The Beastmaster

The Beastmaster
(1982) [Trailer]
Director: Don Coscarelli [IMDB]

Chances are if you grew up in the 80's and had HBO, you probably saw Beastmaster at one point or another. I thought back then that it was one of the scariest films ever made. You got little kids being thrown into fire pits, creepy witch ladies with butter faces, weird bird people who turned you into human soup, and the green earwigs which turned you into a raging S&M monster... to a six year old... that's some terrifying shit. It has been a film I've been waiting to come to blu-ray, but that doesn't look like it's gonna happen anytime soon, so I just watched a shitty downloaded copy because I'm tired of waiting... I'm ready for a little Beastmaster in my life.

Synopsis: Marc Singer (aka Mark Hamill part two) is a warrior who can communicate with animals. When his village is destroyed he seeks to enact revenge on the guilty.

Beastmaster is still pretty fun and it was nice to revisit it after all this time. It's still dark and the effects hold up surprisingly well... what doesn't hold up is the acting. Marc Singer is pretty brutal and Tanya Roberts isn't much better. It's Beastmaster... I'm not really excepting Daniel Day-Lewis quality acting, so I guess I wasn't too bothered by it.

The ending seemed really dragged out. First you have the confrontation with Rip Torn (the evil preist) and then the enemy hord from the beginning return to slug it out. I think they should have just ran with one senario.

If you're into the whole sword & sandals genre and you haven't seen The Beastmaster... you should do so right away. If you're not, you could probably live out the rest of your days and be content without it in your life.