Deathstalker (1983)

Touches You

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

...or it might as well be one. Just about every other scene some village girl it getting raped or a harem is frolicking with her boobs out. If they were to make a live-action version of the "Major Boobage" South Park episode, this would be it. The acting is terrible. The effects are campy and low budget. There is little to no continuity between scenes...or even some times within scenes. Apparently they've made 3 more Deathstalker movies. They will have to be on my list. The 3rd one had a MST3000 version of it done in the mid 90s.As another reviewer stated, this is a Fantastically Bad movie! Definitely a great boozing movie with a couple of friends.

This movie opened up an entire genre for me: hilariously cheesy movies. While checking out IMDb's 'top 250' list with a friend looking for something to watch, I saw a link on the left of the screen for the 'bottom 100'--a list of the lowest rated movies on the site. I started searching for trailers for some of the titles like Santa Claus Conquers The Martians and The Blade Master. Eventually I discovered the trailer for Deathstalker, the quintessence of so-bad- it's-good movies. We immediately searched for it and found a site that was streaming it. Right off the bat it delivered the goods. In the first scene, Deathstalker eliminates a group of medieval thugs who were chasing a beautiful girl and trying to capture her. The fight choreography was at the time the worst I'd ever seen--of course after Deathstalker I went on to see dozens of other movies with average ratings of one star or less, so you can only imagine. There are one-liners and gratuitous nudity all throughout the film accented by over the top costumes and ridiculous props, not to mention that Deathstalker himself slaughters at least hundred bad guys. In one scene you hear the swoosh of Deathstalker's blade and then see a shot of a plastic head flying through the air. This movie is basically a huge rip-off of Conan The Barbarian, the Schwarzenegger classic that came out in 1982, the year before Deathstalker was made, which also had lots of violence, nudity, and one- liners. Bad knock-offs make up a pretty big majority of the hilariously cheesy movie genre. After we finished watching Deathstalker, me and my friend liked it so much that we tried to find Deathstalker part II to watch immediately, but we couldn't find it anywhere, so we settled for Deathstalker part III, Deathstalker And The Warriors From Hell, which we found on another movie streaming site. Deathstalker III was partly made up of scenes taken directly from the original. It was significantly less watchable, which explains why Deathstalker has a 3.9 out of 10 rating on IMDb and part III has a 2.0. Rick Hill, the actor that played Deathstalker, went on to a mildly successful career as a B movie action hero, including two Deathstalker sequels, Deathstalker And The Warriors From Hell (Deathstalker part III) and Deathstalker IV: Match of Titans. For Deathstalker part II someone else was cast for his part. If I had to sum this movie up in one sentence it would be: a sleazy, greased up buff guy slaughters an endless amount of people effortlessly while surrounded by naked woman and people in stupid costumes. This is entertainment at its best in 1983. I give Deathstalker a 7 out of 10 for those with a keen sense of humor, but plainly speaking, this movie is hot garbage.

Firstly let's not beat around the bush! This is a low budget, and I mean LOW budget fantasy film. Right now if you accept that then this film is great fun. Especially for a bunch of guys to watch with a few beers. The film makes no apologies, it's just totally gratuatious with heads flying off all over the place and barely a scene goes by without a good solid flash of naked females. Rape scenes, free sex, mud wrestling, magic, swords, muscles, blood it's all in there.As a film it is nowhere near the quality of Conan The Barbarian, but it's one of these films you don't watch expecting to be moved to tears (Except by laughter!) Overall a fantastically bad fantasy epic that film snobs should avoid at all costs but everyone else should give a bash on those Saturday nights in with the mates.

I've seen plenty of cheesy B Movies that rode behind on the success of Conan the Barbarian and Excalibur, and can without a doubt say that this is the best of the lot. The early to mid 80s were the pinnacle of fantasy adventure films, and there are a lot of them from this time. Most are very poorly done with atrocious dialogue and unimaginative (go figure) action sequences. I'm not saying that Deathstalker lacked either of these flaws, it did not, but it made up for it somewhat with ambition and attitude. I must confess that it has been many years since I've seen this film, and it may not stand up as well on a second viewing. But I've always known the difference between a good and bad B movie. I actually miss the times that bred Deathstalker a bit. Although most of the fantasy adventure movies were bad, they at least tried to take themselves seriously. The neat thing about the movie is that it is not epic in scope. For those used to Lord of the Rings or the like, this may actually be a refreshing change. If you haven't seen Conan the Barbarian, watch this movie first, to save the best for last.