Die Mächte des Lichts

Sleazy sword-and-sorcery fantasy as only Roger Corman can produce it, "Sorceress" is good fun provided that you're not too demanding. It delivers a generous amount of amusement and fun, especially when it comes to the ridiculous dialogue, and its delivery. For the most part, it doesn't do that much to stand out from the pack of other, similar films during this time. But that all changes when it gets to the climax, a full-on assault of cheese and spectacle, complete with light shows and otherworldly creatures.

A large part of the charm, of course, lies in the casting of luscious twin sisters Leigh and Lynette Harris, playing warrior women Mira and Mara. It seems that one of them needs to be sacrificed by power-hungry villain Traigon (snarling and hammy Roberto Ballesteros). They take the fight to him, aided by such characters as the hunky young Erlick (Roberto Nelson) and the proud Valdar (Bruno Rey), a guy who wouldn't look out of place in a Lord of the Rings feature.

That's really all you need to know, so you can discover the silly pleasures of this lowbrow feature for yourself. John Carl Buechler handles the creature duties, creating a likable "goat man" sort of character as well as a variety of ape-like beasts. The music is liberally borrowed from the earlier New World productions "Battle Beyond the Stars" and "Humanoids from the Deep". The action scenes are basically decent. The Harris sisters aren't exactly very good actresses, but this viewer can't imagine many fans of this type of thing caring all that much.

The sad postscript is that this turned out to be the final directorial credit for exploitation master Jack Hill ("The Big Doll House", "Coffy", etc.), who had a falling out with Corman over the matter of the editing. In the end, Hill retained a producing credit under his name but the direction was credited to a pseudonymous "Brian Stuart" (the names of Cormans' sons).

If you like fantasy features to be on the cheesy, sleazy, low budget side, watching this will be a no-brainer.

Seven out of 10.

I'm watching through a wave of 70s to 80s low budget movies, fantasy genre right now. This one is pretty fun. Will spare the plot details you can find them in other reviews. The story is fun and the lead actresses are better than most in these films if still far from good. Contains several humorous scenes, most of them intentional! And has a good amount of t and a which is why most of us guys enjoyed this genre when we were 12. Fight scenes, effects, and costumes are classic 80s camp.

Fans of the sword and sorcery genre might want to take a look at this laughably inept masterpiece about a pair of buxom twins fighting their evil father. This film has it all: bad acting, terrible dialogue, awful special effects, and of course, gratuitous nudity. As another reviewer mentioned, the dialogue appears to have been dubbed, even though the actors were clearly speaking English to begin with. This just serves to make the film even more amusing. Equally amusing is how initially nobody can tell that the twins are really girls, even though this should have been obvious to anybody with at least one eye. All in all, a fun film for fans of the genre. I give it a 7 out of 10.

This film is so enjoyable. It's one of those movies you could only get when there were privately owned video rental shops, probably bought at a discount rate from some video wholesaler that gives people the opportunity to purchase large grab bags of cheap films instead of one or two expensive ones. When I found this one back in the late eighties, I was on a bad fantasy film kick, and this one beats 'em all. It's better even than any installment in the almighty "Deathstalker" series! If you can find it, have fun with this one. I'm sure the film makers did. I'm still trying to figure out if it's not one of the greatest movies ever made.

The evil sorcerer Traigon dies in the attempt to perform a sacrifice to his evil goddess. Not easily discouraged, he swears to return in 20 years and try again. His twin daughters have meanwhile grown into 2 skilled fighting ladies. Mira and Mara fight against Traigon with the aid of a barbarian red-beard, a little faun with a flute and a gambler turned swordsman.

'Sorceress' is a hilarious piece of 80s trash with a rare sense of humor. For example, when the sorcerer summons an army of zombies, they don't fight for him, but instead steal the temple virgins and run. "You know, they were buried for a thousand years", the barbarian explains. Among a wave of 'Conan' imitations I missed this one back in the day, but fortunately now got hold of the Blu-ray with interviews, from Roger Corman explaining the casting of 2 Playboy playmates ("they looked good in the nude scenes") to the special effects guy remembering how he spent even less money on masks than Corman expected, to the writer who was asked to "write a script by Monday". Low budget film-making, an adventure for itself.