The Throne of Fire

This 1983 Italian Sword and Sorcery epic opens with Satan's messenger impregnating a reluctant witch.  The resulting child, Morak, will someday sit upon the Throne of Fire as the new king unless...  Sadly, his mother dies before she reveals the entire prophecy, which is strange since he has already slain the king and usurped the throne.  However, none may sit upon the throne itself who is not a lawful king; Morak demonstrates the point by having a skeptical noble sit on the throne and promptly burst into flames.  Talk about a hot seat.  Morak's only option is to marry the king's daughter, Princess Valkari.

Standing against Morak is Siegfried the warrior who spends more time getting captured than he does rescuing the princess.  In fact, it is amazing how much of the film involves his latest efforts at escape, which are almost immediately followed by his recapture.  If Morak had just killed him instead of trying to come up with some clever Batman deathtrap, he would have succeeded.

Princess Valkari is a gorgeous blonde who spends almost the entire film running around in a leather bikini.  That alone makes this a film worth watching.  However, her outfit and Siegfried's equally skimpy outfit do not fit the setting.  There is mention of Odin and the very fact that the hero is Siegfried calls Norse Mythology to mind.  Yet Siegfried is dressed more like Arnold in Conan than a Viking.

Mostly weak and unimpressive but Princess Valkari is great eye candy.  Available on YouTube:

 

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!

Conquest

This 1983 movie was clearly inspired by Quest for Fire (1981), Clash of the Titans (1981), Conan the Barbarian (1982), and a dash of Beastmaster (1982). The story opens on a beach with a band of ghostly figures, presumably gods, preparing Ilias for his quest into the world. Ilias'€™ father, Kronos, gives him words of advice and a magical bow. Ilias looks a lot like Perseus (Harry Hamlin) from Clash of the Titans and his father has a Zeus-like appearance.

Next we come to the realm of Ocron (Sabrina Siani), a witch who claims the power to raise the sun. She is mostly naked, usually wearing only a spiked bikini bottom and a golden mask that encases her head. She likes to writhe on her bed with snakes, reminding me of the Snake Cult from Conan. During one of these writhing romps, she has a vision that a faceless man  who looks suspiciously like Ilias will kill her with a magic bow. She sends her minions to capture this stranger and his bow. Her minions are gnolls and masked humans.

Next we find a young woman with braided hair and skin painted white, very reminiscent of Rae-Dawn Chong in Quest for Fire. She is obliviously idling near a stream while some minions of Ocron watch from the tall grass. A snake slithers toward her, ready to strike. Before it can bite, its head is impaled by an arrow. Ilias makes an awkward attempt to befriend the girl but she runs away. Then Ocron'™s minions attack. Ilias drops several of them with his bow but then, suddenly, he discovers that he has run out of arrows. He sort of stands there dumbfounded for a moment before running and promptly tripping over his own feet. The minions are on him and it looks like our hero is doomed as soon as the movie has begun.

Enter Mace. Armed with what looks like a nunchaku fashioned from a pair of thigh bones, Mace gives the minions a beating and sends those that survive into a headlong flight. Mace is a burly fellow in caveman furs though he is oddly clean-shaven. He'€™s an amiable fellow who tells Ilias that his enemies call him Mace. When Ilias asked what his friends call him, he declares that he has no friends. Nonetheless, he befriends Ilias. The two have a variety of adventures that too often involve one or the other being carried away by Ocron's minions only to then be rescued by the one still at liberty. Mace has a fondness for animals, refusing to kill them but he is willing to eat one that someone else killed. On several occasions, he is either saved by animals or guided by them.

The setting is generally Stone Age (crude stone axes are the most common weapon), which makes Ilias and his magic bow an anomaly. Ocron and her surprisingly well-made cave and metal-worked mask are also more advanced. Ocron uses magic to teleport and also to summon an even greater being than herself, Zora. Zora is completely encased in square plates of metal linked into a body suit. He proves to have the power to polymorph. There is a valley filled with zombies and a rocky region inhabited by cob-web covered beasts with bird-like voices. The setting is so unusual and unique that it makes the movie more interesting than it has a right to be. Sure, it's excessively gory and is populated by one-dimensional characters but that is somewhat mitigated by the glorious weirdness.

The Magic Bow deserves comment. Ilias has his arrows sheathed in his boot, which is a strange choice of quivers. He appears to have only four at any one time and it is never explained how his supply replenishes. But actual arrows are only for the novice with the bow. Once the user overcomes his fear, the true power is revealed. By pulling back on the string, a glowing blue arrow appears and, when fired, will split into multiple arrows (seemed to be a limit of 5) that unerringly strike enemies. Yeah, that's a powerful bow, more so considering the Stone Age weapons of his opponents.

Like many fantasy movies of the era, this one is beset by a constant mist. Yes, it is sometimes so foggy that it is hard to see what is happening. Worse, the cinematographer just loved to have the sun in the middle of the frame. All too often, you find yourself staring into the sun to watch the film which proves the greatest fault of the movie.

The movie is available on Youtube though it is grainy, which is not helped by the sun constantly in your eyes and the heavy fog. To my absolute astonishment, this ranks as one of the top 100 Sword & Sorcery movies (#77), which shows how weak the field is. Even Dungeons & Dragons (2000) made the list (#98).