BONUS! Watch a Roger Corman movie to celebrate his 100th birthday!
One of ten movies Roger Corman made in Argentina in the 80s, and one of the first for his new Concorde Pictures, this is another of Corman’s attempts to save the environment by recycling. Or recycling footage from Sorceress and Deathstalker. As writer Ed Naha said, “I don’t think this movie was so much shot as it was beaten to death. When they whittled it down to what was useful from the footage, it only ran 58 minutes. Now Roger had done a lot of sword-and-sorcery films, and so he told a couple of the editors to pull all they could from them and edit that footage in. So now the finished movie has a 15- or 20-minute prologue that has nothing to do with the rest of the film.”
In a bigger push to keep it green, it also reuses the soundtrack from Battle Beyond the Stars.
In the peaceful kingdom of Axeholme, teenage hero Simon, son of Wulfrik, the king’s court wizard (Vidal Peterson), finds himself on the run after the evil sorcerer Shurka (Thom Christopher, Hawk from Buck Rogers) stages a coup d’état alongside the treacherous Qued Udea (Barbara Stock), knocking off King Tylor (Augusto Larreta) and locking up Princess Aura (Dolores Michaels). Before buying the farm, Wulfrik (Edgardo Moreira) teleports Simon and his buddy Gulfax (also Edgardo Moreira) away, leaving Simon with a heavy-duty magic ring—which he immediately loses, because of course he does.
Teaming up with a beefcake warrior named Kor (Bo Svenson), Simon has to clear his name, dodge insectoid mutants and accidentally insult a bunch of long-dead corpses by trying to resurrect them for tactical advice. They just attack him instead. After running into a hobgoblin named Hurla (Michael Fontaine) whose cottage is getting trashed by lizard men, the crew expands.
Along the way to the castle, Kor gets snatched by cyclopses who want to either marry him or eat him, prompting Simon to pull off a rescue. They pass a test of heroism after trying to save a drowning river guardian who turns out to be a Naiad, clearing the path straight back to the citadel. Meanwhile, Shurka has the queen locked up, runs the kingdom with an iron fist and has Princess Aura brainwashed into a shotgun wedding.
Our heroes storm back from exile, bust some townsfolk out of the slammer and kick off a massive melee outside the gates. Simon tracks down his lost ring, squares off with Shurka on the turrets in an epic black-vs.-white magic throwdown, and turns the villain into toast. Simon and Aura take the thrones as Axeholme’s new power couple, while Kor packs his bags and wanders off to find the next cheap thrill.
Director Héctor Olivera also made plenty of movies for Corman, like Barbarian Queen, Cocaine Wars, Two to Tango and Play Murder for Me. Writer Naha worked in A&R (a Star Trek spoken-word album and Springsteen’s Born to Run came to be as a result of his work), edited the first issue of Fangoria and scripted Oddballs, Troll, Dolls, CHUD II, Spellcaster, Omega Doom and Honey, and I Shrunk the Kids.
Alan Holleb, who directed and wrote Candy Stripe Nurses, is also credited as a director for this movie.
You can watch this on Tubi.
