Director: James Sbardellati
Starring: Rick Hill, Lana Clarkson, Richard Brooker
Review Author: Tony
Synopsis: Deathstalker, a Conan rip-off rapes and kills his way through a fantasy world in order to kill a tyrannical sorcerer.
The idea of Beer Goggles was always to enjoy B movies drunk out of my mind and writing up the review either sloshed or severely hungover based on the little information I remembered from the viewing. It was a combination of my love for both terrible movies and alcohol that usually made for a decent laugh and a sore head the next day. Deathstalker may be the first Beer Goggles to sour this experience for me.
Following the success of Conan the Barbarian, every B movie studio head saw a template that they believed could be milked for huge gain. So started the sword and sorcery genre that plagued the 80s. I’ve always enjoyed the Alien knock off Roger Corman films and the Italian zombie gore flicks looking to capitalise off George Romero’s zombie classics; but oddly, I missed the sword and sandal movies created en mass with shoe-string budgets. Deathstalker may be my first experience of this niche genre, but Amazon Prime has provided an uncountable number of similar Conan rip-offs which I hope to cover this year.
After polishing off at least five cans before the initial viewing, my excitement to jump into this genre was pretty high, especially with the amount of films added to my watchlist and seeing Roger Corman’s name attached to the film. This excitement was quickly hampered by the abhorrent nature of this movie. Pretty much every Roger Corman film featured here on Beer Goggles has some form of rape or sexual assault which never sits right with me; Corman is a legend in Hollywood and I’ve loved his bang-for-your-buck approach to filmmaking, but my god is this fucker sleazy, and no more evident than Deathstalker.
Cheap sets, props, and shite fight choreography are usually exactly what I love about B movies. Deathstalker is the absolute pits, just concerned with squeezing as many gratuitous tit shots on camera with fuck all decent fight scenes, gore, or even entertaining characters. Our leading man is a serial rapist with the charisma of a 2×4, and his band of merry followers are just as reprehensible. The entire film is just cheap and tacky with a goofy wizard villain sporting a Mike Tyson face tattoo.
While the few (many) drinks usually excuse these films hokey nature, or cheap production, they certainly don’t lessen the consequences of an utterly unredeemable film. Fuck you Deathstalker!!!
Rating:
Tumblers of Shit
Reel Time Flicks 