Iron Warrior

The first Ator film, Ator The Fighting Eagle, was, for undiscriminating sword and sorcery fans, an enjoyable enough low-budget Conan ripoff. It was about on par with the first Deathstalker movie. The second Ator film, The Blade Master, was incredibly cheap and cheesy with hang-gliding and possibly the fakest looking giant snake I have ever seen in a motion picture. The fourth film, Quest for the Mighty Sword, did not have Miles O'Keefe as Ator and thus was not the same. I have no idea why O'Keefe did not come back for the fourth film, maybe because he knew there was no way it would top the third, Iron Warrior, easily the weirdest entry in the series.

Weird, how, some may ask. Joe D'Amato is gone as director and new director and co-writer Alfonso Brescia (Al Bradley) brings an artificially arty look to the film and proceedings. Its low-fi existentialism suggests Monte Hellman making a fantasy, but the bright colored lighting is like mid-1980s Miami Vice. Iron Warrior does far more than suggest with some of its influences.

Remember that scene in the 1978 Superman movie when General Zod and his co-conspirators are tried and exiled? Well, prepare to see a variation on the scene early on in Iron Warrior. How about when the evil sorceress Phoedra crashes the princess's birthday party with a "gift," a scene that comes straight from Sleeping Beauty. Fantasy fans may remember how in Excalibur Morgana imprisoned Merlin, well, guess what, it is here as well. Oh, a boulder similar to The Raiders of the Lost Ark is also present. These blatant thefts, in a way, add to the film's unusual charm.

Charm? Is there anything to recommend Iron Warrior? Yes, Miles O'Keefe, who played Ator in the first three films, brings some much needed gravity to the role in this movie. The character has lost his swagger and is more weary. O'Keefe plays this well. Iron Warrior does have the best performance I have ever seen from O'Keefe. Second, the film is not boring. It is so odd that one keeps wondering what will happen next.

Iron Warrior's story is mostly typical of fantasy films - an evil sorceress, separated brothers, a princess, and a quest. There is disappointingly no monster however. The film does have an unusual, for the genre, female driven plotline. The beings controlling the mere mortals are all women, sorceresses. It is a change that makes Iron Warrior feel different than the other Ator movies. Although, to be honest, story continuity is pretty much ignored throughout the Ator series.

Some may wonder why I am defending what is clearly a low budget, genre-robbing movie.

Sometimes one will watch a "good" movie and like it but never watch it a second time, either deliberately or one just never gets in a mood to re-watch it. Then, there is the occasional "bad" film that one will watch multiple times. I have watched Iron Warrior twice now. I strongly suspect I will watch it at least a third time. I do still prefer Ator, the Fighting Eagle, but I have soft spot for Iron Warrior.

My review was written in March 1987 after a screening at Manhattan's UA Twin.

"Iron Warrior" pretends to be a fantasy adventure, but it's really just an ad for the Malta tourist board, Beautiful locations filmed on the islands of Malta and Gozo provide the backdrop for incoherent filler, shot in 1985 under the title "Echoes of Wizardry" by producer Ovidio G. Assonitis, whose name is understandably missing from the credits crawl.

Miles O'Keeffe returns for the third time as Ator, mythical warrior given a new history here: his twin brother was kidnapped in childhood by evil witch Phoedra (Elizabeth Kaza in a red fright wig). Some 18 years later Ator is tapped by the nice sorceress Deeva (Iris Peynado) to protect Princess Janna (Savina Gersak) against evil, in the form of his brother who wears a silver skull mask, red bandana and breathes like Darth Vader.

Ator and Janna trek around the rugged Malta rock faces on various missions for Deeva with absolutely no continuity to the narrative and some of the worst editing ever used in a feature film. Every couple of minutes Ator gets involved in boring swordplay with baddies and, to pad the running time, footage of another actor (who doesn't resemble O'Keeffe at all) wearing a babushka over his mouth is inserted fighting men on horseback with his sword. A dragon-style monster is shown on the poster and ads but fails to show up during the film.

Italian potboiler director Alfonso Brescia ("you can call me Al Bradley") imitates numerous George Lucas films here, lifting equal amounts from both the "Star Wars" sagas and "Indiana Jones" films. Out-theme is a poor imitation of "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan" music.

O'Keeffe is embarrassing, posing instead of acting and, like the rest of the cast, stuck with a funny-looking punk-influenced hairdo. Deborah Raffin-lookalike heroine Savina Gersak at least wears see-through gowns throughout the picture, but the editor nastily deletes her several wet T-shirt scenes. Best thing in the pic is the exotic, blue-eyed black actress Iris Peynado, previously seen in Lamberto Bava's "Monster Shark".

Pic was obviously made for home video and undemanding foreign markets, but it's another insult from distrib TWE to Stateside theatrical B-picture fans. Oh for the days when Lippert and other second-feature labels gave us engrossing little films starring Dane Clark or Cesar Romero, with interesting storylines and talented supporting casts.

This is very different from the standard sword 'n sandal pics, and indeed the other two Ator films. It feels more like an art house film. Lots of swirling cloths, slomo-scenes, coloured filters, weird hair styles and make up and a WTF?! Ending. Our princess wears dresses made of swirling cloths in either scarlet or blue, she has pink lips and one pink eyebrow (weird) and her hair is kinda gathered into this crest like a Greek helmet which is just odd. Ator, has his hair done like a girl, beautifully braided and is too neat and styalised to be the 'warrior hero' he is supposed to be. The whole thing feels like a rock video, or an advert for something. The one great thing is that it isn't dubbed.

This is by the director of the awful 1973 'Beauty of the Barbarian' and had I known that I might not have bought it. This is a terrible film. Nothing much happens, its very very arty ie: pretty in a very 80's kind of way, but not much substance. The music is again poorly chosen, though its not as cringeworthy as the skippy the kangaroo stylee stuff from 'beauty of the barbarian'. The characters are underdeveloped, and although Miles O'Keeffe is undeniably lovely to look at, even he cannot save this film. The ending is sudden, weird and non sensical, if you can make it that far. The special effects like Phaedra's spinning hula hoop are tacky. There is no tension, no emotion, no real story and even the sword fights aren't particularly exciting. Still, it is quite pretty, the scenery (its filmed in Malta) is beautiful, and it does have a shirtless Miles O'Keeffe.

Of course I had never heard about the 1987 fantasy movie "Iron Warrior" prior to stumbling upon it by random luck here in 2024. And given my love of the fantasy genre, of course I had to check out the movie. Sure, I wasn't harboring much of any grand expectations, but the movie still deserved a fair chance.

Writers Steven Luotto and Alfonso Brescia put together a fair enough script. Sure, it was rather generic and followed every standard fantasy trop of the 1980s, but that doesn't mean that it was a bad movie. "Iron Warrior" was indeed watchable, no doubt about it, but you're not in for a grand cinematic moment in cinematic history here. However, I was just lacking some key ingredient to the narrative that would suck me in and leave me wanting for more.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, and that is actually something I do enjoy when I sit down to watch a movie. The acting performances in "Iron Warrior" were fair enough, though nothing outstanding.

Visually then the movie was an archetypical late 1980s fantasy movie, for better or worse.

If you enjoy low-key fantasy movies such as "The Beast Master" or "Death Stalker", or the generic 1980s fantasy movies, then you might actually find some enjoyment in "Iron Warrior". Personally I would say that there are far better fantasy movie from the 1980s available.

Watchable, sure, but hardly a memorable or outstanding foray into the fantasy genre.

My rating of directors Alfonso Brescia and Ovidio G. Assonitis's 1987 movie "Iron Warrior" lands on a four out of ten stars.

I saw another Ator movie on MST3K under the title "Cave Dwellers". It was one of the worst-made movies I've ever seen. Unfortunately, I saw Iron Warrior without the benefit of the MST3K crew, and it was very hard to endure. The film concerns the quest of Ator to stop a witch, but most of the time he just wanders around with no apparent agenda. He occasionally fights his brother, now the silver skull-masked "Master of the Sword", and is featured in many, many slow-motion scenes which seem to exist solely to make the movie last longer. Painfully boring, but it's a little better than Cave Dwellers in that it has some blood and nudity.