Ragewar

Aahh... One from back in the days when Charles Band still made *cough* great *cough* movies... I saw this one countless times as a kid, and believe it or not, it was just too much fun re-watching it last week. I admit, it's not a very good movie. In fact, you can hardly call it a real movie. It's more like a collection of shorts, much like an anthology movie. But the main characters remain the same throughout all segments and there is an on-going story present.

If you like your 80's cheese fantastically melted, then you're going to have more than a mouthful with THE DUNGEONMASTER. Jeff Byron plays computer-geek Paul (with a computer called "Cal" installed in his... glasses, no less) with a beautiful girlfriend. Absolutely for no reason at all, he and the girl suddenly get zapped to another dimension where Mestema reigns. Mestema (Richard Moll with evil make-up, very appropriately acting the part), is some devil-demon-dude who is just bored out of his wits, and decides to have some fun by subjecting Paul to seven challenges. This is where the fun begins!

THE DUNGEONMASTER simply is an excuse to display as much 80's special effects wizardry and cram as much horror/sci-fi/fantasy you can in one movie. All segments are utterly pointless. The whole movie is, for that matter - I think the point is: If Paul loses one of the challenges, Mestema gets the girl. Or something. But what matters is: THE DUNGEONMASTER is just too much fun. Especially if you still carry the child within, as they say, and allow yourself to be amazed and entertained by this old school SFX extravaganza.

We've got a claymation giant made out of stone. Trolls. Zombies. A little devil puppet-dude. A werewolf. Blackie Lawless and his band W.A.S.P. performing. A serial killer. Post-Apocalyptic mutant-bikers. Animated dragons. And much, much more... I ask you: How can you not have fun with this film? Also, go take a look at the full crew involved in the making of this film. We are talking the pre-Full Moon dream team here: Charles Band, Richard Band, David Allen, John Carl Buecher, Patrick Manoogian, Ted Nicolaou,...

I admit, when people should give this a first time watch in this day and age, they'll probably call it a bad movie. But if you grew up on silly nonsense like this, there really is no substitute.

So yeah, I should call this a guilty pleasure, but I honestly love this flick. So don't hold my rating against me.

This movie is vastly imaginative. So imaginative in fact that it took 7 directors to make it! The sets costumes and monsters all work well together to paint a fabulous picture of a computer warrior overcoming adversity through 7 different evil worlds. One of which is an evil heavy metal concert featuring the band W.A.S.P.This movie is filled with marvelous special effects including dueling magical dragons, a stone giant, disgusting undead warriors and a score of fantastic weapons originating from the computer wristband worn by the hero. A very action packed epic by a team of excellent directors including the legendery Charles Band!

.Jeffrey Byron stars as a computer technician who, along with girlfriend Leslie Wing, gets transported to another dimension to do battle with Mestema (Richard Moll from TV's Night Court). Mestema is a Satan-like evil wizard who wants to pit his magical prowess against the technology of the hero. He does so by transporting the newly-outfitted computer tech to various scenarios that he then has to escape from/defeat the monstrous villains in his way. These scenarios include an ice cave filled with random statuary (a wolfman, a witch doctor, Jack the Ripper) that come to life and attack him; a cave with a little horned troll on a throne who commands zombie warriors; another cave (sensing a trend here?) with yet another horned troll; another scene takes place in a nightclub during a stage performance by the hairmetal band W.A.S.P., because why not? Each segment was written and directed by different people, 7 in all, which helps explain the lack of tonal consistency. Fans of garbage 80's genre cinema may find something to chew on, but most viewers should avoid.

Sorcerer captures girlfriend of nerd. Nerd dons computer as wristwatch. Sorcerer makes nerd transport to different locations to unconvincingly fight creatures. Nerd finally beats sorcerer in last scene and rescues girlfriend.

Some friends and I *actually* paid $6.00 to see this in an empty theater on opening weekend - a saturday, I think, at the 9:00 p.m. show. The most interesting thing about it was they showed a 15 minute short film about extreme sports - in order to pad out the running time of the movie, which is just barely as long as your standard Disney animated feature.

I was surprised to see Richard Moll in it at first, but looking at his other body of works, I'm no longer surprised.

I laughed (at the movie), I cried (after I realized I paid to see it), it became a part of me (I can't get the memory of the damn thing out of my head short of putting a bullet in it).

It contains a few interesting concepts notably the strap-on arm computer. I see in the real world that you can now start buying a commercial available model.

Considering the fact that the movie does originate from the 80's when computer based special effects were actually very few and far between. In general the story lacks 'n few elements but from an action perspective the movie did deliver the goods. I through that at the time the concepts was very unique even to this day this movie remains a favorite on my list.

The soundtrack was very much classic sci-fi and you end up with a good feeling of good vs evil at the end of the movie. Unfortunately the bad guy does not meet a satisfactory end and it leaves you with a bit of a disappointment as far as that is concerned.

Anyway if you are a sci-fi fan and like to see more or less original concepts this one should be on your list. Now if only they will get it out on DVD.