Deathstalker (EOTWS)

End Of The Week Shorts #20 extract: Deathstalker (1983)

The goddamn poster got me. 

At its lowest points Deathstalker seems like a bunch of idiots in a forest with too much money decided to make a movie. At its highest points, this is a very cheap, somewhat amusing, Conan: The Barbarian (which came out the year before this). 

Whilst the direction and cinematography are surprisingly competent, the acting, dialogue and character-writing throughout this film are awful. I think everyone involved knew this to be the case as there's a plethora of bulging muscles, tits and ass to distract you from how bad this movie is - moreover, a lot of terribly staged action and gore. Unfortunately, to anyone above 13, this won't work that well. 

I can see an attempt towards building a world with a gripping mythos and also some semblance of subtext (which I wasn't paying attention to) in Deathstalker, but, I think the only reason people would watch this nowadays is to laugh at it. That said, how did this get three sequels?