Dar l'invincible

An awesomely sculpted Marc Singer headlines in this much beloved sword and sorcery outing brought to us by non other than Don Coscarelli of Phantasm fame.

Singer stars as Dar (great name eh? okay, maybe not then...) a child who comes into the world in a somewhat less than auspicious manner, namely from the belly of an ox(!) after he is magically stolen from within his own mothers womb by a corpse faced sorceress. Yes, I know this all sounds utterly bizarre and in fact it is, but you'll really need to view it to appreciate it in all its, erm....glory. As a result of this bestial birth, our hero grows up with an unusual ability to communicate with animals via some form of psychical connection. So that's how Dr Doolittle got his powers to? Um, the mind boggles! Anyway, to cut a long story short, Dar's abilities prove to come in mightily handy later on when he sets out to take revenge upon the evil warrior tribe who massacred the people of his village.

Tremendously entertaining from start to finish, this is without doubt one of the finest entries in its genre and is highly memorable. So much so in fact, that it has since spawned two sequels and a spin off television series. If you haven't already done so, then I thoroughly recommend you have a ganders at this timeless fantasy classic.

How can anyone not like the Beastmaster? It's what movies are all about - it's got a hero, his woman, a villain, sidekicks, animals, loincloths, violence and much much more! It's one of the earliest of films that HBO would play about 4 times a day so it was almost always available. John Amos from Roots and Good Times cheeses it up but damn, do I have a soft spot for the guy. Dar looks like my brother Eric. Rip Torn is a villain with bad teeth! The freaky eagle/vampire things are nutty. It's got ferrets - FERRETS in co-starring roles! Plus a panther and hawks and B-dialog and swords and last but not least "crazy-eyes" herself, Tonya Roberts! Yowza! It's basically a goulash of afternoon delight. Straight B an 85 - 8 out of 10. Caw caw! Catch it one time or a dozen, you'll love it.

Following "Conan the Barbarian", there were a lot of Barbarian trash movies in the 1980s. The best of them all was "Beastmaster" because it had creative production design, colorful photography and even some ideas of its own. Dar, the Beastmaster (Marc Singer), can see through the eyes of animals and command them whenever he needs help. The evil priest Maax (Rip Torn) holds Dar's father, the king, prisoner as well as the slave girl Kiri (Tanya Roberts) whom Dar fell in love with. In this action-packed movie, we meet a lot of bizarre folks, like the scary batmen who can suck their victims dry if they catch them under their wings (and still these are some of the good guys!) or the berserkers who carry green worms in their brains to drive them crazy. Director/script writer Coscarelli was also in charge of the very successful horror movie "Phantasm", and that shows in the darker scenes. Tanya Roberts looked so good in rags she went on to make "Sheena" with equally little to wear. Marc Singer's muscles were memorable enough to get him signed many years later for 2 sequels which weren't half as good as the original, but still way better than the politically correct TV series 20 years later.

Comparing the 113 minutes "director's cut" (British DVD) to the old 91 minutes German video tape version, these are the most important scenes previously omitted: 1) 8 1/2 minutes of introduction, in which we learn how Maax was threatened by the king, hears the prophecy about the king's unborn son and asks a witch to abduct the baby (from his mother's womb!). Probably it was felt it takes too long until we see the grown-up hero. The disadvantage is that we know less in the short version about Maax and his motives. 2) Still in the first third of the movie, a funny scene was cut in which Dar falls into quicksand, needs help from the animals - and rescues one of them in return. This scene is a charming illustration of the beginning of his friendship with the animals, but not necessary to understand the story. 3) In the last third of the movie, 3 scenes were cut in which the injured young prince is carried into a house, gets better and receives a gift from the Beastmaster. It seems this was cut as it slows down the movie and gives information about the boy only - who is not one of the main characters, anyway. There are also smaller cuts along the way, sometimes due to violence. Anyhow, go get "The Beastmaster" in this longer version!

It may not win any awards and the 80s has produced far more cheesy films but they deserve acknowledgment for producing the largest number of loin cloths I've ever seen in one movie. The main character lacked any personality and the abundance of nostril shots didn't help him either. Nonetheless, it's not a horrible movie. They stayed close enough to Conan to produce an entertaining movie and added enough gimmicks to avoid being a complete rip-off.

One thing, however, disturbed me about this movie. Now, the Beastmaster and the kid were brothers. No problem. But am I crazy or did the kid, at one point, say that the love interest was his cousin? If the Beastmaster stopped pursuing her after this I think we could all let it go - no one ever hassled Luke about his antics in Star Wars - but the announcement didn't even slow down our hero. Maybe I'm wrong; maybe I misheard the kid. Still, you just know that if the Beastmaster did get a hold of a pair of pants he wasn't going to be keeping those ferrets in his pouch anymore.

It's got its disturbing points but it should keep you entertained. An okay movie.

I don't care what people say, THE BEASTMASTER is a fun film. Thanks to my parents having cable in the 80s, I virtually grew up with it. I can still recall spending many days and nights watching it on television. I probably had no idea of what was going on, but I just loved watching this animal lover named Dar rescue the hot Tanya Roberts while fighting against an evil priest. Marc Singer is great in the title role. If he were to cure world hunger, create world peace, or even be elected president, he would still be known as The Beastmaster. Tanya Roberts doesn't really do much, but looks damn nice doing it, John Amos is also good as a traveler who befriends Dar, and Rip Torn is as over-the-top as he can get. Lee Holdridge's score, composed in a short amount of time, provides a bit more epicness than the film could have created on its own, with a heroic theme that is used throughout. I was also happy to learn recently that Anchor Bay Entertainment is working on a Special Edition DVD of THE BEASTMASTER. I'm, naturally, very excited about this, for no matter what people say, THE BEASTMASTER was, still is, and always will be a childhood favorite.