DEATHSTALKER AND THE WARRIORS FROM HELL (1988)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

After the first sequel successfully ventured into comedy, the next entry in the Deathstalker franchise blundered back into basic adventure with a few comedic trimmings (possibly because the writer of Movie #1 came back for the second sequel). Thus the plot goes back to the old "hero and villain both pursue magical thingies" standard, but the titular hero, instead of being all Conan-broody like the hero of the first film, the newest performer in the role, John Allen Nelson, tries (and fails) to maintain a light tone like that of John Terlesky in DEATHSTALKER II.

As in the first film, Deathstalker is set on his magical-thingie quest by a wizard, one Nicias, who pops out of the story in the first sequence and pops back in toward the end. His participation provides explication but Deathstalker is given his magical thingie-- one of two magical stones-- by a princess who promptly gets killed. Though the hero doesn't want to be a hero any more than usual, somehow he gets roped into going after the other stone. This object is in the possession of the wizard Troxartas (Thom Christopher), who plans to use both stones to unleash an army of dead people, the "warriors from hell" of the title. (We do see some rather unprepossessing dead soldiers in the movie, but don't expect any major zombie-action in this curiously bloodless film.)

Since one princess is dead and can't provide the usual romantic interest, Deathstalker stumbles across her twin Carissa (Carla Herd), who eventually gets the idea, based on nothing, that the swordsman killed her sister. This might have generated a little tension in a better movie, but Herd is almost as lifeless an actor as Nelson. The only thing that works in her favor is that she unlike Nelson isn't required to get into sword-fights, so Nelson wins the badness contest thanks to his many incompetent emulations of bladesmanship.

Meanwhile, Troxartas-- whom Christopher plays as a bald, twitchy wizard-wannabe-- continually whines to his henchwoman (Terri Treas) about how his soldiers can't seem to find the magical stone. It's practically the polar opposite of Christopher's self-assured sorcerer in WIZARDS OF THE LOST KINGDOM three years previous. There's a vague subplot revealing that the wizard actually needs three stones to make his evil magic work, but the idea is utterly mishandled.

After a few adventures-- such as Deathstalker spending a night in the hut of a couple of potato-eating wild women-- he shows up at Troxartas's castle. He's betrayed by Carissa, imprisoned, and threatened with torture by the henchwoman-- which, given that Terri Treas is the only actor to give her role a little moxie, qualifies as the movie's only decent scene. But even Treas's scene is disappointing, since Nelson's Deathstalker is so unappealing that one may want to see him tortured-- and, sadly, the hero breaks free before he can suffer more than some mild burns.

There's also a group of rebels who intervene on Deathstalker's side to fight the wizard's soldiers, but these fight scenes too are dull, when they're not re-used footage. As if to emulate the final fight from the second film, wherein the protagonist duels a sorcerer who's also a swordsman, Number Three does the same thing here, but Christopher's almost as bad at fake-fighting as Nelson.

Though the first film isn't actually good even as basic sword and sorcery, at least the direction was nice to look at from time to time. But this film is not just cheap, it's unattractive to watch at any given time.