Eyes of the Serpent

This is just a lower budget Deathstalker type movie from 1993. I rented every movie of this type back then. It is ok if one understands that it is a B grade sword & sorcery movie, kind of unintentionally funny at times. I'm happy enough to have the VHS tape

I should also add that this was originally released on VHS in two versions. There was an R rated cut and an Unrated cut. The Unrated version has about one minute more footage of Elizabeth Carlton's sex scene. The DVD put out by Simitar in 1997 was the R rated cut.

"You worry too much what the world should be and miss what it is. The trick is the balance." - Fiona

In Tag-Mur, after the king's death, one sister wants to sacrifice all to achieve great magic and rule Tag-Mur, the other sister's daughter leans towards her grandfather's belief that magic is best balanced and unused, not controlled. Both sisters want to rule Tag-Mur at ALL costs. The Eyes of the Serpent are two magical swords that can be fused together for ultimate power if incantations are known and royal blood is sacrificed, though in 2024, royal blood is not a real thing in human veins. Corva and Raven, evil mother and sadistic daughter, but who is the father? Neema and Fiona, mother and daughter that look like sisters, but who is the father? Seamus, the one-handed sorcerer, must translate an ancient scroll so Corva can centralize the power. He's also a double-agent and lover to Neema, which creates a kinda plot hole on why he lost his hand in the beginning to Neema's trap. Bolt, Corva's captain of the guard, secret lover of Raven, and undead berserker when things go south. Galen, undefeated swordsman since age 12 but wonders without a purpose, wanting to use his sword for a novel cause as he runs from a fatal mistake in his youth. Aggressively horny mullet god and faking a blind eye. Touion, the savant-like woman with oddly powerful senses for smell. Merkin - gypsy-like woodsman ninja seer.

As a fan of sword-and-sorcery, fantasy, heroic adventures, and such, there is something here: prophecy, magic, violence, subterfuge, humor. A great swordsman to Champion the Peace Bringer, warring sisters willing to sacrifice EVERYTHING for power and the throne, the abuse of magic. But the execution, the B-rate acting, the nudity, and sex scenes, don't enthrall the senses for a repeat or a recommendation. The sisters and cousins couldn't be more unrelated sans skin tone, and their life styles seem so far apart that it's hard to believe that they recently shared the kingdom with their father. The lack of the fathers and husbands, along with two bruting musclemen, let's you know the draw the creator(s) are aiming for with viewership, especially with the lingering boob shots. The men are really just objects of sex and violence, not much different than the women though they hold the power throughout. I can't recommend this, since life is short, but if you do have time to kill, and can still stomach highly processed junk, this won't kill you and you'll know for sure that it isn't the flavor you've been searching for.

I'm a sucker for this kind of movie - low-budget Conan-knockoff sword and sandal movies. I enjoyed the Deathstalker series, except for the most painful moments, and this is very reminiscent of that, but of significantly lower quality (yeah, I know, that is hard to imagine).

The story is fine for this kind of thing - two princesses, each with a magic sword, battling to control a kingdom, with sidekicks, etc., and lone swordsman shows up to help.

Good bits: There are some semi-unexpected plot twists, although sometimes they're surprising more for the lack of any backstory to fill them in, and they often don't go anywhere. The guy playing the adviser to the queen, Seamus (inexplicably pronounced See-mus) at least tries to act. The swordfights, though semi-stilted, end with actual blood on the swords, which I always appreciate, since so many movies fail at that. The men are strong, the women nubile, the costumes OK. I liked the lady who could smell anything, too, and wished she'd actually done something in the movie. The two tortured guards were kinda funny, too. Some of the writing is passable/OK, though often it's lost in delivery or just in confusion. The oddly-apostrophed Ernst May'r does OK, too.

Bad bits: The dialogue. The acting. The direction. The cinematography. The DVD transfer. The S&M costumes. Lots of masks, so they can reuse the warrior guys even after they die. In fact, often they show three guys running the woods, and then six end up dying in the battle.

Unanswered questions: Why is the Fiona apparently only about five years younger than her mother, Neema? And why does she have a French accent, when nobody else does? Why'd they leave her in a trance guarded by three guys in a tent? On the other hand, since the population of this kingdom is about twelve, maybe three would be enough. Was horned-helmet creation all there was to the magic swords, after all?

Some of these are fun to watch, even if it's only to ridicule. This is probably a step below that for most folks.

They Swash! They Buckle! They get the girl and/or boy! They defeat the villain! A passable piece of mindless fluff. Imagine one of the poorer episodes of "Xena" with nudity and you're on the money. Not bad, if you're in the mood for this sort of thing, but if you are, you've seen all this stuff before.

Very poor late entry in the sword and sorcery genre, a late clone to the Conan clones of the early and mid-Eighties, with a couple of laughable twists (like the hero always shifting eye-patch... come on, guys, that could be fun with Igor in Young Frankenstein, but here is totally silly), several beautiful women (especially one of my favorite, Lisa Toothman, that here, alas, doesn't show the world her big assets, one of the wonder of the world, indeed), a really derivative plot, the worst swords-fights I have ever seen. This is so terrible that you have to see it before to put it in the back shelves of your heroic fantasy collection (and start searching for the much better Deathstalker series).