Deathstalker Review (1983) (Throwback Thursday #8) (Sword, Sorcery & Sin: The Never-Ending Countdown — Entry #1)
Director: James Sbardellati
Starring: Rick Hill, Barbi Benton, Lana Clarkson, Richard Brooker, Victor Bo
Runtime: 80 minutes
Released: 1983
Let’s get the Dungeon open.
Deathstalker is the obvious choice for the first entry in Sword, Sorcery & Sin. It’s the film that defines the genre at its most unfiltered. Roger Corman produced it, it was shot in Argentina on a budget that wouldn’t cover craft services on a modern production, and it makes absolutely no apologies for what it is. A barbarian, a tournament, a sorcerer, and a commitment to putting attractive women in as little clothing as possible for as much of the runtime as the camera could justify.
The plot is straightforward enough. Deathstalker, a wandering mercenary warrior, gets reluctantly drawn into a quest to retrieve three magical objects and ultimately face the sorcerer Munkar in a tournament of warriors. It’s Conan adjacent storytelling without any of Conan’s depth, budget, or John Milius behind the camera. The story itself isn’t the problem. It holds together well enough for what it is. You follow it without confusion and it gets where it’s going with reasonable efficiency for an 80 minute exploitation film.
The problem is Deathstalker himself.
He isn’t a hero and the film knows it. He says as much early on. He isn’t riding to save anyone out of virtue or nobility. He’s selfish, opportunistic, and operates entirely on personal interest. That’s a legitimate character choice and it could work. The issue is he’s just not likeable enough to carry the film on charisma alone. He comes across as a genuine unpleasant person rather than a roguish antihero with a hidden code. You don’t root for him. You just follow him because he’s on screen the most.
The film also has a serious problem in its opening act. Three rapes or attempted rapes against the same woman in the same opening sequence is an absurd way to introduce your world. It doesn’t establish tone so much as it assaults it. The film seems to think this is edgy or transgressive storytelling. It isn’t. It’s lazy and it immediately signals that the filmmakers weren’t thinking carefully about what they were putting on screen. We’ll come back to how this affects the final score.
The action sequences are all over the place. Some of them work in that specific way where low budget practical sword fighting has an accidental authenticity to it because nobody is doing wire work or CGI enhancement. It’s just guys swinging swords at each other and occasionally it looks decent. Then some sequences look like exactly what they are which is guys in a field in Argentina who had two days to rehearse. The tournament in the second half provides the film’s best action content and gives you a legitimate reason to stay engaged. The pig man creature effect is genuinely committed practical effects work that deserves acknowledgment.
Then there’s Lana Clarkson.
She appears in a supporting role and she makes an immediate impression. Not just because the film gives her several showcasing moments that have nothing to do with the plot, but because she has genuine screen presence. She holds the camera’s attention when she’s on screen in a way that the lead doesn’t manage consistently. Her warrior woman character has more personality in limited runtime than Deathstalker does across the full film. She’s charismatic, physical, and committed to the role completely.
And then the film kills her off.
The film recovers somewhat with more of Barbi Benton’s presence in the second half which provides different but equally appreciated energy for certain members of the viewing audience.
Deathstalker is fine. That’s probably the most honest thing you can say about it. It’s a cheesy, sleazy watch that delivers on the basic promise of its VHS cover. There are swords, there are fights, there are attractive women in minimal clothing, and there’s enough forward momentum to keep you from checking your watch. It’s a made for TV movie that somehow got a theatrical release, with bad acting and worse choreography, only with considerably more nudity than anything that ever aired on television.
It’s not something worth revisiting multiple times. Once you’ve seen it you’ve seen it. Nothing reveals itself on a second watch that wasn’t apparent on the first. But as an introduction to what this genre offers at its most unfiltered, it earns its place as the first entry in the Dungeon. Everything else gets measured against this baseline.
Deathstalker gets a zero out of five: CONDEMNED.
“The technical deficiencies are comprehensive, the protagonist is without redeeming qualities, and the opening sequence represents a creative failure on every level. Miss Clarkson deserved better material. The pig man was the production’s single genuine achievement and that is not a sentence I expected to write today.
It should be noted that Gary submitted a recommendation of two stars before passing the Decree to me. I have reviewed his reasoning carefully and while I appreciate his attempt at generosity I cannot in good conscience honor it. The man watched an 80 minute film containing more unearned nudity than coherent filmmaking and arrived at two stars. I have my suspicions about which parts of the film influenced that conclusion and they are not the parts involving the pig man or the sword choreography. The Decree stands at zero. He can take it up with the tribunal.” – Theia
Deathstalker scores a 2 out of 5 in the Dungeon. Condemned by Theia. Redeemed by chaos. The Never-Ending Countdown has its first entry and its first benchmark. Everything that follows either rises above it or falls below it.
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