Wizards of the Demon Sword

My review was written in May 1991 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.

Sword and sorcery was never cheaper looking than in "Wizards of the Demon Sword", a poverty budget special by genre-meister Fred Olen Ray. Troma pickup is strictly a video title.

Filmed on trerrain familiar from B westerns and Hollywood serials of yore. "Sword" is actually about the knife of Aktar, supposedly able to unlock evil forces. Russ Tamblyn and his beautiful daughter Heidi Paine have been entrusted with its safekeeping. Evil Lyle Waggoner has captured Tamblyn, but Paine is on the loose.

Macho warrior Blake Bahner accidentally teams up with Paine and film limnsl their misadventures trying to spring Tamblyn. Slapstick and bad pusn are attempted repeatedly without success (a wise man who helps out the duo is named Seer of Roebuck).

Hambone acting, especially by heavily made-up Waggoner and his chief enforcer, Amazonian warrior Dawn Wildsmith, is fun, but the swordplay here is unimpressive. Cheap sets, stock footage and silly insert sequences of crudely done stop-motion animation of dinosaurs are serious drawbacks.

Dan Speaker, who devised the swordfighrts, is personable in tne buddy role opposite Bahner.

Not much is expected from low-to-no-budget Sword & Sorcery film, and this one delivers a little bit more than not much.

First the airing of grievances: The dialog is stilted often difficult to listen to. The campy synthesizer background music is so bad that it can be distracting. The acting is somewhat better than average for the genre, which is to say it is usually poor but sometime okay. Lyle Wagner and Russ Tamblyn are good. Lawrence Tierney absolutely shines, but his screen time is much too short. The rest of the cast never really rises above the level of acceptable.

This film is not without merits, however. It delivers what one expects: sword fighting; a lovely woman in need of rescue; an evil wizard in need of vanquishing. The underlying story is quite good. It was well developed and internally consistent, and when everything is finally explained there aren't any major plot holes. Some parts of the story are kind of clever, and certainly better than what one usually gets from this type of movie.

If you are able to tolerate a sub-par movie for a better than average story, watch this. If you need crisp & snappy dialog or subtle & thoughtful acting, watch anything else.

Don't let the title fool you, it's much more attractive than the movie actually is! Still, the film wasn't bad. The acting was odd, the effects were from the Stone Age, but the humor, the adventure, and some fantasy elements make the movie worth watching...on a boring afternoon when you have nothing else to do. I paid 1 buck for it so I don't feel like it was a waste of time and money!

I don't know what it is about Fred Olen Ray. I hate his movies, but I always buy them thinking the next one will be a winner. He is notorious for the most annoying giant monster encounters ever. Hmmm, let me see if I can explain this... Man says "hey look at that monster over there!" camera cuts to giant monster then back to man "I wouldn't want to mess with him!". Giant monster in his movies never interact with normal sized men. I hate that! Why even put them in the movie?! If you must see a Fred Olen Ray picture, watch Phantom Empire.

It's a campy film and none of the actors seem to take it seriously.

Neither did the writers, by the look and sound of it.

Everyone seems to have fun while making the film, however.

It has a pair of cool stop-motion monsters.

If you like it cheesy and tongue-in-cheek, with hot ladies and brawny guys you might enjoy this film.

But don't expect an epic masterpiece.