The movie that we know and some of us love as Yor Hunter from the Future originated as an Italian miniseries. I’ve scored that piece of grade Z cinema treasure and am diving headfirst into all of the magic that it can produce.

After a short recap, we return to the cave of the blue, well, cavemen. They’re bringing out the women one at a time and fighting over them. What a life — drinking out of giant coolers, eating giant slabs of the choice meats and beating people up for scantily clad cavewomen whilst beating your chest. As the cavemen battle for the favor of Kala (now written out as Calla, Ka-Laa and Ca-Laa in the subtitles), Yor uses a giant bat to make the save (not before Kala is slapped around, though).

As they run through the caverns, Yor hits a blue caveman directly in the face with his stone axe. Rather than a violent demise, the blue skin comically sells the move like a Tom and Jerry cartoon. One almost expects small birds to fly around his head as he staggers.

Yor and Kala find a giant room of bones, all sacrifices to a large idol. With his medallion and woman back, Yor floods the cave. Flying in the face of the budget, the flood is pretty spectacular, with cave people extras flying all over the place and the water getting perilously close to the camera. Finally, Pag, Yor and Kala are all reunited. Of course,  there’s still the question of Yor wiping out the rest of Pag and Kala’s people. That said — maybe the skeletons are supposed to be them and Yor isn’t the screw up his American edit has led us to believe.

Ukan is defeated. And, unbeknownst to me the first time I watched Yor, there’s a strange tie between him and Yor. Aytekin Akkaya, the actor who plays Ukan, played Captain America in 1973’s Three Giant Men. This Turkish love letter to copyright law is all about Spider-Man, here an evil mastermind in a green version of his suit who loves to kill people with outboard boat motors, battling El Santo and Cap. And as we all know, Yor himself, Reb Brown, played Cap in two TV movies. The fact that I have put this together should either amaze you or make you fear me.

Searching for food — perhaps wild boar — Yor discovers some pumpkins. If you ever want to pick out one sentence from this site to use out of context, perhaps that last sentence is it. Yor’s quest for food leads him right to Kala and they share another kiss. Soon, they find two skeletons of large dinosaurs, which Yor finds strange. He also knows how to measure mileage, referring to kilometers, which seems anachronistic.

They happen upon a cave filled with weapons and furs, which seems awfully convenient as things grow colder. That said — they’re heading off to a desert, so perhaps a full-length mink isn’t the fashion to be sporting.

Pag explains to Kala the eternal mystery and conundrum of loving Yor — you must allow him to find the secret to his past, even though it may cost you his love in the long run.

Pag warns Yor that where he wants to go, “This is the land of the sick. The people of the desert live here, they worship the god of fire. They say they perform magic rituals and have supernatural powers.” Kala throws in that, “The law of the dead governs this land.” There’s a woman who looks like Yor that he needs to find, which is driving Kala nuts. He answers her fears by frenching her, because as his theme song will tell you, “Yor is the man.”

If you’re a fan of movies where folks aimlessly walk through the desert, the next five minutes of this film are for you.

Yor finds some stock footage of a volcano and dry ice, which can only mean he’s reached his destination. I say that and then we spend five more minutes watching him run through the desert while triumphant music plays. Finally, Yor starts yelling for the queen and is confronted by some black metal album cover looking trees and mummies who are covered in dust and carrying sticks of fire. So, being the hero that we all know him to be, Yor starts hopping and running.

Kala had a dream about this — Yor surrounded by fire and all alone. This scene looks incredibly dangerous to shoot, with real fire being thrown right at Reb Brown, who obviously did all of his own stunts. Dudes are just running full speed down a mountain carrying flaming sticks, which seems like the most insane thing to do. The army of Dengars throws a net on Yor, but then we hear the voice of the queen, who demands that the men bring Yor to her.

Yor finds himself in a huge cave with large people trapped in ice. The mummies tie him up as the queen rises. She has blonde hair like Yor and the same medallion. The queen can’t answer how she got there, but that she arrived with the men trapped in ice. As the ice melts, it gives water to the people and they worship her like a divine being. The ice trapped men, the queen and Yor all wear the same medallion. What does it mean? Are they from the same tribe? The same race? The answers will have to wait as a mummy with a flaming sword comes in and they show an altar covered with blood. The queen doesn’t want them to kill Yor, but she has no choice. It’s between him and her. Yor’s cool about the whole thing — it doesn’t matter to him as long as she lives and her children keep their race alive.

Turns out that the very land that these people live on is poisoning them. To try and gain the favor of the gods, they kill everyone that enters their land. Yor sees through this, knowing that this won’t change anything. The queen is even more pragmatic. She doesn’t want to change their beliefs or customs, just allow them to survive.

We find out the queen’s name is Roa. Yor tells her that he’s looked everywhere for her. He tells her that she can either let him die or run away with him. She answers him by, well, she doesn’t answer him. She just kneels and prays. I’ve been there, Yor. You ask a simple question and you don’t even get anything remotely close to an answer.

Pag and Kala have been tracking Yor, but their camp has been overrun by spiders. They run to find Yor, to a place not fit for people or animals. Though they promised not to follow him, Kala wants to go to Yor.

Roa still hasn’t made up her mind when a bunch of dudes who look like Morris Bush on a star destroyer show back up to sacrifice Yor. He ain’t having it — swinging a burning sword at them n majestic slow motion. Roa begs him that it’s enough and that he should stop, but she doesn’t know Yor like we know Yor. Our boy has to wipe out an entire cave of people at least once a day. He sets a mummy ablaze and it lands in what we thought was just water. Nope. It’s gasoline, sending the entire cave up in flames.

There were some ballsy stuntmen making this movie, dudes unafraid to be set on fire with only some rags to protect them. If I had a beer — I’m writing this at 7 AM on a Sunday, why am I not drinking a beer — I’d toast them. No pun intended.

A stalactite falls and knocks out Roa as the cave starts to fall apart. Yor loses his sword but uses a high kick and another stalactite to impale a mummy. Yor also throws a flaming stick in a 3D shot that flies into a mummy, a cool little camera trick.

Yor emerges from the cave carrying Roa just as Pag and Kala arrive. Kala instantly looks upset, Roa wakes up and looks lovingly into Yor’s eyes and Yor just looks at the camera waiting for a wacky sitcom sound cue. Kala is having none of this.

That’s how part 2 ends…on a cliffhanger based on love, not action. What happens next? Well, I already know. I mean, I’ve seen Yor Hunter from the Future way too many times. But I’m still coming back for part 3. Here’s hoping I see you on the other side.

I can hear you now — “Sam, you’ve already reviewed Yor Hunter from the Future.” Or said something like, “Sam, you’ve cornered me at a party and talked to me for an hour about this stupid Italian-Turkish co-production about a barbarian in the future with the 70’s Captain America in it and I just can’t take any more.” To this I say, “Too bad.”

That’s because I’ve achieved one of my Holy Grails — I hold in my sweaty hands the uncut 4 hour Italian TV version of Yor’s World. It’s impossible to find. Well, nit that impossible. I found it. But it has taken me years. Now, I will pass the magic off to you.

The transfer on this DVD is blobby and washed out and nothing pleases me more. The first strain of Oliver Onions’ “Yor’s World” theme starts to play and I catch the goofy grin of Yor as he just runs like a goof down a mountain and all of the stress of the week just melts away, like Calgon soap water draining from my tub.

Then, Yor’s World becomes a demented mondo travelogue, telling us of the indigenous people of the past. Or the future. Or whenever the fuck this is:

“In the time in which our story begins, nature, with her laws, dominates the earth in opposition. Nomad tribes run from one continent to another searching for food or to escape the numerous dangers that threaten their survival. They live, essentially hunting and fishing, nourishing themselves with berries and roots. When they reach hospitable areas, in close proximity to rivers, where the forest offers better opportunities to find food. They are, however, more predisposed to attacks from ferocious predators. And, following their victims, they multiply in the same places. So they try to organize their settlements with the possibility of defending themselves from those dangerous incursions. They build homes that are more comfortable than caves and less precarious than the first huts. They learn to light fire and preserve it with large coals. New horizons open for some of these tribes. The sense of precariousness that was at the foundations of their existence, slowly, almost miraculously. But it’s only the beginning…And thanks to the marvelous gifts of intelligence, they will become masters of the world. They still have too many enemies who will always threaten their existence, ignoring the teachings of history.”

While this long intro is read, we see the cave people cooking, cleaning, eating and reminding us that this is an Italian movie, so a real animal must be cleaned for our viewing displeasure. The same sequence of the children being held to the sky from Yor Hunter from the Future happens, followed by Kala and Pag hunting in the jungle.

As they play around with a small dinosaur, a larger one attacks. Yor comes to their rescue, flashing a knowing smile at Kala before going into battle. The fight seems to last a lot longer — and we see more of Yor’s ass — than I remember.

Yor’s fighting style can best be described as, “Yeah, I can jump and tumble over that.” Think Captain Kirk with a loin cloth. Finally, with a mighty yell and a slice of his axe, Yor is sipping blood out of the dino’s head. The dialogue here is word for word the same as the original movie — I had always imagined that they were saying much deeper things than the English translation.

What’s missing? My favorite line in all of Yor! “Help me cut the choice meats.” My sadness is palpable.

We head to the village of the cave people — look, I know I reviewed this movie before, but I’m reveling in the joy of getting more Yor, so you have to deal with my mania. Yor yells “HA!” so many times at the dancing girls that Kala gets upset and twerks just for him. They bring him a drink that keeps sadness away that has honey in it, which seems pretty cool of them. It causes our hero to burp, which everyone seems to get a huge kick out of.

Up in the hills, a lone sentry is attacked by a hairier caveman, who demands, “Kill them all.” They make their way to the encampment, choking out everyone who gets in their way while watching the women dance. Yor also reveals that his elders once told him. “You’re the son of fire that’s fallen from the sky.”

NOTE: I always thought that the heroine’s name was Kala, but the translation on this DVD calls her Ka-Laa.

The blue skin cavemen attack and Yor valiantly fights, even using fire to help himself, while also jumping all over the place like some kind of maniac. The leader of the blue skins wants him alive and demands that his men follow Yor and his friends.  Thanks to some subterfuge — and tearing off some of Kala’s clothes — our heroes make their escape as the blue cavemen are caught in quicksand.

Escaping into the cave where Yor spent most of his childhood, he and Kala discuss how he has no idea who he is — a god or mortal. Meanwhile, Pag heads off to the village, where he sees the elder die, but not before he tells him that he had a vision of Yor on an island. The blue cavemen start to hunt Pag down before he hides in a volcano. The scene is a nice mix of Bava-esque lighting and B-roll volcano footage with some decent set design, feeling a lot more expansive than the small budget would suggest.

In a scene that is not in the U.S. version, Yor and Kala are then attacked by a swamp monster that has one giant eye and plenty of tentacles. Yor’s axe comes in handy here, as he chops off every one of them with terrific sprays of good old fashioned Italian horrorshow blood. After the defeat of the creature, Yor and Kala embrace and kiss — also missing from the film!

Pag hides in the hills as Ukan, the leader of the blue cavemen screams at his men for allowing an old man, a woman and one man to defeat them. Pag sees Yor and Kala returning to find him, just as they are attacked by the blue skins. This helps fix an issue I’ve always had with Yor Hunter from the Future. Yor seems to lose almost every fight he’s in. It seems to be whomever edited the film I know cut out all of the wins and just showed the times he’s screwed up. I mean, he still screws up a lot, but the percentages are different now. I mean, Yor is still going to get tossed off a cliff. But he’s going to get some enhancement talent wins against swamp monsters along the way.

Ukan’s men toss Yor off that cliff — see, I told you it was coming — as the leader takes his medallion and Kala. Pag tries to save him but fails as our hero gets tossed down the hillside. Now, it’s time to climb back up and reunite with Pag.

Pag tells him that the law states that Kala belongs to Ukan. Yor exclaims that he doesn’t recognize the law and roll credits! We have our first episode of Yor’s World in the books!

I cannot tell you how excited I am by this film. I may have already yelled a ton of lines at the screen and have been reading all the subtitles aloud! YOR IS THE MAN ALL OVER AGAIN!

Lucio Fulci is a divisive figure: either you worship every movie the man ever made or lent his name to — ignoring continuity errors, bad dubbing, dealing with multiple cuts and names of his films, all while explaining away ridiculous moments like a man patiently waiting for spiders to slowly eat his fake face — and mention how much his surrealist approach points to him as more auteur than simple director. Or you think he’s a hack, making the same movie again and again — woman hating paeans to gore, decimated eyeballs, slow motion zombies, gore, glacial plots and oh yes, more gore. I’m not going to change your mind, but I will say that I tend to be more in the “Fulci lives!” t-shirt wearing army that owns multiple versions of his films and can (and will) talk your ear off about how awesome The Beyond is.

This article isn’t about any of that.

Beyond mediations on the witches that really run the world and zombies treating humanity as a never-ending buffet, my love of Italian horror — nay, Italian exploitation film — rests on its ability to shamelessly rip off other films. According to the liner notes of the 2010 DVD reissue of Zombie 2, Italian copyright law allows any film to be marketed as a sequel to another work. Therefore, any major trend in horror or sci-fi will be answered by an insane amount of spaghetti remakes. Most of these films would be a splinter into the eye of a normal person (Olga Karlatos, eat your heart out). But these celluloid copycats are my bread and butter. I blame a childhood of waiting for more Star Wars and being “rewarded” with Starcrash (part of the greatest double drive-in bill I’ve ever seen with Battle Beyond the Stars), a movie that I endlessly daydreamed about when I really should have been paying attention in grade school.

To wit: 1982’s Conan the Barbarian was a huge hit worldwide to the tune of nearly $69 million dollars, leading to a horde of Italian imitators: Joe D’Amoto’s Ator, the Fighting Eagle; Umberto Lenzi’s Iron Master; Antonio Margheriti’s Yor, the Hunter from the Future (you just knew I was going to bring up Yor and his fine meats, right?) and so many more, as well as American cousins such as Albert Pyun’s The Sword and the Sorcerer (starring Lee Horsely of TV’s Matt Houston) and Phantasm creator Don Coscarelli’s The Beastmaster. That’s but a sprinkle of the veritable ocean of barbarian rip-offs out there that you could dip your toe into. But we’re here to talk Fulci’s take on the whole sword and loincloth subgenre.

Conquest comes at a crossroads in Fulci’s life. After six years of working with screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti — a collaboration that led to the golden (err, red is a better color to use here) era of his films, like Zombie 2, City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, The New York Ripper, Manhattan Baby and The House by the Cemetery, a murder’s row of, well, movies about murder — Fulci unexpectedly went off on his own to create this film. For some reason, it was believed that this would be a big budget production and Sacchetti felt betrayed (their relationship would worsen with lawsuits and recriminations forever dividing them). The failure of Conquest would hasten not only the decline of Fulci’s career, which would see him lending his name to films that he hadn’t even worked on (the jury is out, but it seems for all intents and purposes he was a bloody version of Dali, willy nilly signing his name onto any project that’d float him some cash) and facing worsening health.

Perhaps Fulci was battling the criticism that his films were becoming repetitive. Maybe he saw the film as his chance at the big time, as one of the reasons why this was funded was to push Mexican matinee idol Jorge Rivero to be a bigger star. Perhaps he wanted to try something different.

Keep in mind that while the rest of the world had just woken up to the potential of sword and sorcery films, the Italians had been cooking up these films for years — witness the myriad Hercules films. And even when blatantly ripping off a film, like Dawn of the Dead insta-sequel Zombie 2, Fulci will subvert expectations and make something perhaps even more watchable. And strange. And often, a movie that makes little or no sense if you’re looking for a traditional narrative structure. In an interview with Starburst in 1982, Fulci said of The Beyond, “It’s a plotless film: a house, people, and dead men coming from The Beyond. There’s no logic to it, just a succession of images. People who blame The Beyond for its lack of story have not understood that it’s a film of images, which must be received without any reflection. They say it is very difficult to interpret such a film, but it is very easy to interpret a film with threads: any idiot can understand Molinaro’s La Cage aux Folles, or even Carpenter’s Escape from New York, while The Beyond or Argento’s Inferno are absolute films.”

Fulci’s films increasingly betrayed a similarity to avant-garde playwright Antonin Artaud and his Theater of Cruelty. An offshoot of the surrealist movement — later taken further by Luis Buñuel and the Panic Movement collective of Fernando Arrabal, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Roland Topor — this style of theater seeks to assault the audience’s senses, freeing their subconscious to feel emotions that it has left unexpressed. Relatedly, this means that the action on screen doesn’t have to follow any set narrative flow, just be shocking.

Again — depending on your Fulci POV — this can be seen as devotion to higher art or wretched excess making up for lack of talent.

What happens when you pour all of these elements, including a potential big budget reimagining/legally protected sequel to a film (that it is blatantly stealing from) made by a director that constantly challenges not only the genre of film he is making but often the reality that his audience experiences it within — and unleash it onto the screen? Glad you asked.

Conquest is either the worst film you’ve ever watched or a batshit insane descent into mythical archetypes. There can be no middle ground.

We open on a double projection as figures appear from nowhere. Our hero, Ilias, is starting the hero’s journey, which begins with leaving behind the life and family he knows and embracing the unknown. A god, Chronos, gives him a magic bow to announce that Ilias has become a man and the credits kick in.

Your first reminder that this is a true Fulci film arrives abruptly — werewolf-like monsters attack a village and tear a woman in half. In any other film, this would be off camera or in shadow, but here, we see limbs severed, arterial sprays of blood and a torn off head being cut open so that our villain, Ocron, can sip from the brains and have a vision. Have I mentioned that Ocron is nude the entire movie, save for panties and a sexy Destro-style mask?

In her vision, she learns that a man with a magical bow will rise up and destroy her, ala Herod in the Bible being warned of Jesus’ coming or Cronus eating all of his children so that they wouldn’t kill him. Her werewolves attack Ilius, who barely puts up a fight, before being saved by Mace.

Mace is pretty much the most awesome barbarian hero of all time — he has concrete nunchuks, long hair, wears animal skins, can speak to animals like Marc Singer and has the mark of Eibon from The Beyond on his forehead. He takes Ilius along on a quest, which mainly consists of walking, fighting werewolves, walking, shooting old men who are carrying goats, getting laid by cave women who dress like Daryl Hannah in Clan of the Cave Bear three years before that movie came out, getting their asses kicked, more walking and strong, manly handshakes. Oh yeah — there’s also a sexy eating scene that seems really close to Tom Jones, but everyone is either a cave person, a barbarian or dressing like Perseus.

This is that kind of film — like playing with a child who may be insane and doesn’t care that all of the toys that he is playing with are different scales and sizes, so He-Man can be friends with Snake Eyes and they can all pick up and carry Hot Wheels while a train set almost hits everyone. Movie after movie is tossed into the mix — Quest for Fire, Fulci’s zombie oeuvre, Clash of the Titans — until you’re left with a movie that just seems to jump cut from scene to scene, all with another insane idea around the bend.

Arrows that can turn into lightning and blast all around the screen? Check.

Mace battling a duplicate of himself in a fight so strangely edited that even the viewer has no idea who is good and who is evil? Check.

A white wolf who becomes an evil god named Zora who pledges to kill everyone if he gets to have sex and own the soul — in that order — of Ocron? Check.

Crucifying Mace ala Conan, then kicking the cross into the water where he’s saved by friendly dolphins that recalls the director’s earlier bonkers zombie vs. shark battle? Check.

If you don’t want to be shocked by how crazy this film can get and want to experience it for yourself, please stop reading now, because Fulci packed a doozy into this one.

After coming back to save Mace, Ilias gets killed off-screen and beheaded. Yep. The main hero of the movie gets his head chopped off, then burned in a funeral pyre scene that lasts forever, until Mace takes his ashes and covers himself in them, mumbling, “Revenge. Revenge.” This is NOT what Joseph Campbell had in mind on that whole Hero’s Journey, right?

Mace gets that revenge — killing everyone he can with the bow, until using it to blast off Ocron’s mask, revealing that her face looks like a Basil Wolverton drawing. She dies, transforming into a wolf, at which point she meets the Zora wolf and they run off into the Mexican desert. Mace walks away, alone again. Cue the Goblin music — or at least Claudio Simonetti.

I sat on my couch, jaw dropped, at the end of this film. There are parts where you’ll question how Fulci ever learned how to be a director. And moments where his brilliance smashes you in the brain as if a naked witch was about to get high off your frontal lobe. You’ll wonder — is this a remastered DVD or a poor badly dubbed tenth generation VHS tape, because things just keep fading out and I can’t make out what’s on the screen. You’ll ponder just how many smoke machines it took to make a movie like this, one that makes Antonio Bay look like the clearest of all blue skies.

Above all else, you will not ever seen this as a ripoff of Conan the Barbarian. It’s just too out there and too off. For all the narrative purists that pull at the cloak of Fulci, I’ll give advice that none of them will give you: watch this movie with beer and weed close by. It will allow the on-screen fog to penetrate your physical world. Only watch this either very early in the morning, just before the sun rises, or so late that there isn’t another soul awake. And if you have furs or a loincloth, put it on. Embrace Conquest as the ridiculous piece of entertainment that it was meant to be. You can’t make stuff like this up. And they don’t make ‘em like this any more.

Originally written for Drive-In Asylum #9, where I made the typo of calling Joseph Campbell Joseph Conrad. Please buy the print copy of the zine now at https://www.etsy.com/listing/526525656/drive-in-asylum-issue-8-july-2017?ref=shop_home_feat_1

He replied, “It looks like a piece of shit.”

34 years later, I am here to tell you that my father was completely correct. He also couldn’t be more wrong.

Face facts — I cannot hate this movie. It’s too insane and obviously made by maniacs who have no concern whatsoever for rational narrative structure to throw bon mots at. If this was made as an art film, people would celebrate the incongruity and sheer madness of it all. Because it’s an Italian exploitation film — nonetheless one distributed in the US by Columbia Pictures — it gets looked down on as a load of feces. Which it surely is. But it aspires to be so much more.

Please note: as you read this — and if you haven’t seen Yor — you may wonder, how much stuff is in this movie? And once you read this, you’ll wonder how so much can happen in just 88 minutes. Consider me a witness. I have watched this movie three times in one day just to confirm that yes, so much stuff happens in this movie. Literally, twenty movies worth of crazy happens in this movie.

When we meet Yor (played by Reb Brown, TV’s Captain America, the blondest man who ever lived), he’s jumping all over a prehistoric desert (which is really Turkey, but please, let’s not quibble. Let’s stop being so snarky and just give way to the majesty which is Yor) until he runs into the luscious Kala, played by Corinne Cléry from Moonraker and The Story of O, and her old man protector Pag, who we of the before time know as Luciano Pigozzi from Blood and Black Lace. They’re out hunting and start playing with a little dinosaur when a bigger one attacks them. Luckily, Yor has his axe and goes buckwild on the stego beast, making it bleed everywhere. Seriously — I have never seen a dinosaur with a crimson mask before.

After the battle, everyone begins to celebrate and Yor proves why he’s a little bit different than your average barbarian hero. He just starts lapping up the blood pouring out of this prehistoric beastie. Keep in mind, nearly everyone else is tripping out as this happens. He ignores them and just keeps on drinking blood. It’s also worth noting that this monster is made from some of Italy’s finest papier mache.

KALA: It burns like fire!

YOR: The blood of your enemy makes you stronger! Drink!

PAG: I’d rather stay weak.

YOR: I’m Yor the Hunter. I come from the high mountain. Help me cut the choice meats.

That’s how we meet Yor — running at full speed down a mountain until he kills a dinosaur, drinks its blood and cuts up the choice meats. I wish that I had a butcher pattern of a dinosaur showing me where the best cuts are so that I start serving it properly.

Everyone asks about Yor’s medallion — yeah, your boy is sporting a total 70s style gold piece — and a wizened old man smartens everyone up: “I have seen a similar medallion. Beyond the mountains it is worn by a woman who lives among the desert people. I have seen it glint on her chest when the sun’s rays strike it. She is the daughter of the gods. They say she descended to the earth in a tongue of fire. And now she is worshipped as a queen.” Kala is like, um, alright, so, welcome to my village, we have some travelogue mondo style footage to show you here, so can we drop the Erich von Däniken shit? And with that, we’re in the village. No one in this movie asks questions all that often. In fact, stuff just seems to happen to the main characters. And by stuff, I mean senseless death and destruction. PTSD does not exist in the world of Yor.

After Yor takes in Kala’s Paleolithic-era twerking, blue-skinned cavemen attack the village. They kidnap everyone but Pag, Yor and Kala. If you’re wondering how, in this hero’s journey, why said hero can blunder on such a monumental level, let me inform you: you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Kala and Yor forget all about the village being kidnapped and have a romantic walk, which is interrupted by the blue skins, who steal Kala and chuck Yor off a cliff. At this point, my scratched up library copy DVD froze for ten minutes and I believed that it was an artistic choice to focus on Yor’s moment of pain. Once I cleaned the DVD off, I realized my folly. I also realized that I wasted ten minutes of my life staring at a still frame of the star of Space Mutiny. Such is life.

Let me reiterate: the hero of this movie just killed nearly everyone the woman he loves has ever known or loved.

Why, at this point, anyone would follow Yor is up for serious discussion. But hey — their entire village was killed by a blundering maniac, so why not strap in for the ride and see what’s next. And what’s next? Oh yeah – the land of the disease, the world of fire, where death rules this land, where people do dark rituals. Basically, the most awesome place on Earth. Kala wants Yor to stay, because he’s going to find that crazy witch woman out there, but he casually brushes her off and is on his way to the coolest place ever — one that sounds like every Dio album cover come to life.

Nope. It’s just more Turkish mountains filled with sand mummies, who run with fire against all logic and safety standards, chasing Yor until he sets all of them on fire. Because that’s what Yor does best — accidental mass genocide. Oh wait, what he really does best is fail on a monumental scale, which he does here again, as he’s defeated by a net and brought to the queen of the sand mummies, Rua — who has the same amulet that he does! Stuff just happens to this guy — he can keep failing in spite of himself and end up exactly where the story needs to go. Yor and Roa have a moment, surrounded by dead people encased in ice.

YOR: Where’d you get that medallion? What does it mean?

ROA: They say I came here together with those men, there, caught in the ice. Why I am alive and they are dead I don’t know, and why the ice has formed in this parched desert is a mystery without an answer, but the little water that comes from it is vital to these people and they worship me, as a divine goddess.

At this point, Yor could just live in an ice cave and make sweet love for the rest of his life. But nope. Even though the poisonous vapors in the desert sands will only be placated by the death of every stranger who comes to this land, Yor decides that they need to leave and live in peace. He demands to be released or killed…now!

Yor, of course, wasn’t thinking again, as Rea decides to just have him killed. If you think Yor is going to find some fire and kill everyone else, you’ve seen this movie, too. Of course he does, screaming and flexing and shouting the entire time. All sorts of mummies get set on fire and blown up in dramatic slow motion and Roa gets a bunch of ice dropped on her head. Somehow, Yor doesn’t muff this one up and escapes, finding Kala and Pag in the process.

Seriously. Yor has met and wiped out three civilizations in the last thirty some odd minutes. He is nothing if not efficient.

Now, however, he’s in for the worst battle of his life. Two women want his Yor-meat and they’re willing to kill one another for his veiny manroot. Just when Kala tries to slay Roa, those blue cavemen attack again. Yor fights them off, but in the ensuing brawl, Roa gets hit in the head. Again. But this time, it’s fatal and she dies in Yor’s arms, asking for a kiss. Forget the kiss. Instead, you should be screaming at him for being the worst hero ever! Roa dies, but not before this immortally translated and dubbed soliloquy:

ROA: You see? Dreams are only dreams. Things are coming back to me. I see an island and in the middle a big sea. In the middle, a big castle. That is where we come from. Take my amulet and give it to Kala. It is the emblem of our world. She loves you. Kiss me. Kiss me off quickly! My gods are calling me!

Cue the strings. Cue the last kiss, ala J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers.

Yor reflects for a moment on this senseless death, but soon, he hears some screams. Which means that it’s time for the gang to run into some kids who are being menaced by a dinosaur, who Yor tries to kill with his axe. Because after all, that’s the one heroic thing he did well in this entire movie. He, of course, fails and is saved by Pag and Kala. Of course the kids invite Yor to their village.

Of course, you’ll scream, “No, you’ll all die!” but no one will listen. Of course.

The folks he saved, well, they meet their cuckholded dad, who is all like, “Well, you saved my wife’s life, so she’s yours now.” Yor is like, “Yeah, well, that’s cool and all, but let’s talk UFOs instead.” We learn that flying saucers have been blowing stuff up, but first, the women have prepared a feast in Yor’s honor. So forget all the gods from the stars and death and worry — we got food to eat! Choice meats, am I right?

Let’s pause for a second. Will the fourth race of people who met Yor also get wiped out? Of course they will.

Unseen flying saucers (budgetary reasons) set the whole village on fire. People are screaming and running and on fire, because it’s an Italian movie and either an animal needs tortured or a woman’s head has to go through glass or someone has to be set on fire every fifteen minutes.

Yor gets in a boat to follow them and finds a storm-surrounded island. There, we discover the twist to this film. That said — the twist is given away in the movie’s title, so it’s not that much of a spoiler. Yor’s world is actually our Earth post-nuclear war and his parents died fighting the Overlord (John Steiner of Shock, Caligula and Salon Kitty fame; side note he now sells real estate in LA and seems like a kindly old chap). Yor gets captured, as you knew he would, and meets the rebels who have been plotting to overthrow the Overlord and his nuclear powered minions (who use the same costumes as Aldo Lado’s The Humanoid).

Turns out Yor’s real name is Galahad and his medallion tells his entire life story — his parents fought the Overlord and were killed as they escaped to wherever we are now. Yor is less from the future and more from an island a little across the way, but that would be an absolute shit title for this movie.

Theremin music plays as the Overlord reveals his plan: use Yor’s genetic material to make genetically perfect androids and to get his mind operated on, so that Yor can be perfect. This explains why Yor bungles up everything he sets his mind to.

It’s at this stage of the movie that we pivot from a Conan ripoff to a straight Star Wars clone. I’m always fascinated by the mix of barbarians battling future technology, so this pleased me greatly. It’s no Thundarr, but what is?

The Elder, the blind leader of the scientists, helps Yor and the rebels escape. The Overlord fights back, kicking Yor’s ass for a bit, until Yor comes back and impales him. The Overlord somehow survives this and struggles to blow up his base, but Yor’s ragtag crew escapes and the entire remainder of human civilization goes up in flames. Instead of a dream race of hybrid clones, future people and cavepeople are about to get it on, all fallen angel Nephilim style.

As we see the spaceship fly away, a narrator intones, “Yor returns to the primitive tribes on the mainland. He is determined to use his superior knowledge to prevent them making the same mistakes as their forefathers. Will he succeed?”

If the last 88 minutes were any indication, a resounding no is the answer.

How does one sum up a movie like Yor Hunter from the Future?

Well, I’d be remiss were I not to mention the theme song to Yor. It sounds like a sub-Queen cover band, yet it is all that is wonderful about cinema. Here are but some of the lyrics:

“Yor’s World, he’s the man! Yor’s World, he’s the man! [Yor’s World!]

Lost in the world of past, in the echo of ancient blast. [Yor’s World!]

There is a man of future, a man of mystery. [Yor’s World!]

No tribe to lead the way, in his search for  a yesterday. [Yor’s World!] Misty illusions hiding, his famous destiny. [Yor’s World!]

Yor, the touch of fire. Yor the proud and free desire. He never sees the sun, he’s always on the run, him and his days are gone. They say he will go on, his search goes on and on.”

This movie isn’t boring, that’s for sure. So many of the movies that followed in the wake of Conan certainly are. Credit — or blame — for this movie’s direction goes to Antonio Margheriti. Yor is based on a popular Argentine comic book and what we saw in America was an 88 minute cut down version of the worldwide 98-minute release (which in itself is a cutdown versus of four 55-minute TV mini-series episodes). So in case you wonder why this feels like one of those Heavy Metal magazine stories that make no sense at all, that could be some of the reason. Antonio’s career is marked by a ton of films that cut across a swath of genres, like the Lee Majors-starring Killer Fish, The Long Hair of Death and Castle of Blood. There’s some argument that it was Antonio — and not Paul Morissey — who directed Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein. Hopefully, it was he who helped with that movie’s most memorable line (“To truly know life, you must fuck it in the gallbladder!”)

An interesting tribute to Antonio Margheriti can be found in Quentin Tarantino’s The Inglorious Basterds, as Eli Roth’s character Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz uses the assumed name Margheriti when he poses as an Italian.

Even better — or worse — there’s a new Yor in the works. The only info I can find on it states that, “Reboot fever continues as this highly underrated early 80’s sci fi / fantasy classic finally gets the treatment it deserves. Original actor Reb Brown is onboard as an older Yor recounting the classic adventures of his younger self played by genre veteran Matt Vogel.”

Should you watch this? After reading all that I wrote about it and you still don’t, well then why are you even reading a site about films? Yor Hunter from the Future is a lot of things, but it certainly isn’t normal. It’s worth experiencing at least once in your life, that’s for sure. After all, if you just listen to the song, you know one thing: Yor is the man.

This way too long article about a shitty movie that Sam loves once appeared at http://www.thatsnotcurrent.com/yor-man-look-back-1983s-yor-hunter-future/