem to adore him and yeah, he seems very content there. But then we follow Deathstalker who finds the amulet in the weirdest place. It is just hanging from the ceiling in a weird random room with a cliff wall down into some kind of pit. It's just hanging out in the open in this weird room out of reach and he's trying to reach for it. Then lo and behold, Lord Munkar sneaks up behind him and attacks him and Deathstalker drops the sword. We're in the homestretch. We finally are getting Munkar and Deathstalker fighting each other.

The boss battle is about to begin.

Yeah, Deathstalker manages to stab Munkar with his own sword. And then there's this moment out of the blue, out of nowhere, where Deathstalker uses the force.

Oh, yeah, that's right.

To retrieve his sword of justice.

Yeah.

And then he uses the sword, it makes no sense.

Yeah, he literally, it's like he just remembered that he's a Jedi Knight. Yeah, yeah, whatever.

Yeah, he jumped into a different movie. Uses the sword to retrieve the amulet, puts it on.

Right.

And decapitates Lord Munkar.

Because Munkar is wearing a hood during this, they could reuse the head from the previous decapitations.

Yes.

That's how you reuse a head. You put a hood on it, you decapitate it. There you go. Yeah.

Yes. But then what does Lord Munkar do? What does decapitated Lord Munkar do, Javi?

Do tell me. Go ahead.

He reaches for his own head.

Yes.

And he puts it back on his neck.

Yes. There's a weird freeze frame and he teleports him outside. And then Munkar duplicates himself. There's like 10 men in cloaks who kind of have goatees running around.

It's almost like something out of The Prisoner.

Yeah. And then Deathstalker starts fighting them. And some of them like he decapitates at least one mannequin.

And they laugh as he slays them.

Yes. So it's yeah. And then who shows up? Oh, the Crone shows up.

Well, Princess Cadel shows up first to join him.

Yeah.

But then Munkar approaches with the chalice.

Look, here's what happens. Here's what basically happens is this. Is that this movie gets so fucking tedious and boring and just annoyingly like you're just watching that the Crone shows up and says, no, no, no, there's a whammy.

There's a whammy.

Oh, God.

The fuck.

OK, go ahead. Go ahead. See, this is our usual. This is where a podcast always gets to, which is like you want to tell every detail. And I'm like, God, this is the finale. OK, OK, OK, go ahead.

Give me the whammy.

Give me the whammy.

Because he's got the chalice of magic.

Yeah.

And he puts the whammy on Deathstalker's sword, which starts to glow red. And weighing him down.

He uses the he uses the he burns. He makes the sword red hot. And yeah, yeah, I remember that.

And weighs more. Apparently, he acts like it. And so he's burning his hands and weighs him down. And and then again, it looks like Lord Munkar has won. It looks like he's found a way. There's no way that he can win. And he says this.

You have no defense against me.

Take the charlest.

To me, this is literally the crone has been watching this movie, and she's just so wants it to end so badly, that she's just like, she's literally-

Are you the crone?

Yes, I'm the crone. The crone is literally, you know, do you know how like, the callback thing in the Rocky Horror feature show got started, the Rocky Horror Picture Show? Literally like, someone in the audience got so annoyed, they were like, they literally crawled out like, get in the house, you bitch. And that's how the whole thing started, right? Like it was like one person got angry and yelled back at the screen. That's the crone. The crone is the standard for the audience going, when you have the information, I gave you the information, you know what you're supposed to do. Why is this movie still happening?

Because it's awesome. Because, so yes, so the crone, the witch does this, does the force projection, like the ghost of Obi-Wan.

Like Luke Skywalker at the end of The Last Jedi.

Yes, yes, to give Deathstalker the motivational speech that he needs to then walk through the flames that Lord Munkar has the chalice. Yes.

And he turns the chalice into the car headlight of doom. Yes.

Because Deathstalker now has the advantage. He has the amulet and the sword.

Right.

And Lord Munkar just has the chalice of magic.

Lord Munkar literally causes a firestorm to descend into a wall of fire that Deathstalker walks through.

Yes.

Much like in a much better movie called The Jewel of the Nile. Do you remember that movie?

Yes. I was going to go with Superman going through the gauntlet towards Lex Luthor's underground lair.

I was going to see the climax of The Jewel of the Nile, where the man who is the Jewel of the Nile walks through the fire.

Yes.

Thus proving that he is a holy man. Producer Brad is like, he cannot believe that this is what I remember from Jewel of the Nile.

I'm just happy you're leading forward into the mic.

Oh, okay, anyway.

So Lord Munkar has dispelled the witch, cast her away, and Deathstalker is approaching them.

Turned his chalice into a headlight and made a wall of fire, and Deathstalker walks through the wall of fire.

Yes.

Now we know why there are so many extras in the scene. The massive crowd of extras, they emerge, and they start cheering Deathstalker on.

Yes.

Because he's going to the fire, he's more powerful than Munkar, who presumably has been oppressing them, but they still show up at his palace for shit. I don't know. Anyway.

I don't know. But Lord Munkar Defiant declares this.

The power is still mine.

I don't want your power.

I want this world rid of you.

I don't know why. You know, maybe Lord Munkar has, like, slowed him down in his rape practice or something. I don't know. I'm not sure I understand this animosity at all, but okay, whatever.

But this is such an important twist that we're building for.

I do love what happens next, because every time this happens in a movie, most recently, I believe in the Last Hunger Games movie. I love this shit. This is one of my favorite tropes ever.

This gets to mythic-like awesomeness, because Deathstalker takes the chalice from Munkar, says these powers have controlled men too long. And instead of fulfilling his prophecy of uniting the three items, he has an arc in like ten seconds.

And the coming the power.

Yep.

Yep. He does the following.

All the powers of creation and chaos, I destroy you.

And he destroys all three of them. Yeah. Yes. He causes the sword to like glow and everything plunges into flames. And then the best thing in this movie happens, which is that he literally casts the oppressor to the people. And they rip him to shreds. And again, somebody made a visit to the butcher shop because there's a lot of weird, guts and awful in this scene. It's fucking amazing.

They do not simply rip him to shreds, Javi. First, they descend upon him. And you think that's what they're going to do. But they've clearly been waiting for this moment. And they have discussed, probably taken a lot of suggestions, had their own tournament of ideas.

They took a group conscience, is what you're trying to say.

Yeah. And they voted and elected for when this moment comes, here's what we're going to do. We're going to have two horses ready, facing away from each other with harnesses. And we're going to tie his left wrist and left angle to one horse, and then his right wrist and right ankle to the other horse. And we're going to send them in opposite directions, ripping him apart. Yep. In visceral agony and an explosion of viscera.

An explosion of viscera. It really is.

And it is amazing.

It's the best VFX in the movie.

Oh my God. It's so great. It's so great.

We're in old school Gourhound like me. I really enjoyed seeing just like because, you know, look, a lot of these old movies, they would go to the butcher shop and get the remains and use those for for. And they clearly did this. It looks it's phenomenal. I'm a big fan.

So I love this movie despite the very problematic elements of it, because ultimately it lands on this very timely message, which is anti-authoritarian, anti-autocratic, anti-fascist dictator, and that we don't solve the problem by replacing one autocrat, all-powerful being with another.

If Deathstalker had not had this 10 second arc and became king, this kingdom would probably be worse off because he's an asshole and a rapist. Yes, yes.

What we do is we dismantle the institutions of power that support autocracy and oppression.

Holy shit, Paul.

And we dispel and disperse that power to the people, to restore democracy and empower in an egalitarian fashion the people.

There's a whole movie of parliamentary procedure that you intuited that I missed because as far as I know, he destroys the sword in the credits roll.

Is there more, a more powerful, resonant, timely, urgent message of any movie that we've seen in our two summers for the world we find ourselves living in at this very moment?

I think this calls for a musical sting. Producer Brad? Producer Brad, given that we now know the great message of this film as deconstructed for us by Paul himself, can you tell us if this movie went out into the world and disseminated this message to the public successfully?

Deathstalker opened up Friday, September 2nd, 1983, Labor Day weekend. It made $450,000 in its first weekend, landing at number 20. Two new releases did better, Mortuary and Nightmares. They came in at number 17 and 18.

And yet, Deathstalker endures and is being remade to be rediscovered by a new generation. Let me just say, some plants take their time to bear fruit.

Now I'm going to chalk this up as our final thoughts. I agree with Paul. Producer Brad, this is the end of the summer, but we have talked about some other things, haven't we? Do we want to talk about that?

I think for all three of us, there are movies over the last two years that we have not watched, that we would like to. So I think we should each pick one and then we should watch them together.

I have a movie that I want to watch from 83, that is from the, and I don't know, you guys, I don't know, Producer Brad, do you have a movie?

Javi, let's have you go first. We'll just talk about your film.

Good, because I am woefully unprepared to make a choice.

Pause for a moment. We are going to do our year-end recap and multi-awards.

Of course.

We need to prep for that. We'll want some movies in the interim.

There's a movie that was released in 1983 that is ripe for appraisal by the Multiplex Overthruster gang, and that movie is Scarface.

Oh, my.

Oh, yeah.

I'm trying to read Paul's expression. What does that mean?

I don't know what Paul is. Scarface. Al Pacino, you've heard of it?

Yes.

Say hello to my little friend. You've heard of it?

Speaking of problematic representation.

Well, you think it's going to be interesting to hear two Latinos talk about Scarface? I think it might be. I think that might be a mild understatement. I might have a thing or two to say about that. Yes. Yes. Until until our next episode, ladies and gentlemen, we will see you in line. At the Multiplex. In yours, world. Catch you later.