Mestema, le maître du Donjon

Part of the problem is the plot summary is innacurate; the idea is that the 'Dungeonmaster' is looking for a worth opponent. He sees the hero, the nerd, and sees his skills, he decides to pull him into his world and put him through the challenges, using the guys girlfriend as collateral should the hero decline. It was a good movie, especially considering that Empire pictures wasn't some huge company like Universal.

This movie is not at all that bad. I rate it a 6 which averages out to *** out of ***** stars. There is some nice stop-motion animation by David Allen and some fine make-up effects, included a neat little creature puppet. The " Heavy Metal " segment directed by Charles BaNd does not have much of a point so this is sort of the downfall on the movie. The acting is somewhat corny but what do you expect. It would have been better if David Allen's sequence--Stone Canyon Giant--would have been longer. It is a fine model and the animation is rather smooth. There are only about 12 stop-motion shots, If there were 20 and add a little more plot to this sequence (the actual sequence lasted only about 6-7 minutes but the giant didn't really get to do anything except chase the protagonist around some large rocks before it gets destroyed. If you liked this movie ok and gave it *** or more you should see----Laserblast, Ghoulies 2, and Robot Wars.

2.5 out of 10? Really? It's not that bad for what I'd like to call - along with ELIMINATORS - a proto-video game movie. Say you're working at your standard schlock factory - i.e. Empire Pictures - and you and six of your other director friends do a semi-anthology piece for fun together. You end up with this ....

Think DRAGON'S LAIR with a Clark Kentish nerd in Subzero's ninja get-up from MORTAL KOMBAT, only instead of a dragon there's Bull Shannon from NIGHT COURT as the villain. When you're done laughing, crack open your beer. Now here's the punchline: you can watch it with your kids. No boobs, no blood. When you're done doing a spit take, wipe your mouth, and give it a shot.

Vintage essence of 1980s in a bottle, stop-motion courtesy of Dave Allen - of LASERBLAST infamy, and a Charles Band soundtrack.

~Ray

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).

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.