Ator, the Fighting Eagle

This 1982 epic sought to benefit from the success of Conan the Barbarian. Our tale opens with a lengthy backstory. The Spider King has ruled for 1000 years but prophecy says that Torran will rise up to overthrow him… and fail. However, Torran's son will later face the Spider Kingdom and topple it. So, with that in mind, a woman is in labor and a baby is born; he has the Mark of Torran on his shoulder. The midwives run screaming in panic and the Spider King dispatches his Black Knights to slaughter babies and avert disaster. But the child, Ator, is saved by the intervention of Griba, the one-time High Priest of the Spider Kingdom but now an outcast. After concealing the Mark of Torran with magic, Griba hands the child to a poor couple in a random village.

Twenty years or so later, Ator is a man (Miles O'Keeffe) and has fallen in love with Sunya, his sister. He asks his father about marrying her and his father is delighted! "You aren't really brother and sister."  Only briefly curious about not being related, Ator is excited that he can marry Sunya. No sooner are they married than the soldiers of the Spider King descend upon the village and slaughter everyone, except Sunya - who they take - and Ator - who survives.

Griba returns and trains Ator how to fight and sends him on his way. Ready to face the dangers of the world, Ator is soon captured by Amazon women. They plan to breed him to the best of them to produce the next ruler of the Amazons. Oh, after he has impregnated her, he is to be killed. He escapes this thanks to Roon (Sabrina Siani), a platinum blonde who was doubtless modeled on Sandahl Bergman's character from Conan. She rescues him again when he falls under the spell of a sorceress. Gee, some hero you've got there.

After acquiring a magic shield, the duo attacks the Spider king's fortress, which is just an old amphitheater. It is hardly a spoiler to say the prophecy proves true. The actor who played the Spider King must have gotten a bonus since he constantly had tarantulas crawling on him; one crept about on his bald head. The giant spider is only ever partly shown with obviously phony legs that move up and down awkwardly.

The storyline is fine but the execution is atrocious. There are some unintentionally funny parts. At one point, our heroes need to sneak into a volcano that is inhabited by blind armorers. They have a keen sense of smell. Really? Not hearing? No, they sense by smell so our heroes rub themselves down with some plant leaf. Oh, yeah, that'll work. "Hey, anyone else smell a jasmine plant walking through the armory?"

The acting is painfully wooden. Miles was better as Tarzan the Ape Man, where he had nothing to say, but was STILL wooden. For no particular reason, Ator has a black bear cub as a sidekick who is mostly useless; he does offer a distraction on more than one occasion. Ator's armor is ludicrous, basically a bronze pie plate in the center of his chest and a pair of leather shoulder pads with fur trim. He also has a bronze belt buckle and fur loincloth. In fact, he probably wears less armor than his female companion! Hey, who's wearing the chain mail bikini in this epic?

Amazingly, the movie spawned 3 sequels!