Skip to main content

Blood, Babes, & Beasties : The Sword and the Sorcerer


Have you ever liked a movie regardless of popular opinion.
One, that for some reason, you would not only defend  against nay sayers, but you would watch it every month for the rest of your life? I have several such movies, but in this Blood, Babes, and Beasties I am going to talk about  1982's The Sword and the Sorcerer. Written by Tom Karnowski, John V. Stuckmeyer,  and Albert Pyun who also directed.

The Sword and the Sorcerer has one of my absolute favourite first five minutes of any movie, I have ever seen. As well as the best ending line "we have kingdoms to save, and women to love". I really don't know why I feel this way though. Perhaps it was because 1982 was a super fun time in my life, or maybe it's just because those scenes really are JUST that super awesome and not many fully appreciate them. Whatever the reason, This is one of my guilty pleasure movies, one, which up until just recently you could only find in the riff version. I managed to find it on Pluto TV in all it's original glory, which made this darkling, very happy. 
The Sword and the Sorcerer is a typical 1980's early 1990's sword and sorcery type movie ala Kull, Krull, Red Sonja, etc. (I'm not including Conan in this list because the original first Conan the Barbarian movie was a masterpiece, and not a B to Zed level film.) Like the other movies I mentioned, there's a babe or more in distress, a hero, most likely a prince - who is also a babe, lot's of blood, because, hey, there's always a villain that seems to take great pleasure in the  maiming and butchering of the innocent. This villain is generally either a sorcerer, a beastie, has control over a sorcerer or beastie, or a combination of these things.

This movie is no different. There's a handsome prince played by Lee Horsley who's family has been butchered by villain number one Cromwell played by Richard Lynch.
A babe in distress played by Kathleen Beller, and of course the evil beastie sorcerer, villain number two played by Richard Moll. 

Of course no 80's sword and sorcery movie would be complete without a lot of gratuitously nudity, 
violence, and spurting blood. 
That's why they are so fun to watch, and though the acting isn't so great, and often times stiff, the enthusiasm of the cast more than makes up for it. 
Everything about it, screams 80's cheese, but it's a fun movie to watch even if you only indulge yourself once. There are things to watch for too, definite screw ups in continuity but I think it just adds to the charm. 

From the witch, licking the goo off of the newly risen Xusia the sorcerer's fingers, to the smarmy and heroic actions of Prince Talon it deserves more credit than it's given. After all, with a budget of $4 million, and a box office take of $39.1 million, how bad can it really be? Decide for yourselves minions. Give it a watch on Pluto and let me know what you think.





Comments