Conquest

......A bit of an incoherent mess sadly. Still, with Lucio Fulci at the helm, what more could you expect? Yes, this is fairly typical of our Lucio's output; Beautiful to look at, with some outstanding, dreamlike imagery but as regards the actual substance, well, let's just say that it's muddled to say the very least. To be equitable, whilst the whole is somewhat of a bore to sit through, there are a number of well handled sequences which regular Fulci fans will delight to, such as one scene which is pleasantly reminiscent of the director's infamous zombie output, here featuring subterranean 'zombie' like creatures which slowly rise from a misty lake and amble menacingly towards one of our heroes.

True to Fulci form, there's the usual gore quotient including such wondrous sights as a woman torn in two down the middle(!), a magic arrow exploding through a woman's chest, a number of gooey head smashings and last but not least, some particularly off putting, pus oozing boils!

Without giving too much away, I must admit that I was taken by surprise by the fate of a main character quite late in proceedings - good old Lucio, he certainly doesn't mind sacrificing a main protagonist for the hell of it!

Overall, whilst gore fans will no doubt derive a kick from some of the films icky moments, there really isn't much else to recommend this on. Certainly, this is sadly far from Fulci's best work.

In an unnamed pre-historic land, a gold-masked sorceress named Ocron (Sabrina Siani) rules all evil. A young archer (Andrea Occhipinti), equipped with a magic bow-and-arrow, sets out to kill her, teaming up with a hardened, animal-loving muscleman (George Rivero) along the way...

This was the first movie Fulci made after breaking his assocation with Fabrizio De Angelis, and is recognised as the one that would stop his career in its tracks. Fulci's quarrels with producer Giovanni De Clemente really show through on screen, with some particularly cheap special-effects and mangy-looking monsters.

To his credit, Fulci tries hard to work up an atmosphere (orange skies, fog, green mossy plains), but gives up towards the end. Some scenes are just plain stupid, such as the wolfmen attacks (they look like Dulux hounds!) and Rivero rescued from drowning by dolphins. As with his earlier CHALLENGE TO WHITE FANG, the sheer nastiness of what goes on weighs against the fantastical, magical backdrop Fulci was trying to create. But FANG had lovely locations, good acting, a pacey storyline and excellent photography to fall back on.

Gore fans do get their money's worth, however. An old man's brain is exposed after receiving a cranial axe-blow, Ocron whacking open a severed head to feast on its brains, various gore-spewing arrow hits, zombies being staked, several graphic burnings, and Ocron's heart blown out after receiving a laser-bolt to her chest. Not forgetting the notorious 'wishbone' sequence, where a naked girl is spread-eagled until she splits right up the middle.

Of course, many video-releases are cut, including the UK and Dutch tapes. Go for the Belgian or Greek release, they're both uncut and LBXed. That is, of course, if you care!

It's not surprising that the Italian spate of CONAN rip-offs only lasted about a year. This unimaginative effort, which is adequate at best, is actually one of the BETTER rip-offs. You don't even want to know what Lenzi's IRON MASTER and Tonino Ricci's THOR THE CONQUEROR are like!

Crashing in to the craze set-up by "Conan the Barbarian" came quite an amusingly pulp sword and sorcery fable by Italian horror maestro director Lucio Fulci, which might be slender on story, packing a random, if stiff script and looking to be rather cheaply pulled off but he crafts out a lasting atmospheric air of odd imagery (as well as eerie sound effects) and hands out slabs of gusto violence (adding pulsating shocks of bloody violence --- especially to the head). In his latter career he would always be remembered for the excessive gore and nastiness in his features, but I what impressed me more anything is the moody atmospherics he brings aboard. I found "Conquest" to be quite effectively simmering in that regard. Helping out a lot is Claudio Simonetti ticking time bomb of an electronic score too. Rather unhinged, but extremely exhilarating and mystical. Fulci moves through one set-piece after another, either being a quick moving clip or a rather sluggish passage; nonetheless the primitive tailoring with its tacky make-up and chintzy special effects only add to this nightmarish air where a striking surreal edge is presented. Maybe taking away from the story's questionable developments. Some tripped out visuals of swirling mists and dark lighting compositions are caught by some innovative, flowing cinematography that's not afraid to get up close and personal, and also perfectly frames the picturesquely verdant backdrop. The performances are acceptable, but still on the plain side with the likes of Jorge Rivero, Andrea Occhipinti and Sabrina Sellers. I found the feature to get better as it went along, but it seems to make sure everything that occurs comes off too easy without much struggle and that goes for its anticlimactic final showdown. A fun and tatty exploitive tilt at the sword and scandal fantasy faze.

An old man in a dollar store Santa wig and beard bestows a magic bow on wimpy young adventurer Ilias (Andrea Occhipinti), who ventures into the smoke-shrouded wilderness to fulfil his destiny, which involves befriending barbarian Mace (Jorge Rivero), and fighting evil, topless sun-ruler Ocron (Sabrina Siani) and her beastly minions.

Lucio Fulci, the Italian 'godfather of gore', tackles the then-very-popular fantasy genre in his own distinctive style, keeping splatter fans happy with a wonderfully gory scene early on as Ocron's pig-faced henchmen attack a peaceful tribe, tearing a woman in half by pulling her legs apart and cracking open her skull so that their leader can feast on the brains. A later revolting scene sees Ilias struck by a poisoned dart, his body erupting with oozing sores (cured by a handy dandy magical flower that grows in a nearby valley!). Fulci also throws in not one, but two totally unexpected and gory demises for two of the characters, which makes up somewhat for the remainder of the film, which comprises of a series of not-very-thrilling altercations in which the bad guys launch themselves off trampolines in the direction of the heroes.

In addition to the gore and the tiresome fights, we also get a hilarious moment when a school of friendly dolphins rescue Mace from a watery grave - a silly underwater scene to rival that of the shark vs. Zombie in Zombie Flesheaters.

5/10. Not one of Fulci's better films, but worth a go for fans of the director and for those who enjoy dumb trashy movies.

Adults deserve to have their fairy tales & fantasies too, and I'd say Lucio Fulci cooked up a pretty potent adult pulp fairy tale here. I'll leave it to others to describe the plot: My first indication that this wasn't going to be your average CONAN ripoff when the four guys dressed up like Smokey the Bear rip a cave girl babe into quarters, snort drugs with a nude sorceress witch babe with a body from hell who then copulates (R-Rated style) with her companion python while having a vision of someone shooting her with TRON's bow & arrow. Talk about weird!

The film is an interesting combination of opposites that aims right at the atavistic, adventure-loving 14 year old with a desire to see bared breasts in all of us. While the narrative is somewhat confusing in your typical Fulcian kind of way the visuals are just as striking, with costume design by Mad Max and Larry Flynt, including oddball touches such as the Dog Men, the Gauze Men, Ape Guys and that far-out sorceress. She really is the focus of the film: The two guys out gallivanting around saving each other from imminent doom are more sort of there to give the film an excuse to have such an outrageously sexy harlot as it's force of evil, complete with a bestial contingent of half men half animals to do her evil bidding.

But seriously, if you go into this expecting anything other than complete dreck the movie *WILL* annoy you. For fans of be-headings, clever escapes, back-flips, fights to the death, mystical snake babes, ferocious howler guys, Atari era computer graphics, ridiculous cornball dialog and equal amounts of beefcake and cheesecake, this movie should be your priority rental next time you're in the mood for something other than a Global Warming movie. CONQUEST may not change the world, win any elections or even be that good, but I'd rather be confused by something that knows it's garbage & has fun with the idea than snookered by ideology disguised as entertainment.

7/10, even if it doesn't make much sense ...