Deathstalker is pure 80s sword and sorcery, and while I’m all for gratuitous nudity, there is a lot of it, I don’t need all the rape, I don’t care what the thought process is behind it. It’s repugnant and doesn’t serve to tell us anything about the characters we didn’t already know.

Setting that aside, it’s a fun little distraction, with wooden acting, some nice make-up effects and masks, and its short running time ensures that it doesn’t overstay its welcome, though getting through the rapes is uncomfortable, and makes one want to turn the film off altogether.

We follow Deathstalker (Rick Hill) a lone warrior who finds himself embarking on a quest for a witch, to reclaim three items that contain incredible power, a sword, an amulet and a chalice. The amulet and the chalice are in the hands of an evil wizard, Munkar (Bernard Erhard), and Stalker is on his way to his destiny.

He is joined by thief-transformed-into-an-imp-and-back-again, Salmaron (Augusto Larreta) and a female warrior that doesn’t wear armour or well, much of anything. Kaira (Lana Clarkson). The group is also joined by a charming fighter, Oghris (Richard Brooker) who is also on his way to Munkar’s kingdom. It seems there’s a tournament of champions taking place, all at Munkar’s organizing.

It seems he has a dastardly plan, and he’s planning on controlling the kingdom for as long as he can.

There are battles, blood, breasts, magic and more, all squeezed into a film that doesn’t even run an hour and a half. And honestly, there’s a low-grade charm to it, and I’m not the only one who thought so, it spawned three sequels! And there’s a remake/reboot shooting even now.

Rick Hill is stoic (or maybe just a wooden actor) and plays Deathstalker like a Conan-type, and its unfortunate that we don’t get tons of time with the other characters in his party. And why doesn’t Kaira wear a lot of clothes? She’s obviously a talented warrior, she should know better. Salmaron is fun, and Oghris has an easy charm which he exudes despite the poor script.

But, like I said, for all its faults, I actually kind of dug this one. Hill twirls the sword impressively for the screen, and the cast makes the best of the budget, the locations and the script, and while the world created for the screen doesn’t necessarily look lived-in, it does look like everyone is having a pretty good time.

So yeah, I think I’m going to take a look at the sequels if I can track them down.