BEASTMASTER (1982)

BEASTMASTER (1982)

Oh man…in this one Dar (played by Marc Singer), the son of a king is about to piss off a lot of people, so some witches just sort of dissolve him in the womb of his mother, and have him born in a cow instead of her. You read that right. Then one of the witches tries to kill him when he is born from the cow, but that goes south and he gets taken in by a new family. He grows up (like super-fast) and his father ends up getting killed. So it's time to get freakin revenge. He also has this really cool ability to talk to animals, like Ron Burgundy, only this dude understands all animals and they pretty much just love him (probably because he was born in a cow?). Meanwhile there is a priest that wants to kill him and spread darkness across the land, just like Starbucks. 

This movie is loaded with weird sorcery type stuff, human sized bat dudes, weasels and Kiri (played by Tanya Roberts probably most famous for her role in the James Bond movie A VIEW TO A KILL). All the acting is pretty good for a flick like this. Out of the movies that I have actually watched, it’s probably most like CONAN (from the 80’s) and DRAGONSLAYER only there are no dragons in this one. Instead you are getting a cool black lion and hawks and things like that. 

I have to give props to the animal trainer in this one, because all of the animals in it are pretty awesome and look well trained. However, it is pretty rough when you couldn’t even get a dude to help you with a “real bear”. We end up with a guy in a bear suit for one scene. Which I guess is fine for a b-movie, but even the TV show, “The Life And Times Of Grizzly Adams” utilized a live bear. You didn’t have any bears around? Everyone should have a bear. That’s it, we are getting everyone a live bear!  

Overall the filming is pretty rough, and the contrast of dark and light and cinematography is just very basic. It feels almost more like a TV show that could have come out at that time. At some point there actually ended up being one. Even for a fantasy movie, the animals all seem to have "real life" abilities in the movie itself. So it’s odd that they used a “hawk” in one scene to rescue a kid from getting sacrificed, even in this world (yeah that happens too). Apparently you don’t even have to worry about a hawk carrying off your 12 lb dog or cat, let alone a 6 or 7 year old kid. 

As it turns out, I actually sat through this twice because when I was thinking of doing a review, I didn’t remember enough of it to review it accurately. That means it can’t be that bad. What it doesn’t mean is that it was, “that good”. I am in the middle of the road on this one. Overall I will error on the side of caution and give this one a 4. Fans of this genre will like it…but I didn’t “love it”. 

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