Clonin' the Barbarian: ATOR THE INVINCIBLE 2 (1984)

No doubt Tom’s review of ATOR left you on the edge of your seat regarding his further adventures (Ator’s, not Tom’s), but before I tackle the sequel I’ll give you a quick “Never Got Made” moment.  Indeed the Italians got the CONAN-lite into their theaters a mere 6 months after CONAN THE BARBARIAN, but did you know they promised to deliver a sequel to distributors in November 1982?  Behold the artwork for ATOR THE INVINCIBLE: THE RETURN.  This was probably intended to be shot back-to-back with the first film and offers most of the sequel’s cast with one exception.  Head villain Dakar (who played the Spider King) is listed as returning.  I know Tom is weeping at not getting to see a second battle with The Spider King.  Oh, and pterodactyls.  They promised pterodactyls.

Alas, it did take a little bit longer to get the further adventures of Ator off the ground, but they did manage it with ATOR THE INVINCIBLE 2 (released as THE BLADE MASTER in the United States).  The sequel opens with a narrator talking about the legend of Ator “which inspires the brave, comforts the weak, and strikes fear in the craven and wicked."  Damn, I don’t know how to feel – inspired, comforted, or scared.  We then cut to some shots of some cannibalistic cavemen for some reason (I guess QUEST FOR FIRE just opened in Italy?).  Keep them in the back of your mind.

The proper plot gets into motion with the men of evil Zor (David Brandon) coming to retrieve the “geometric nucleus” mechanism from scientist/alchemist Akronas (Charles Borromel).  Knowing what destruction this device can wreak in the wrong hands, Akronas sends his daughter Mila (Lisa Foster) on a quest to find Ator (the returning O’Keeffe), his former pupil and the only man who can help.  Naturally, this requires him filling her in on all the events of the first film in a 5 minute flashback.  Times have been tough on the ol’ gladi-ATOR (hey, that is how they got his name!) since he killed the Spider King.  His beloved Sunya is now dead and he has shacked up with some mute Chinese guy named Thong (Kiro Wehara) and spends all day walking around topless and lifting weights.  Hmmmmm.

Mila sets off just in the nick of time as Zor’s men storm the castle and give pursuit.  She is shot with an arrow in the shoulder, which inexplicably causes her to limp all the way to Ator’s cave.  Once there, she is saved by Ator (in surgery that requires big leaves being placed on her face) and conveys her father’s plea for help. Ator responds by locking her in a cell and stating that Akronas’ true daughter would know how to get out. She passes the challenge by making some natural gunpowder and blowing the gate off the wall. So your test is having her destroy your pad?  Gotcha.  Zor has his own plans and brings in warlock Sandor to stop our trio.  His main trick appears to be trapping them in a foggy forest and that doesn’t go over too well.  His next attack?  Invisible warriors who attack Ator and Thong in a cave.  They are quickly foiled when our heroes throw their capes over them.  Really.  Major fail Sandor and that gets you a flogging.  In the caves our trio also runs into the aforementioned cavemen and Mila almost has her heart torn out.

Now rumor has it that this film was made without any real script and the next bit substantially builds that case.  Heading to save Mila’s father, Ator decides to take a side trek to his parent’s village after Thong captures two sneaking around girls who complain of the Cungs and their ritual human sacrifices to the snake god. Ator gets there, tells his people to take a stand and is quickly captured in this obvious trap (Thong is smart enough to not get caught).  The topper to this is Mila saying to Ator as they are tied up, “I wonder if it just would have been easier if we kept going to the aid of my father?” Ya think? Captured by the Cungs, Ator and Mila watch as five local girls are sacrificed to the snake god in its cozy little snake pit.  Thong arrives just in time and frees Ator, who saves Mila down in the snake pit by battling the funniest damn huge snake you’ve ever seen.  Remember those rubber snakes you’d get as kid?  Well, imagine one of those a thousand times bigger and you’ll get how cheap this thing looks.  Our heroic trio FINALLY gets to the castle to battle Zor and Ator has a plan.  He disappears into the woods and – I’m not kidding you – pops out with a hang-glider to storm the castle via the air!  Oh, it is on now!

The sequel follows the age old tradition of doing everything twice as much as the first film.  How do we know this? Because D’Amato has Ator fighting with two swords this time! He truly is the blade master.  Unfortunately, a zero budget doubled is still zero.  Oh, I take that back as Tom has informed me they did plunk down enough cash for a one-hour hang-glider rental.  Other than that, this is as starved as the original with more of the action focused on individual sword fights rather than huge battles. Even worse, D’Amato opts to do double the amount of non-nudity and bloodletting.  Yup, once again the exploitation master chooses to make his film as bare as the bones the cavemen munch on.  I think he missed the point on why everyone was so jazzed with CONAN THE BARBARIAN in the first place.  And this film’s big snake would give the first film’s giant spider a run for its money in the “most useless monster prop” contest. Seriously, the pic above is the best look we get at it.

O’Keeffe retains his trademark stoicism and his hair is decidedly puffier this time. Lisa Foster, while no stunning Sabrina Siani, is attractive and a decent actress. David Brandon, later memorable as the angry director in Soavi’s STAGE FRIGHT (1987), is good in the role of the lead villain. He has some funny lines (“You do amuse me and provoke me”) and sports a wig and mustache that make him look like Freddie Mercury crossed with Fu Manchu.  Luckily for him, the sequel does carry over Ator’s ineptness as a barbarian.  Again, our hero gets easily fooled and trapped.  But the absolute blockheaded gem has Ator deciding to fight with only one sword in the final duel after Zor chastises him by saying, “So the might Ator needs two swords to fight, does he?”  I know Zor was probably saying to himself, “I can’t believe he actually fell for that.”  Of course, Zor ain’t too bright himself as he only starts roughing up Akronas and demanding to know where the device is seconds before Ator arrives.  Anyway, despite his dimwittedness, Ator wins in the end and decides the geometric nucleus is too dangerous for man and detonates in the barren wasteland (cut to atomic bomb stock footage).  Again, not too bright and I’m wondering how our bonehead barbarian managed to survive that one.

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Clonin' the Barbarian: ATOR THE INVINCIBLE (1982)

We got some serious love for a man named Joe D’Amato here at VJ, he was a one of a kind in a country that spawned some seriously amazing genre auteurs. While making rip-offs of STAR WARS (1977) and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) required sets, locations, and special effects, ripping off CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982) could be done for nothing more than some rented animal furs, a few cheap swords and patch of woodland. Throw in some toplessness of both genders and damned if you ain't got an income! This point was proven with authority as a  mere seven months after the premiere of CONAN THE BARBARIAN, ATOR was unleashed upon the world. D'Amato's films tended to be pretty threadbare on the whole, but none so much as what is probably his best known, ATOR. So successfull was this film that it spawned no less than three sequels and actually inspired impoverished filmmakers to make their own Ator wannabes.

As the opening narration tells us, there was an evil High Priest of the Spider who oppressed the land for 1000 years. A great and mighty warrior named Torin rose up to meet the challenge! And failed. Even though he was dead, he bore a son because he “cast his seed upon the wind” (eewww!). We know it’s his son because he has the mark of Torin, or a temporary tattoo that if you squint your eyes really tight kinda looks like it might be a blue eagleish looking thing. The Spider King, who’s hip to all this prophecy stuff, gets word from one of his soldiers that “the earth trembles like a virgin being draw to the nuptial bed” and realizes that this can mean only one thing! He must gather his legions (ok, his couple of dudes), and send them out to kill the child. Hmmmmm… I think I’ve heard this story somewhere before. Is there a manger involved?

A schlub who is clearly a white guy trying to pass as a mongol, named Griba (Emond Purdom, in a wig too cheap for even Amir Shervan), decides he’s going to save the child and takes him to a remote village and gives him to some surrogate parents to bring up as their own in exchange for food, herbs and whatever they want. Years later Ator has grown up, at least physically, and has discovered the proud, masculine tradition of barbarian hairstyling. After being admonished by what appears to be a seriously clingy girlfriend (Ritza Brown) for leaving her alone (to which Ator’s response is the old “I was in the forest” line), they bat their lashes at each other and have this, the film’s most infamous exchange:
Ator: “I love you.”
Sunya: “And I love you. “
Ator: “Why can't we marry?”
Sunya: “Ator, we are brother and sister. “
Ator: “I'll talk with our father.”

Dad tells Ator that he was adopted, which in this case is actually good news! Ator’s enjoyment of his wedding’s interpretive dance troupe is cut short when the Spider Priest decides that his long-time enemy Griba is hanging out there and needs to be killed, pronto. While slaughtering the innocents in their search for Griba, the Spider Priest and his men decide that they might as well kidnap Ator's bride! Big mistake. Now Ator is set forth on the path of revenge. Finally! Oh wait, no... No, now Ator has to learn to fight, or as Griba says “you have learned to fight like a tiger! That is not sufficient. Now it is time to use your heads and fight like a man!” What the hell does that mean?! For one, all those Shaw Brother’s flicks told me that fighting like a tiger was second only to fighting like a dragon, or even a monkey was pretty freakin' badass, for two... oh, never mind. After finally being trained up by Griba in the tiniest cave-dojo ever, Ator sets out to rescue his sist — err, I mean, wife. Finally!

In the first of a series of Herculean quests Ator is captured by a group of hot female warriors who decide to hold a battle to find which one of them gets the opportunity to grapple with his manhood. Hmmm… ya know these "quest" things ain't so bad, come to think of it. The winner, Roon (Sabrina Siani, who went on to star in Fulci’s CONQUEST, or at least her naked torso did), gets all fired up for her hot date and to her dismay is treated to nothing but Ator’s sob story about his love being kidnapped by the evil Spider dude. Annoyed but not about to give up on the only swingin' hammer in the forest, Roon figures at some point he’ll breakdown and use her for more than a shoulder to cry on. She decides to set herself up for disappointment and help him on his quest to stumble bravely in the face of danger.

No sooner than they have set out, they run across a witch (Laura Gemser) who seems to want the same thing (“you will be mine until you have no strength left to gratify me” – gotta love older women) and scarf down a plate of beans so large that you’d expect Slim Pikens to show up at any moment. Did I mention that Ator really isn’t much of a hero? He gets knocked unconscious when his village is being slaughtered, he gets captured by girls and when Roon gravely intones that “now we must pass through the land of the walking dead,” Ator responds “Well… if we gotta go…” Those muscles must be the only thing holding Ator upright, because it sure as hell ain't a backbone!

After fleeing the “walking dead” (a few guys in white face-paint shrouded in mist) by backing into a cave, Ator and Roon must go into the caverns under the volcano where the mystical Shield of Mordor is kept. Roon tells Ator that these are the caverns of the blind warriors who have a highly developed sense of smell, but apparently are also stone deaf as Ator stomps around like a herd of elephants and swings his sword around for no reason whatsoever. In an incredibly inexpensive, but amusingly creative moment, Ator is attacked by a shadow warrior. No, not a ninja. That would have been cool. No, here D’Amato decides that an actual shadow should attack Ator leading to some amusing choreography, or lack thereof with some clashes missing by a country mile even though loud clangs can be heard on the soundtrack. Better still, the shadow is actually winning the battle until it is defeated suddenly when Roon simply obscures the light source, leaving Ator standing there with his sword in his hand looking rather silly. As if that wasn't excitement enough (uhhhh, yeah) the climactic battle has Ator taking on a giant immobile tarantula puppet, that is so cheesy looking that Bill Rebane would look sideways at it.

It’s a much debated topic, but for a director like D’Amato to leave out the sleaze quotient seems a little odd. Sure there’s that distant shot of Siani bathing in a stream, but the film is definitely lacking in the exploitation elements of CONAN as well as it’s plethora of imitators. There are at least two scenes of violence that appear to be cut but other than that the action is completely bloodless. The only really damning evidence is the final death of the spider in which the wound gushing red water is clearly censored as it is cropped off the edge of the screen. This is a fairly common form of video censorship, particularly for films transfered to video in the early '80s. Most prints appear to be from the same source, so perhaps the original elements have been lost, but it’s interesting that as popular and well distributed on video this film has become, nobody has set out to release an uncut, widescreen print of the film on DVD. I guess that part of the prophecy was never written.

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Clonin' The Barbarian: Cinematic Copies of the Cimmerian

Mongol General: Conan! What is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, 

and to hear the lamentation of their women.

- CONAN THE BARBARIAN dialogue or Video Junkie mantra?

No, your eyes are not deceiving you. We are actually diving into another one of our patented Video Junkie theme week extravaganzas (and by “week” we mean a minimum of 14 days).  We’ve officially done blind guys (Blind Vengeance), a horror author (H.P. Lovecraft), eye-popping cinema (Revenge of 3-D) and a nearly soul crushing, face melting Spielbergian journey (Dr. Jones I presume?).  We think we’ve fully recovered enough from that last outing to once again dip our toes back into the cinematic wading pool of rip-offs.  And, like Indiana Jones, we’ve settled on another early 1980s cinema icon that is known worldwide – Conan the Barbarian!

Conan, the dark-haired warrior who worships the God Crom, was the creation of writer Robert E. Howard in the 1930s.  The first published work featuring Conan was “The Phoenix on the Sword,” which appeared in an issue of Weird Tales in December 1932.  The short story focuses on Conan the Cimmerian – master of war – being ill at ease with the political duties of being King of Aquilonia (he strangled the previous chair holder) and some assassins attempt to dethrone him.  The character proved to be popular with Howard serializing sixteen more adventures over the next four years before his untimely suicide in 1936 at the age of 30. Howard left behind four completed stories (published posthumously, bringing the tally to twenty-one) and four uncompleted drafts.

Of course, we should focus on how this character journey from the pages of a pulp magazine to the big screen. Howard’s works were collected in the 1950s and published in seven hardback volumes by Gnome Press.  The first five volumes had Howard’s stories (including the debuts of previously unpublished ones) while the last two featured new and/or rewritten Conan stories by other writers.  No doubt these volumes fell into the hands of future filmmakers and spurred their imaginations. Now if I had to lay my money down on what was truly the impetus of Conan getting to the silver screen, it would be the paperback issuing of Howard’s work beginning in 1966 by Lancer Books (and later Ace when Lancer went out of business) and lasting over a decade.  Not only did these put Conan’s adventures in chronological order (with, again, other writers providing new stories), but the releases featured cover art by Frank Frazetta that would become synonymous with the invincible barbarian.

In addition to the Howard stories receiving mass publication, the Conan character got more exposure via the world of comic books.  They are like books on steroids! Marvel Comics unveiled the Conan the Barbarian series in October 1970 and then parlayed that success into The Savage Sword of Conan, a more adult-oriented magazine, in August 1974.  No doubt this popularity amongst the kids (and the rise of popular sword and sorcery role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons) convinced Hollywood producer Edward Pressman that this was a viable commodity and he bought the rights to the Conan the Barbarian character and stories in the mid-1970s.

Pressman officially began work on the Conan film project in 1976 as he recruited Conan comic writer Roy Thomas and Ed Summer to write a screenplay adapting some of Howard’s stories into a big screen adventure. The duo was unsuccessful so the duties fell to Oliver Stone.  Stone’s work retained a lot of the Howard universe, but was deemed far too expensive to make.  Soon newly-attached director John Milius was on to collaborate and the duo did not get along.  Gee, a gun nut with a military fetish (Milius) not getting along with a guy who actually fought in a war (Stone)?  Shocker!  Anyway, Milius did a massive rewrite on the film, which was now a project for some scrawny geek who won Mr. Universe named Arnold Schwarzenegger. The rest, as they say, is cinematic history.

CONAN THE BARBARIAN arrived in theaters in May 1982 and made just under $40 million dollars in the United States.  Not bad for an R-rated flick with an unknown in the lead.  The film has easily stood the test of time and is now considered an absolute classic.  It also effectively launched not only Schwarzenegger’s career (sorry California!), but the sword and sorcery genre, the modern day equivalent of the Steve Reeves HERCULES flicks where brawny men had no problem taking their broad swords to a variety of men and beasts.  And you know if something is popular with the public that the imitations are going to come fast and furious.  Like the earlier sword and sandal or spaghetti western genres, it appealed to greedy producers because it was cheap and easy to replicate.  All you really needed were some swords, a natural location (forest or rock quarry, preferably) and a big muscle-bound guy in a loin cloth.  CONAN THE BARBARIAN rip-offs began appearing in the very same year and ran the gauntlet from great to WTFville.  So join us as we attempt to swim in the carbon copy cinema of everyone’s favorite Cimmerian.  Hopefully we don’t drown in “lakes of blood.”

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Cinemasochism: SHE (1983)

“This isn’t about sense.” – She (Sandahl Bergman)

You can say that again, sister!  We’ve previously covered the various film adaptations of H. Rider Haggard’s seminal adventure novel King Solomon’s Mines.  But the man also provided another work for cinematic fodder in She: A History of Adventure, the story of explorers who locate a lost kingdom that worships female goddess She in the deepest of African jungles.  The story initially debuted in serialized fashion and has been adapted for film no less than eight times, with the 1965 Hammer production starring Ursula Andress and Peter Cushing as the most well known.  Of course, if I had my way, you all would be worshipping at the altar of 1983’s SHE, a mind-melting “adaptation” of the source novel. In short, SHE rocks!

SHE takes place in a post-apocalyptic world (we assume) twenty-three years “after the cancellation.”  Wanderers Tom (David Goss, later of HOLLYWOOD COP infamy), Dick (Harrison Muller, Jr.) and Hari (Elena Wiedermann) – yes, those are really their names – arrive at what looks like a Renaissance Fair flea market where folks sell such in demand items as Corn Flakes and Mountain Dew.  The awe at such amazing products doesn’t last long as the vicious Norks, led by Hector (Gordon Mitchell), pillage the village and kidnap Hari in the process.  Rule #1 in post-cancellation world – don’t trust guys in football pads that have a Nazi swastika painted on them. And be wary of Gordon Mitchell with highlights.

Tom, looking to save his wounded friend Dick, steals a horse from fair maiden She (Bergman) by knocking her off it and rides into the local town looking for help.  Of course, they don’t realize they just rolled into She’s kingdom and both men are quickly drugged by a lady and made into slaves.  She the Goddess seems to enjoy torturing men and makes Tom walk blindfolded through a series of spikes. She leaves him for dead, but doesn’t know they are somehow linked together through some mystical story that some old lady in a cave tells She after she kills some warriors who pop out of boxes. Anyway, Tom is saved by an old hermit with lots of dogs (isn’t that always the case), who tells him the only She knows the way to the Nork headquarters.  Looks like we’re gonna have a good ol’ royal kidnapping.  I wonder if they will hate each other, but then learn to work together.

So Tom returns to the city of She, frees his friend Dick from a pigsty, and the duo then abducts She.  Damn it, Mircosoft Word, I want She capitalized.  Stop bugging me.  The trio immediately encounters trouble as they are captured by some chainsaw wielding mutant lepers who put them in a big trash compactor. Shandra (Quin Kessler), She’s right hand woman, saves them at the last minute and Tom and Dick are slaves again.  But She feels a tinge of sympathy for their plight and lets them go.  Then, inexplicably, She and Shandra decide to join them on their quest to save Hari. Why?  Because She said so!  So their journey begins with increasingly odder encounters with every step that include werewolf cannibal yuppies, psychic cult leader Godan, a big oaf in a pink tutu, a self cloning robot named Xenon, and, finally, the Norks who like to spray paint their compound with threatening (and grammatically incorrect) graffiti about themselves.

Is the director trying to tell me something?

If you want a good laugh, head on over to Wikipedia and read the synopsis of Haggard’s source novel to compare it to the previous three paragraphs.  Uh, lets see, we have She, a regenerative fountain (a hot tub in the film) and, damn, that’s it!  I haven’t read the novel, but I assume there is no Frankenstein monster that’s head explodes when you pull a bolt from its neck.  This “adaptation” is so loose with the source material that Stephen King watched it and said, “Damn, Haggard got royally screwed.”

But what director Avi Nesher lacks in faithfulness, he more than makes up for with WTFness.  This is a film of such utter bizarreness that you have to wonder how this isn’t a cult classic getting ROCKY HORROR-esque screenings every weekend.  The opening flea market scene lets you know right away that something is totally “off” with this flick.  I mean, a guy attacks our heroes with an umbrella!  Look, I know nuclear radiation is bad, but will it really make you dress like a kabuki performer on acid?  There is just so much strange stuff going on here, like Nesher caught a screening of FLASH GORDON and thought, “I can out-weird them with 1/20th the budget!”  The entire quest is bizarre and I love that Hari doesn’t even seem to be happy when her brother finally rescues her.  My personal viewing highlight has to be Xenon, the ever duplicating bridge guardian who does all those impersonations. He is so annoying that I found myself wishing for the subtlety of some like Robin Williams.

Of course, there is a simple reason why such a bastardized (bitchized?) version of SHE exists.  Well, two reasons actually. See if you can spot them in the chart below:

Yup, CONAN THE BARBARIAN and THE ROAD WARRIOR were tearing up the box office in May 1982.  Hell, anything with a sword near it was making cash (see Albert Pyun’s THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER posting a strong $14 million in 5 weeks, a feat he has never topped).  I can clearly see Nesher’s pitch to the money men now – “What if we take a CONAN-style flick and set it in a post-apocalyptic world?”  Hell, the producers even went out of their way to sell SHE as a CONAN rip-off (see the above poster).  But it gets even better as Nesher says, “And we’ll even hire the chick from CONAN!” Yes, Sandahl Bergman was wooing many a pre-teen boys’ heart with her turn as Valeria in the Schwarzenegger classic and they made sure to exploit that fact by casting her.  And, of course, by giving her skimpy clothes, a nude scene and getting whipped.  How many young S&M freaks did this flick mold?  You can’t get much better than that…

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The "Never Got Made" File #54: TWO IN THE STARS

Since we have inadvertently found ourselves in a sci-fi spaghetti nightmare, it seems only fitting that the next NGM entry focus on an unrealized Italian STAR WARS rip-off.  In October 1979, Filmitalia ran an impressive ad in Variety for TWO IN THE STARS:

With a declaration of a start of "spectacular special effects filming," the impressive ad featured a kid standing next to a badass looking robot on desolate planet (that was without a doubt going to be real with a rock quarry in Italy).  Even more impressive are the cast and crew attached to the project.  Now this is where we get your inner EuroCult geek to tear up as the leads listed were Fred Williamson and Bo Svenson, who had just been in THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS (1978).  In addition, there is Jackie Basehart (also from INGLORIOUS), Sven Valsecchi (who most likely was going to play the kid), Antonella Interlenghi, and super slumming Arthur Kennedy (who had just gotten his sci-fi freak on in THE HUMANOID).

The director listed is Anthony Ascot, the pseudonym for Giuliano Carnimeo.  He did a bunch of spaghetti westerns in the 1960s, but the only film of his I've seen is the amusing THE DIAMOND PEDDLERS (1976) starring Paul Smith.  Also notable in the announced credits is a score by ace composer Stelvio Cipriani, who had previously scored two of Carnimeo's westerns starring George Hilton.

Eight months later, Filmitalia ran a bigger, two-page ad that offered even more visual information to run sci-fi ravaged brains wild.  Interestingly, this promo piece declares the "completion of spectacular special effects filming."  Williamson and Svenson are no longer attached and the empty "with an important international cast" offers nothing (don't forget who the Italians considered "important").  The artwork does promise a white guy and black guy teaming up in space though, meaning someone in Italy heard about Billy Dee Williams being cast in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980).

And here is something really exciting - two FX shots that ran in Starlog that were sent in by the effects man. These shots in the September 1980 issue might be the only publicly released images from the film's special effects shooting. And I'm convinced that is Raimund Harmstorf's beard in that second shot. :-)

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Sci-Fried Theater: WAR OF THE ROBOTS (1978)

Watching Alfonso Brescia movies is like being one of those women you always see on COPS. Sure her old man beats her like a rug, can’t hold down a job and spends all of his time hammered out of his tiny Neanderthal mind, but as the cops are hauling his shirtless, unbathed mass off in handcuffs, she’s there screaming and crying about how it’s not his fault, he’s a good man and you don’t know him like I do. Uh huh. Yep, Alfonso keeps me coming back for more punishment time and time again. I keep trying to quit him, oh I promise I do, but then I find myself paying good money for a second copy of WAR OF THE ROBOTS, a film that is without a doubt one of the worst in his toothgrinding repertoire. Hmmmm... check that. Second worst. Have you seen TURN... I KILL YOU (1967)? That one left a mark.

I keep telling myself that, like a most Italian filmmakers of the ‘70s and ‘80s, he was so prolific that the law of averages dictates that there’s going to be some hairy moments making it through his career and that even Fulci and Argento (oh, particularly Argento) have their resumes pockmarked with dire swill. If I keep trying I’ll hit on his unsung masterpieces! That's the plan, anyway. The sad part is that I think I hit that one masterpiece, ATOR THE IRON WARRIOR (1987), about a dozen films ago and I didn’t even realize it at the time.

WAR OF THE ROBOTS is Brescia’s second “modern” sci-fi effort and it’s easy to see how he actually grew as a filmmaker going forward. No, listen, STAR ODYSSEY(1979) is actually his pinnacle as a science fiction filmmaker. Someone actually had enough confidence in him to give him a budget large enough to actually build robots that look like, well sorta like, robots for that movie!

The film feels as if it was shot without a script for anything but a few key scenes and was improvised on the go, taking unexpected turns at every moment with previously unseen crises leaping out of nowhere as if Brescia kept discovering that he needed another plot device to get the movie to its feature length running time. The basic plot line is kicked into gear when a space outpost is attacked by a couple of guys in gold lame jumpsuits and Prince Valiant wigs (who as we will find out an hour into the movie, are in fact, robots). Apparently Brescia was so impressed with the effectiveness of this look that he used them for every damn sci-fi flick he did. They are like Luigi Cozzi's contamination suit guys. Except nowhere near as cool or, unfortunately, as violently combustible.

Looks like someone just saw the movie

After Captain Boyd (Antonio Sabato ) cryptically remarks that his girlfriend Lois (Malisa Longo) is spending a lot of time with the scientist and that she “could be in love with him… that crazy mind!” the glitter rock rejects kidnap Boyd’s woman (and the sci-guy) for seemingly no reason whatsoever. The captain hops in his space-car, fire up its gas powered V8 engine and tears off across whatever planet they are on to get into his fully manned spaceship and pursue the kidnappers. Of course that sounds more exciting than it really is because there is no real action here and we never even see the Captains hot-rod because they couldn’t afford anything more than a plexiglass dome that is supposed to be the top of the car! Man, I'm not one of them elitist jackasses that pisses on the impoverished filmmaker, but Al, buddy, work within you means fer chrissakes. Have the guy run through a "sci-fi" hallway or just cut to the freakin' ship!

"Doh! You sunk my battleship!"

Once in space the crew, pimped out in primary colored jumpsuits and what look like WWII flight helmets made of felt, chat amiably about romance and other insufferable topics. To break up the monotony, Brescia attpemts to rip-off the famous space walking scene from 2001 (1968), twice, except he has no money, so it’s just a guy suspended on a wire pretending to swim through space while the soundtrack features annoying electronica. To muster a little more “cool” into the first scene, Brescia has a close-up of the Captain upside-down pulling a circuit chip from a motherboard that is presumably on the side of the ship. Ohhhhh, computers! Sci-fi! Wait, the delicate computer circuitry are on the hull of the ship? Nobody thought this might be a design flaw? If you managed to stay awake for the interminable running time of that gag, you get treated to some “aliens” who must be blasted out of the sky (why? Because they are aliens! Duh!) using the same damn space ship shots Brescia uses in every one of his damn sci-fi flicks. Since the ship was damaged in the completely pointless battle, they are forced to land on, as the ships computer states, “a planet of no scientific interest”. Greeeeeeeat, this should be fun.

After forming an away… err, an “expeditionary force”, the crew discovers there are a race of oppressed blind people who live in fear of the golden guys from Anthor who come to their planet to steal their body parts to use to make their robots. "Damn, this is going to get badass", I hear you thinking. No. No, it’s not. In a moment of brilliance Boyd recruits their leader (who for some reason isn’t afflicted by the bug-eyed blindness of his people) to help them find the planet Anthor. How a dude who lives in caves and leads a race of blind men is going to find a freakin’ alien planet is beyond me, but whatever, he does. Once there and have walked around for an interminable amount of time, they are  captured by the Empress of Anthor who happens to be… the Captain’s squeeze Lois who is working in cahoots with the (evil) scientist and running an empire of uhhhh, what would have been cyborgs if they had invented the word yet. Of course, she makes a deal with the scientist that she will give herself to him, if he lets them go, because she’s still in love with the captain… awwwww… kill me now.

From here out it is one climactic battle after another, which may sound great, but oh man, it’s some rough stuff. The best scene in the entire film is one in which the Captain and crew battle a mess of “robots” by basically standing still and firing their laser weapons at a door way in which the gold dudes run out of before promptly falling over dead. No laser beams, no smoking holes in chests, none of that stuff. You don’t need it. Not even sound effects in a few shots. Just a few flash pots on the floor nowhere near the area that the shot was fired. Brescia actually found this footage to be so riveting that he would go on to re-use it over and over for subsequent interstellar cinematic atrocities.

To add a bit more flavor to the long sequence, the Gary Glitters are suddenly armed with glowing swords that are clearly intended to be light sabers, but again, Brecia can’t afford any complex special effects so he merely uses a camera cut when they turn on and are simply steel blades painted with reflective paint. Still, this is easily the most exciting moment of the movie, with mannequins gussied up with robot guts being dismembered with abandon. This trumps even the final dogfight which is done with borrowed stock footage and insert shots of the pilots heads in plastic bubbles that are supposed to be cockpits of their fighters! There’s so many things in the film that simply pop up out of nowhere that make no sense. When the crew are escaping they get a frantic call from earth that they need the codes (which are stored on a computer chip card thing) to shut down a reactor that is about to meltdown and destroy earth and the scientist is the only one who has them! Whaaaaa?? The funniest thing about this brief subplot and its totally ridiculous, but far too complicated to explain, conclusion is that it served as the basis for a retitle on a video release!

Yanti Somer with a skin-tight outfit and
bearing cocktails? Someone check his pulse.

All of this may sound great on paper, but trust me your loins will need to be well girded to sally forth into this. This is a long walk down somnia street and by the time you hit the final credits, you will be ready to hit the bottle. Speaking of long walks, that is one thing Brescia loves to feature. I can see him thinking “it’s action – they are moving their legs in a purposeful manner, AND it pads out my film! Awesome!” Yeah, I think that’s exactly how he said it. Add to that some of the most incredibly dull and uninteresting dialog of all time… no, you heard me. ALL TIME. Long scenes in which the smokin’ Yanti Somer is completely wasted as the girl who pines for the heart of the captain and is ridiculed by her shipmates including one guy who just. will. not. give. up. And really, that cool throwback score that's kinda like a poor man's Oliver Onions that you were kinda diggin' on in the opening credits? Yeah, you'll be ready to find a rifle and a clock tower if you hear another lick of it long before the movie is over. Honestly, you have got to be hard core to sit through this snoozer without being bludgeoned into submission.

Come to think of it, I’ve sat through it twice. Damn, I’m a fucking badass!

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Sci-Fried Theater: THE BEAST IN SPACE (1980)

To quote the 80s band New Edition: “Peer pressure, you don’t have to follow their lead” (don’t ask how I know that).  Since my amazing review of STAR ODYSSEY (1979), I’ve had two friends tell me/taunt me that I should see Alfonso Brescia’s follow-up THE BEAST IN SPACE (1980).  Oh, damn it all to hell, I have a copy sitting right here.  Thanks Tom and Mark!

Captain of the Space Fleet Larry Madison (Vassili Karis) discovers a smuggler named Juan (Venantino Venantini) is in possession of the element Anatalium after they get into a bar fight over sexy Sondra (Sirpa Lane).  After Larry and Sondra get it on, she wakes him after having a recurring nightmare where she is being chased in the woods.  Damn chicks.  The Space Fleet determines this rare commodity came from the planet Lorigon. Naturally, Larry (haha, Larry) is picked to lead a mission into this area of unexplored deep space and, of course, Sondra is one of his staff in a crew comprised of 4 guys and 3 girls in the goofiest outfits imaginable.  Damn, 4 guys and 3 girls? Isn’t that a Joe D’Amato series?  Anyway, by my calculations, someone is going to lose out on this set-up in the sex department.

Almost at Lorigon, the MK31 ship is attacked by enterprising Juan and his men before the crew safely lands on the desolate planet.  Larry leads a group of 2 guys and the 3 girls on an exploratory mission and they quickly encounter a Big Azz Robot.  They run back into their ship but then decide they must brave their new environment, which looks suspiciously like the Italian countryside. Along the way they find themselves in a forest – exactly like the setting of Sondra’s nightmare – and encounter two horses copulating.  For some odd reason this causes everyone to stop (“Look at that!”) and the women all to get horny and touch themselves. The film then continues with no one mentioning the incident afterwards.  Uh, too much vino that day, Mr. Bradley?

The group eventually makes their way to the castle of Onaph, the sole human living on this planet.  He explains that the Anatalium decreases aging and that the planet and its precious resource are controlled by a super computer named Zocor that is protected by Golden Men (oh no, not those guys again!).  Anyway, he invites everyone, including shady Juan, to a big feast that turns into a running time hogging 25-minute orgy that ends with Onaph revealing himself to be half-man, half-hoofed animal that promptly rapes Sondra just like in her dream.  Everyone gets in on the sex action except poor Juan, but he saves his former foes by slipping them some pills to block Onaph’s hypnotic hold. The crew steals the Anatalium and battles the Golden Men before destroying Zocor.  Oh, and Sondra is raped by the Big Azz Robot for some reason.  WTF?

Brescia appears to have totally gone of his rocker this time. Instead of sampling STAR WARS (1977), this is an out-of-this-world sci-fi coupling of Disney’s THE BLACK HOLE (1979) and Walerian Borowczyk’s interspecies sex epic THE BEAST (aka LA BETE; 1975). Hey, you can’t blame him for not being creative.  All the stuff with Onaph and his “castle” is straight up Dr. Hans Reinhardt.  Hell, the guy playing Onaph even looks like an Italian Maximilian Schell. And Brescia isn’t subtle about ripping off THE BEAST either as female lead Lane was the object of desire in Borowczyk’s flick.  The sleaze factor has been significantly upped from his previous sci-fi outings as this film features tons of nudity in it. I’ll take that any day over the “comedic” styling of ODYSSEY’s robots of doom Tiki and Tili. At the same time, Brescia makes the nudity flat out boring.  That is quite a feat.

Regardless of upping the exploitation factor, Brescia still manages to deliver an incompetently made film.  Hey, you really didn’t think the guy was going to become a master in the year between this and STAR ODYSSEY did you? Tons of the same sets are used and I chuckled when the damn gold painted dudes in Lady Gaga wigs popped up again.  Brescia even reuses some of the same miniature effects shots in this film.  The fight scenes are still just as clumsy and there is quite possibly cinema’s worst thrown punch with a reaction caught on film (special thanks to Mr. Tinta for telling me to keep an eye out for it; see below).  Severin DVD should be commended for making this film look as well as they did.  They actually released two versions – an unrated one and a XXX one that has penetration inserts.  For the first time in my life, I’m glad I DIDN’T see the XXX version as the penetration into my brain was painful enough.  This frame grab about sums it up:

Nope, not even close!

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