Cheese, it comes in many flavors, shapes and colors. When it comes to the 1980s that flavor was fantasy, the shape was barbarians and semi clothed women and the colors sand, fur and flesh. It is a stinky cheese. The kind of cheese you see in the store, pickup, take one small sniff... and promptly swear you will never even look at it again. However if you taste the cheese you might be surprised. The right year and the right vintage can be a wonderful thing.

Over the last five years I’ve been exploring low budge 1980s fantasy - a sub genre I pretty much swore never to touch. Heck, it took me long enough to see Conan. I’m simply not overly fond of the barbarian theme. It’s not my taste or style. I grew up on medieval themed literature and films. Graceful elves and dragons rather than chunky men and rubber monsters. But as a fantasy fan I simply couldn’t ignore the sheer output of the 80s. I also have to admit to secretly liking the excesses and the giddy willingness to go for broke when it came to attempting epic creations with $10 and an Italian forest. 

I was born to late to be swept up in the fantasy craze that Conan brought on. By the time I was going to the movies, multiplexes had replaced the kind of theaters that would show Deathstalker.  But with my teenage years spent exhausting all the medieval fantasy fodder available (although I have to confess, I still need a copy of Quest of the Delta Knights) I finally had to turn to the barbarians. 

I started with Conan the Barbarian. I figured if I was going to probably dislike something I might as well let the sub-genre have it’s best shot... Conan the Barbarian deserves every bit of praise it has garnered. It’s a good story, it’s well told, well shot and looks both fantastical and logical. In other words I liked it. Against my expectations. 

Buoyed by this initial success I then proceeded on to Conan the Destroyer. This sadly is rubbish. Nicely lensed rubbish, but still rubbish. My initial rush of excitement from Conan the Barbarian was beginning to slip. “Still”, I told myself, “it had production values, it wasn’t that awful.” And so I traveled on and met Red Sonja. This I actually liked quite a bit. Well I liked bits of it. The art direction was strong, unfortunately the story was not and the kung fu kid annoyed me. Still it could have been worse.  

Determined to complete the films from the Conan stable I watched Krull. Which was bad but I kind of enjoyed. If it had been a nice ‘R’ rather an ‘PG’ I would maybe admit to liking it. It had ice, the ice was rather nice. I don’t remember a whole lot else about the film. Oh yes a big honking ax. Nothing wrong with axes.

After Krull I took a break. For a few years actually. I knew I hadn’t scrapped the bottom of the barrel, but I didn’t really feel like barrel diving. Skip forward to the last year in which I began to pine again for rubber demons and shitty prop swords. So on went The Sword and the Sorcerer.

This classic features a three bladed sword and a big bad demon and is thoroughly fun. “Why didn’t I watch this before?” I asked myself. It had a rather slimy hero, which was a nice change, a bunch of sword fighting, blood and nudity, all the stuff that used to make low budget cinema fun. What impressed me most was the restrain of director Pyun. When he didn’t have the budget for large scenes he made it work either through showing aftermath or dialogue while making it feel like organic progression through the story. No surprise that this independently produced film took in almost $40 million at the box office. In 1982 no less. That’s the same amount that Conan the Barbarian would haul in when it went into release a month later.

Then I decided it was time to scrape. To taste that cheese way on the back shelf. I turned on  Barbarian Queen. This Roger Corman produced number was shot on the ultra cheap in Argentina (as with most Corman fantasy flicks). The premise was simple enough. Corman had found mild success with Deathstalker (more on that one in a minute) and simply took the same female lead and ordered up a cast of female heros who have a rather surprising propensity towards having their tops removed. The film is rubbish of course and worst of all rather boring. The only way my fiancee and I found to pass the time was to count the number of breasts appearing on screen. I was disheartened, perhaps it really wasn’t worth the time to go through all these 80s films.

However I had a copy of Deathstalker and decided to give it a shot. What a pleasant surprise! Yes it’s fairly horrible, but it knows that. Some of the action is actually decent, the effects work more or less reserved and the generally it provides good campy fun. It’s the epitome of the cheapo Conan rip offs. A muscly lead with a special sword hits on any female that moves and beats up an evil sorcerer - fantastic! Lots of nudity and gore of course but that’s to be expected. It’s a hilarious film and now one of my favorites in the genre.

I’ll continue this saga in part two of the series. In which we will visit such delectable items as Barbarian Queen: The Empire Strikes Back and The Warrior and the Sorceress. Not to mention Deathstalker II and if I can get a copies, all of the Ator films (yes, even Quest for the Mighty Sword).