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The Beastmaster


The Beastmaster (1982) r

Story of The Beastmaster is a rip-off of Conan the Barbarian and Macbeth. Witches warn Maax, a priest of god Ar, that king's unborn son will kill him. Maax tries to sacrifice the baby to his god but fails. Eventually Dar grows up to be a beastmaster and ends up face to face with Maax.


What an epic set piece.

First I have to say that I do have a soft spot for barbarian films. As a kid I used to watch every single one I could find (along with all the ninja and post-apocalypse movies). The Beastmaster is rather average example of the genre. It has all the usual cliches (like the attack on Dar's village which is a scene that's found in almost every one of these) and production values only slightly above the usual Italian contributions.

The specialty of the film is the protagonist's ability to communicate with animals. It's little Disney-like in execution but otherwise works decently well. Especially the ferrets are funny and the scene where his eagle carries the child into the sky is also pretty priceless. All in all Dar with his animal companions is little goofier hero than your average barbarian.

Story is as basic and as usual as possible and it contains one of my personal pet peeves, a prophecy. In vast majority of cases prophecies are nothing more than cheap plot devices giving writers an easy way to guide their protagonists instead of having to write a proper chain of events. Acting is passable, fight choreographics are lousy (they usually are with both Conan's being pretty much the only exceptions) and it has this genuine B-movie feel to it.

I probably liked this more as a kid but even now it's barely above bad. What I really wonder is why did it have to be almost two hours long? It would have been quite easy to cut 30 minutes or so and the film would have been a bit better.