Il trono di fuoco

I remember seeing this one on home video back in the 80's. My friend rented it no doubt on account of its video cover which almost certainly featured a barbarian babe with a sword. I can't say I remembered it too fondly, as all I could honestly remember was the scenes of the throne of fire itself. Overall, it isn't nearly as salacious as some of the other barbarian movies of its era, such as Amazons, so I reckon that may be why it seemed so averagely routine back then. Having revisited it again just the other night I do have to say that it was considerably better than I thought it would be. Sure, its story about a warrior's quest to prevent the son of Satan sitting on the throne of the title and ruling the world in an evil way, is about as generic as you can get for this kind of thing. But when it comes to the mid 80's sword and sorcery sub-genre, cosy familiarity is not necessarily a bad thing, right?

What you get is a chief villain with a perm, who likes to kill as many innocent people as he can but fortunately for us, always puts the hero in easily-escapable positions and then leaves the room. To this end, various capturings and escapings ensue in the story, one sequence of which features the hero being thrown into the Well of Madness, where he encounters a floating severed head and an armoured warrior. So, this is all good silly fun that delivers the requisite ingredients basically, however, the definite highlight of the movie was the delectable Sabrina Siani who plays a character called Princess Valkari whom the chief baddie is set on marrying on the day of the night of the day (a badly rendered solar eclipse to you and me); anyway, Ms Siani has a body to kill for and kicks about for the entire runtime in a barbarian girl bikini, which was very nice of her to be perfectly honest.

Peter McCoy (Pietro Torrisi) who also starred in the similarly themed Sword Of The Barbarians and The Invincible Barbarian appears here in this tale of swords, sorcery and ominous prognostication.

In it he plays Siegfried, a mightily muscled hero who is predestined to challenge Satan from attaining mastery over the earth, a feat that the dark one can (luckily for us) only achieve during a solar eclipse and whilst sitting on the magical 'Throne Of Fire' of the films title.

OK so the film isn't going to win any awards for ingenious plot intricacies but in this genre what can one expect?

As it is, the film is actually mildly enjoyable and even has a few decent scenes on offer (the 'Well Of Madness' being a particular stand out), plus there's some rather energetic sword fights on display from our oiled down hero (who looks a fair bit like fellow B movie action star Jeff Wincott!)

Always a plus in my book, this also stars regular Italian sword and sorcery sex symbol, Sabrina Siani who as usual looks absolutely gorgeous!!!

On the downside however, the movie does tend to drag a fair bit throughout, especially during the scenes when our hero is captured....in fact our hero seems to spend the entire film alternating between getting captured and then staging daring escapes! Oh well.....

Overall, if like me, you enjoy these types of films then I'd certainly suggest you give this a try. It's actually not half bad and is certainly infinitely better than most modern takes on the genre.

Watching this I got reminded of my childhood and how I loved watching these types of movies. Swords and sandals I think they are called, with a touch of fantasy. And then I thought my childhood was all a lie. How could I have watched this and think this is any good? But reviews in general here have proved that this obviously is one of the weaker efforts. Apart from one praising this as being better than LotR - pure magic, especially because in no way is this explained. Not that you could explain it and sometimes you go with your gut feeling. But if you want to compare this with a "big budget" movie take Army of Darkness, not LotR which even if you don't like it plays in a different ballpark altogether.

Another reviewer of course, how many times can the hero of the movie be captured? The answer lies within this film. If that resembles to anything that makes sense for you: good for you. Just don't expect the majority to get it. Even when the movie tries to defend it at every way possible. "Stunts" are as if they were from a different era. When you could spot the stunt man doing the back-flips. It has its charm I guess. But there are a lot of other problems too. The inability to act, the script that if it even existed, is as terrible at dialog as it gets. You could go further and accuse this of sexism (more on the women side, but men get a bad rep from this too) and many other things. Prop swords that bend on papier-mache walls and so forth ... I'm beginning to wonder why I gave it a 2 right now ... but I guess I'm still a sucker for this

There is something quite attractive about those Italian rip-offs. Everything seems to be more dramatic but will less talent. Throne of fire sure is one of those. You get everything you paid for, cheesy lines, inept acting, boring sequences after boring sequences and probably the worst villain ever.

If you're into those kind of films, you'll get what you're looking for and much more. The "pit of madness" scene, whatever is it called was hilarious, a classic Z-grade moment. Personally, I got a kick of watching this, just a glimpse of the cover art and I knew I was in for something "memorable".For the rest, quite a crap fest with some weird entertaining scenes but nothing good really.

If you are like me...you don't mind spending a Saturday watching a poorly made movie with swords, magic, and beautiful leading ladies. The Throne of Fire is just such a movie.

The plot is basically good vs. evil. Satan's messenger and a witch have a son and he is raised believing no one can oppose him. He sets out to rule the kingdom. In order to sit upon the Throne of Fire (made by the Norse god Odin) he must be a rightful heir to the throne and sit upon it first on a solar eclipse. To obtain the right to the throne he kidnaps the princess of the kingdom and forces her to marry him. However, the good-guy barbarian Conan wannabe is there to try to save the day.

Plenty of sword fighting ensues and some pretty bad special effects. In my humble opinion this movie was too long and not worth much to anyone unless you enjoy the genre. The leading lady (Sabrina Siani) is indeed beautiful and I will try to find other movies of hers. Look for errors in this movie such as the Christian wedding ceremony in a Norse Barbaric period.