It has been 25 years since the 1957 Fillmore High School basketball team won the Pennsylvania state championship. For some of the players, this has been a moment that has dominated everything that has happened in their lives ever since.
George Sitkowski (Bruce Derk) is the mayor of Scranton and fighting to stay in office, while James Daley (Stacy Keach) is a school principal struggling to provide for his family as his brother Tom (Martin Sheen) is headed for rock bottom. Phil Romano (Paul Sorvino, who originated the role in the play) may be the most successful of the team, but will betray anything and anyone. Their coach, played by Robert Mitchum, still sees them as teenage boys, not men much closer to the close of their lives.
From the bigotry and cruelty of the coach* to the fact that the star player refuses to attends these reunions, the team soon realizes just how hollow it all is.
Starting as an off-Broadway in 1972. this moved to Broadway and played for 844 performances before Cannon produced the film, working with creator Jason Miller — yes, from The Exorcist — to make this in Scranton, a place he grew up in. In 1999, Sorvino directed an update for Showtime in which he played Mitchum’s role and cast Vincent D’Onofrio, Gary Sinise, Tony Shalhoub and Terry Kinney in the roles of the team.
While this movie failed to make money, it did legitimize Cannon as a real studio.
*Speaking of issues of bigotry and cruelty, Mitchum was accused of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial after he gave an interview to Esquire. According to this article from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, when “…Mitchum was asked about the slaughter of six million Jews, the actor replied, “So the Jews say,” He added. “I don’t know. People dispute that.””
In a letter to the JTA’s Hollywood columnist Herbert Luft, Mitchum said that early in his meeting with the interviewer, he recited a racist speech delivered by Coach Delaney, which was “mistakenly believed to be my own. From that point on, he approached me as the character in the script and in playing the devil’s advocate in a prankish attempt to string him along we compounded a tragedy of errors.”
Then, at the premiere of the movie, he assaulted a female reporter and threw a basketball from the movie at a Time photographer, smashing the camera into her face, knocking out two of her teeth and losing his salary from this movie to pay her for the damages.
EDITOR’S NOTE: No movie shows just how Cannon’s view of America and America itself are so different than this movie. I love it for that while being destroyed by it every time I watch it. If you haven’t seen it, skip this, watch the film and come back. We originally had this on the site on June 12, 2021.
This movie is a destructive force that still leaves hurt feelings decades after it’s been viewed. Sure, it’s a remake of director Boaz Davidson’s Lemon Popsicle and that movie ends the same way, but that movie came back with plenty of sequels. Once The Last American Virgin drops its bomb on you, it lets you watch everything burn and then that’s it. There’s no happiness, no hope, just the song “Just Once” and the destruction of the film’s hero in a way that there’s no coming back from.
When a movie has a title like Lemon Popsicle, you don’t know what to expect. It’s a foreign movie released in 1978 that could be about anything. But when the title is The Last American Virgin and the movie comes out in the middle of the teen sex comedy craze, you don’t expect things to go this way.
Gary (Lawrence Monsoon, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter) is a pizza delivery boy with two friends, the cool ladies man Rick (Steve Antin, Jessie in the “Jessie’s Girl” video) and David (Joe Rubbo). Most of their hijinks revolve around trying to have sex, like telling girls they have cocaine — it’s really Sweet’n Low — or sleeping with a prostitute or Carmello, a Spanish woman who Gary meets while delivering pizza. Everyone gets their turn except for Gary, who is the titular character.
Yet he has better plans for his first time. He’s in love with Karen (Diane Franklin!), but she’s in love with Rick, who plans on sleeping with her once and dumping her. He does exactly that, getting her pregnant. She turns to Gary, who sells almost everything he owns and borrows money to pay for her abortion, then nurses her during the lowest moment in her life. They share a kiss and she invites him to her 18th birthday party.
That’s when the pain hits hard.
This film takes what Lemon Popsicle did on its soundtrack and transports it to the 80s, which is an incredibly smart move. The music is vital to this film’s success, featuring heavy hitters like The Cars, Devo, The Police, Journey, REO Speedwagon, U2, Blondie and the Human League. I mean, how do you think Bono felt when he saw this and his song “I Will Follow,” which is about his mom who died when he was only 14, is used over an abortion montage?
So much of this movie is very Cannon Films and that’s also the joy of it. It also leaves me with so many questions. Why does Gary bring Karen a bag of oranges when she’s lying in the hospital? Why would they make this seem like a teen movie and give it that ending, when if it was a date movie it’s filled with way too much raunchy sex? And how about the fact that the actors who played Gary and Rick, who come to blows in the movie over the girl who got between their friendship, have come out? How does Gary not realize that Karen’s friend Rose, who he gets set up with, is geeky hot (maybe this makes more sense in 2021 than 1982)? And how did cinematographer Adam Greenberg (who also filmed Terminator 2, 10 to Midnight, Near Dark and many more) feel about recreating so many of the same shots that he’d made in Lemon Popsicle?
Director Davidson also made Hospital Massacre, Salsa and American Cyborg: Steel Warrior, movies that would not even hint at the art that he would make with this movie. If you’ve ever seen the poster for this and laughed it off as a simple teen comedy, I want you to take a chance on this movie. But be prepared for the final moments.
I’ll be honest: I can’t find this movie anywhere. But in my quest to cover every Cannon movie, I feel like it’s important to share an overview.
Directed by Joel Silberg, who would direct Lambada, Breakin’ and Rappin’ for Cannon, as well as the pro wrestling movie Bad Guys, from a script by Ei Tavor, who wrote Lemon Popsicle, Going Steady, Hot Bubblegum, Private Popsicle, Salsa and Lemon Popsicle: The Party GoesOn, this is the tale of a gorgeous deaf-mute who has both her riding instructor and her guardian in love with her.
Yes, it has sex on a horse, and yes, I only know about this movie because of Austin Trunick’s perfect book, The Cannon Film Guide: Volume I, 1980–1984.
If you have a copy, I’d love to see this. But after reading what Austin saw, I may not be fully invested in my need to see this.
When two doctors from Tel Aviv join Doctors Without Borders, they end up going to Thailand and leaving their ten-year-old daughter Aya behind in a kibbutz (a communal settlement where all wealth is held in common and profits are reinvested) where the kids live together by age, not gender, meaning that she must go from being an only child to suddenly being surrounded by boys who even shower with her.
Made in Israel by director and writer Michal Bat-Adam, this is an early Cannon release by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus as they started to figure out what their new American studio was going to be.
Honestly, if you told me that I’d be watching a movie that has a fight between kids over a stamp collection, I would tell you that you were crazy. But if you said, well, it’s a Cannon movie, then I’d say, “Well, put it on.” I’m a completist. Movies are drugs. This one didn’t get me high, but I smoked it down to the filter and burned my finger to find out if it would.
After Lemon Popsicle, Going Steady and Hot Bubblegum, but before Baby Love, Up Your Anchor, Young Love: Lemon Popsicle 7Summertime Blues and Lemon Popsicle: The Party Goes On and this movie’s side sequel Private Manuevers, what else was there to do but to join the Israeli army? That’s what Bobby, Benji and Hughie are up to next. I mean, there is a mandatory draft, so it only makes sense, except that this army allows them to cosplay Some Like It Hot.
These movies are like the Dickie Goodman of teen sex comedies, in that in one scene, you get more needledrops than an Edgar Wright film fest. Just look at the first scene, in which the boys all take turns with a local loose woman — and somehow, this happens in every Lemon Popsicle movie — while Pat Ballard sings “Mr. Sandman” the cucked husband sleeps, only to wake up and chase Hughie to “Charlie Brown” by The Coasters before the boys run to the notes of Bill Hayley and the Comets doing “See You Later, Alligator.*” Yes, just like a Dickie Goodman answer record, but in picture form.
The Sergeant Major is their new end boss and his dubbing makes the lowest grade Italian western feel like a boutique Criterion reissue. I honestly can’t believe that this played in the United States and also am even more incredulous that it took me so long to see it.
If you’re upset by trans humor, homosexual humor, military humor, sex humor, teenage humor…actually, just don’t watch this. You’re just not going to like it. I’d say for Cannon completists only, but come on, that Cannon dragon must be chased.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Cannon didn’t make all that many slashers, but here’s one that makes no sense and is, therefore, better for it. We first ran this during our yearly slasher marathon on October 6, 2020.
How many names can one movie have? A bunch, because this is also known as X-Ray, Be My Valentine Or Else and Ward 13. It’s directed by Boaz Davidson, the man who was behind Lemon Popsicle and the depressing as anything American version The Last American Virgin. Seeing his name in the credits brought me joy, just as much as seeing the Cannon name always sends me into paroxysms of joy.
Back in 1961, a boy named Harold gave Susan a valentine and when she made fun of it with her friend David, he breaks in and hangs her friend from a hatstand.
Susan grew up to be four-time Playboy covergirl Barbi Benton (Deathstalker). Well, that’s who is playing her, but you know what I mean. She’s just gotten divorced and has to head in for some routine tests at a hospital. Literally, the minute she walks in, an evil doctor laughs while looking at pictures of her as a kid.
Better slashers have started with less.
This is the kind of movie that really uses its environment in the best way possible, as orthopedic saws send heads flying and sinks filled with acid melt faces. It’s also a Valentine’s Day-themed slasher, as the opening sets up just how much that holiday can crush the heart of disaffected young boys. It’s also about getting insurance and how they make you get tests that convince doctors that you’re dying while putting you in the steely gaze of a killer, which could be an indictment of our single-payer health care system. Or it’s just a way to get people killed for your entertainment.
Judith Baldwin, who plays a desk nurse, appeared with Tina Louise in The Stepford Wives before taking over the role Louise was best known for, Ginger Grant, in the TV movies Rescue from Gilligan’s Island and Rescue from Gilligan’s Island.
The abandoned hospital this was shot at is a great location and makes the movie much better, as does the vibe that hospitals are horrible places, where every doctor — look for Davidson as one waiting behind Susan as she uses a pay phone — and hallway is filled with dread. Credit is also due to director of photography Nicholas Josef von Sternberg, who also filmed Tourist Trap, Appointment with Fearand Slaughterhouse Rock.
Marc Behm, who wrote this with Davidson, had an all over the map writing career, scripting everything from The Beatles’ Help! to Charade and Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Nana and this movie for Cannon.
If you recognize the kids from the beginning, they’re Billy Jacoby and Elizabeth Hoy who were the murderous children in Bloody Birthday, which came out the same year as this one.
You can watch this on Tubi or get the new 4K UHD release from Vinegar Syndrome, which also has Schizoid and Ultra Violet Vengeance: The Talent & Technicians of X-Ray, an extra feature that goes into the making of this slasher.
Check out The Cannon Canon episode about X-Rayhere.
I know it’s not exact, but I was struck by a moment in this film that recalls Messiah of Evil as a character stans in a hallway and we’re struck by just how alone she is in spite of being in a very public place.
Mansion of the Living Dead
Messiah of Evil
It’s not a perfect match, but the feeling is right and I’m struck that at times, Jess Franco can render a great horror mood. Other times, he’s moving the camera so wildly that you wonder if he’s going to ever focus on something happening.
Several waitresses — including Candy Coster, who we all know is Lina Romay in a blonde short wig and love her even more for it — visit an out of season resort hotel, only to find that long-dead monks have come back from the dead, watched a few Amando de Ossorio movies and start luring the women one at a time to the basement where they’re assaulted and then murdered to the sound of bells, the wind and an otherworldly song. So yes, pretty much the Blind Dead with dried shaving cream for makeup.
Also, for some reason, Eva León from Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll is chained to a wall by Antonio Mayans and taunted with promises of food.
Somehow, someway, Candy is the reincarnation of the witch who cursed the monks all those years ago and perhaps she’s also the one that can free them, except she’s kind of busy making out with Lea (Mari Carmen Nieto, The Sexual Story of O) and hiding that fact from their friends Mabel (Mabel Escaño, Wicked Memoirs of Eugenie) and Caty (Elisa Vela, Cries of Pleasure), thinking that they’d be judged, but then those two are also getting down.
Look, Lina gets possessed, goes wild and ends up making out with an evil monk, which releases everyone from their curse and…yeah. Look, this movie is pretty much exactly what I seek out and often I’m using movies as drugs to erase my consciousness, so go in with that knowledge.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally ran on December 13, 2020, back in the days when the idea of watching more than fifty Jess Franco movies in one month felt either quixotic or just plain insane. Well, as we’re currently in the middle of a month of Franco’s films, let’s bring this back with some more info and thoughts.
Jess Franco wrote, directed, produced, acted and scored around 200 or so feature films and I have been cursed to watch all of them. This one, he made for French producer Marius Lesoeur and its also known as L’Abîme des Morts-Vivants* (The Abyss of the Living Dead), as there are unqiue Spanish and French versions of this movie.
This is where I discovered the drug inside a Franco film and his ability to somehow lull you into a fuzzed out haze, helped by a bad looking print, as you wait and wait and watch and hope and dream of the moment when the zombies that guard some Nazi gold will emerge and kill the treasure hunters.
Tubi has a print that looks like a VHS that has been rented thousands of times, which makes this so much better of a viewing experience than a pristine version would be.
Roger Braden also reviewed this for our site and he said, “Looks and sounds like a decent movie to watch, right? You couldn’t be more fucking wrong.” and “When the zombies finally make their appearance they are some of the worst looking creatures you’ll ever see.”
Yeah, Jess Franco is an acquired taste.
Robert Blabert, the hero trying to find the Nazi gold, should be like forty if this is really set in 1982. And the Nazis hunting him shouldn’t probably be much, much older. But come on, why am I looking for logic in a zombie movie, much less something to make sense in a Jess Franco movie?
*It’s also known as Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies, El Desierto de los Zombies, The Grave of the Living Dead, The Treasure of the Living Dead and for having a Spanish version called La Tumba de los Muertos Vivientes that is blessed with Lina Romay as the Nazi doctor’s wife.
Oasis of the Zombies is also on the ARROW PLAYER. Head over to ARROW to start your 30-day free trial. Subscriptions are available for $4.99 monthly or $49.99 yearly. ARROW is available in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland on the following Apps/devices: Roku (all Roku sticks, boxes, devices, etc), Apple TV & iOS devices, Android TV and mobile devices, Fire TV (all Amazon Fire TV Sticks, boxes, etc), and on all web browsers at https://www.arrow-player.com.
Deadly Games may have been sold as a slasher, but it’s more of a murder mystery. Sure, the killings are pretty intense — a long drowning, burying a victim alive — but it’s maybe even less a murder mystery and more a late 70s, early 80s small town romantic drama where lots of people swing and one of them — either a cop or Vietname vet — is a masked killer.
It’s interesting how little this movie cares about fitting into any neat and clean box.
Clarissa Jane Louise “Keegan” Lawrence (Jo Anne Harris) is a rock journalist back home after the death of her sister, a murder that she’s out to solve. After all, her sister didn’t jump out of a window like that, right? She had to have been thrown.
Dick Butkis, the Chicago Bears linebacker legend that had such a long career after that as a kid I just thought he was an actor, owns a coffee shop in town. That’s where a lot of the exposition happens, like how strange Billy Owens (Steve Railsback) is, a Vietnam soldier not back home all in one mental piece who is obsessed with monster movies and his horror-themed game of Chutes and Ladders and oh yeah, he also lives in an old movie theater and sounds like someone I’d go out of my way to be friends with. That said, it’s set up that he has to be the masked killer. Certainly the killer can’t be Sheriff Roger Lane (Sam Groom), because he’s nice and plays on the swings and romances Keegan.
Director and writer Scott Mansfield seems out to make a movie that makes you believe it’s a slasher and then pulls the rug out from under you with an ending that completely predates Scream — without spoilers, but man, that does feel like a spoiler.
The board hame in this is Universal monsters inspired and I love that Roger and Billy have been playing it for decades, as well as the killer somehow knowing way too much about it. I can only wish I still had friends ready to play a board game that often.
Coleen Camp and June Lockhart are in this as well, so my casting brain was quite impressed by who Mansfield got to be in this movie.
It’s not perfect, it’s probably too long and too talky, but I enjoyed the laid back vibe of Deadly Games. The last ten minutes are worth the time that it takes to get there and I was pretty surprised by the leap that the film makes.
Arrow Video’s new blu ray release of the film has a brand new 2K restoration from the original camera negative, new audio commentary with The Hysteria Continues, interviews with actor Jere Rae-Mansfield and special effects and stunt co-ordinator John Eggett, an image gallery with never-before-seen production photos and promotional material, the trailer, the original screenplay under the title Who Fell Asleep, a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly-commissioned artwork by Ralf Krause, and a fully-illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing by film historian/author Amanda Reyes. You can get it from MVD.
Conan the Barbarian and its success just meant that Italians could go back to making the peplum films they made for more than a decade in the 50s. The locations were there, the props were easy and all it took was the germ of an idea to send tons of Italian filmmakers out and about to make their own sword and sorcery movies, like Franco Prosperi’s Gunan, King of the Barbarians and Throne of Fire, Umberto Lenzi’s Ironmaster and Michele Massimo Tarantini’s Sword of the Barbarians.
For my money, no one made a better barbarian movie on a smaller budget than Joe D’Amato with his Ator films. Made from 1982 to 1990, three of these four films were filmed by D’Amato under his David Hills name. The other one was directed by Alfonso Brescia and D’Amato didn’t like it! As for actors, the first three feature Miles O’Keeffe and the fourth has Eric Allan Kramer as his son.
Instead of just being a big dumb lunk like Conan is in the movies — we can discuss Conan being a thief in the books and comics any time you’d like — Ator is also an alchemist, scholar, swordmaster and even a magician who can materialize objects out of nowhere.
We’ve pulled together our past reviews of Ator’s films, added some content and put them all in one place to introduce you to these astounding movies and hopefully get you watching them.
Ator the Fighting Eagle (1982): Once, Ator was just a baby, born with the birthmark that prophesied that he’d grow up to destroy the Spider Cult, whose leader Dakar (a pro wrestler who appeared in Titanes en el Ring against Martín Karadagian) tries to kill before he even gets out of his chainmail diapers.
Luckily, Ator is saved and grows up big, strong and weirdly in love with his sister, Sunya. It turns out that luckily, he’s adopted, so this is only morally and not biologically upsetting. His father allows them to be married, but the Spider Cult attacks the village and takes her, along with several other women.
Ator trains with Griba, the warrior who saved him as a child (he’s played by Edmund Purdom, the dean from Pieces!). What follows are pure shenanigans — Ator is kidnapped by Amazons, almost sleeps with a witch, undertakes a quest to find a shield and meets up with Roon (Sabrina Siani, Ocron from Fulci’s batshit barbarian opus Conquest), a sexy blonde thief who is in love with him.
Oh yeah! Laura Gemser, Black Emanuelle herself, shows up here too. It is a Joe D’Amato movie after all.
Ator succeeds in defeating Dakkar, only to learn that the only reason that Griba mentored him was to use him to destroy his enemy. That said, Ator defeats him too, leaving him to be eaten by the Lovecraftian-named Ancient One, a monstrous spider. But hey, Ator isn’t done yet. He kills that beast too!
Finally, learning that Roon has died, Ator and Sunya go back to their village, ready to make their incestual union a reality. Or maybe not, as she doesn’t show up in the three sequels.
Ator is played by Miles O’Keefe, who started his Hollywood career in the Bo Derek vehicle Tarzan the Ape Man, a movie that Richard Harris would nearly fist fight people over if they dared to bring it up. He’s in all but the last of these films and while D’Amato praised his physique and attitude, he felt that his fighting and acting skills left something to be desired.
Ator the Fighting Eagle pretty much flies by. It does what it’s supposed to do — present magic, boobs, sorcery and swordfights — albeit in a PG-rated film. It’s anything except boring. And it was written by Michele Soavi (Stagefright, The Church, The Sect, Cemetery Man)!
You can watch it on Tubi in either the original or RiffTrax version.
Ator 2 – L’invincibile Orion (1984): Joe D’Amato wanted to make a prehistoric movie like Quest for Fire called Adamo ed Eva that read a lot like 1983’s Adam and Eve vs. The Cannibals. However, once he called in Miles O’Keefe to be in the movie, the actor said that he couldn’t be in the film due to moral and religious reasons. One wonders why he was able to work with Joe D’Amato, a guy who made some of the scummiest films around.
Akronos has found the Geometric Nucleus and is keeping its secret safe when Zor (Ariel from Jubilee) and his men attack the castle. The old king begs his daughter Mila (Lisa Foster, who starred in the Cinemax classic Fanny Hill and later became a special effects artist and video game developer) to find his student Ator (O’Keefe).
Mila gets shot with an arrow pretty much right away, but Ator knows how to use palm leaves and dry ice to heal any wound, a scene which nearly made me fall of my couch in fits of giggles. Soon, she joins Ator and Thong as they battle their way back to the castle, dealing with cannibals and snake gods.
Somehow, Ator also knows how to make a modern hang glider and bombs, which he uses to destroy Zor’s army. After they battle, Ator even wants Zor to live, because he’s a progressive barbarian hero, but the bad guy tries to kill him. Luckily, Thong takes him out.
After all that, Akronos gives the Geometric Nucleus to Ator, who also pulls that old chestnut out that his life is too dangerous to share with her. He takes the Nucleus to a distant land and sets off a nuke.
Yes, I just wrote that. Because I just watched that.
If you want to see this with riffing, it’s called Cave Dwellers in its Mystery Science Theater 3000 form. But man, a movie like this doesn’t really even need people talking over it. It was shot with no script in order to compete with Conan the Destroyer. How awesome is that?
You can get this from Revok or watch Cave Dwellers on Tubi.
Iron Warrior (1988):
I always worry and think, “What is left? Have I truly exhausted the bounds of cinema? Have I seen all there is that is left to see? Will nothing ever really surprise and delight me ever again?” Then I watched Iron Warrior and holy shit you guys — this movie is mindblowing.
Alfonso Brescia made a bunch of Star Trek-inspired Star Wars ripoffs in the late 70’s, like Cosmos: War Of the Planets, Battle Of the Stars, War Of the Robots and Star Odyssey. Before that, he was known for working in the peplum genre with entries such as The Magnificent Gladiator and The Conquest of Atlantis. And some maniacs out there may know him from his Star Wars clone cover version of Walerian Borowczyk’s The Beast — complete with the same actress, Sirpa Lane — called The Beast in Space.
Today, though, we’re here to discuss Brescia taking over the reins of Ator from Joe D’Amato after Ator the Fighting Eagle and Ator 2: The Blade Master. I expected another muddy cave dwelling movie livened up only by nukes and hang gliders. What I received was a movie where a frustrated artist was struggling to break free.
This movie goes back to the beginning of Ator’s life, where we discover that his twin brother was taken at a young age. Now, our hero travels to Dragor (really the Isle of Malta) to do battle with a sorceress named Phaedra (Elisabeth Kazaand, who was in the aforementioned The Beast) her unstoppable henchman, the silver skulled, red bandana wearing Trogar (Franco Daddi, who was the stunt coordinator for both Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and The Curse), who is the Iron Master of the Sword.
Princess Janna (Savina Gersak, who was in War Bus Commando) and Ator (the returning Miles O’Keefe) join forces and man, Janna’s makeup and hair is insane. She has what I can only describe as a ponytail mohawk and has makeup that wouldn’t be out of place on the Jem and the Holograms cartoon.
Imagine, if you will, a low budget sword and sorcery film that has MTV style editing, as well as gusts of wind, constant dolly shots and nausea-inducing zooms. It’s less a narrative film as it is a collection of images, sword fights and just plain weirdness. Like Deeva (Iris Peynado, who you may remember as Vinya, the girl who hooks up with Fred Williamson in Warriors of the Wasteland) saying that she created both Ator and Trogar to be tools of justice? This movie completely ignores the two that came before — and the one that follows it — and I am completely alright with all of it!
Supposedly, D’Amato hated this movie. Lots of people hate on it online, too. Well, guess what? They’re wrong. This is everything that I love about movies and proved to me that there is still some cinematic magic left in the world to find.
How about this for strange trivia? When they made the Conan the Adventurer series in 1997, Ator’s sword was repainted and used as the Sword of Atlantis!
Quest for the Mighty Sword (1990): If there’s a 12 step group for people who watch too many Joe D’Amato movies, well I should be the counselor, helping talk people off the ledge after they think they need to watch Erotic Nights of the Living Deador Eleven Days, Eleven Nights or…hell, I can’t do it. For all people heap scorn on the movies of the man born Aristide Massaccesi, I find myself falling in love more and more with each movie.
D’Amato hated what Brescia did with his creation, so he starts this one off by killing Ator and introducing us to his son. Obviously, Miles O’Keefe isn’t back.
This one has nearly as many titles as Aristide had names: Ator III: The Hobgoblin, Hobgoblin, Quest for the Mighty Sword and Troll 3.
That’s because the costumes from Troll 2 — created by Laura Gemser, who is in this as an evil princess — got recycled and reused in this movie. D’Amato proves that he’s a genius by having whoever is inside those costumes speak.
Let me see if I can summarize this thing. Ator gets killed by the gods because he doesn’t want to give up his magic sword, which he uses to challenge criminals to battles to the death. The only goddess who speaks for him, Dehamira (Margaret Lenzey), is imprisoned inside a ring of fire until a man can save her.
That takes eighteen years, because Ator the son’s mother gave the sorcerer Grindl (the dude wearing the troll costume) her son to raise and the sword to hide. She then asked him for a suicide drink, but he gave her some Spanish Fly and got to gnome her Biblically in the back of his cave before releasing her to be a prostitute and get abused until her son eventually comes and saves her because this is a Joe D’Amato movie and women are there to be rescued, destroy men and be destroyed by men.
This movie is filled with crowd-pleasing moments and seeing as how I watched it by myself, I loved it. Ator (Eric Allan Kramer, Thor in the TV movie The Incredible Hulk Returns and Little John in Robin Hood: Men In Tights) looks like Giant Jeff Daniels and his fighting skills are, at best, clumsy. But he battles a siamese twin robot that shoots sparks, a goopy fire breathing lizard man who he slices to pieces and oh yeah, totally murks that troll/gnome who turned out his mom.
This is the kind of movie where Donald O’Brien and Laura Gemser play brother and sister and nobody says, “How?” You’ll be too busy saying, “Is that Marisa Mell?” and “I can’t believe D’Amato stole the cantina scene!” and “What the hell is going on with this synth soundtrack?”
Here’s even more confusion: D’Amato’s The Crawlers was also released as Troll 3. Then again, it was also called Creepers (it has nothing to Phenomena) and Contamination .7, yet has no connection with Contamination.
Only Joe D’Amato could make two sequels to a movie that has nothing to do with the movie that inspired it and raise the stakes by having nothing to do with the original film or the sequel times two. You can watch this on YouTube.
While there have never been any official Ator toys, check out the amazing custom figures that Underworld Muscle has made:
Thanks for being part of all things Ator. Which of the movies is your favorite?
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