Nickolaidas
Member
For no reason at all, I remembered this movie which was one of my favorites when I was a kid. A film which bombed in the box office when it came out, yet achieved a cult following after many years.
Krull is a mix of Star Trek and Lord of the Rings. Basically there's a fantasy medieval campaign setting where the kingdoms of the land are attacked daily by the army of a gargantuan monster only known as 'The Beast'. Now why a creature that comes from space is known to a medieval world is only ONE of the film's plot holes. The Beast's foot soldiers are simply known as 'Slayers' and they live to pillage, destroy and serve their master.
(The Dark Lord himself.)
To save the kingdoms, two kings form a truce because their siblings decided to be wed and strengthen the already weakened kingdoms. Prince Colwyn, played by Ken Marshall and Princess Lyssa, played by Lysette Anthony and dubbed by Lindsay Cruise (because Anthony's voice was not mature-sounding enough for the producers). The two main characters proceed with the wedding only to have it crashed by a battalion of Slayers who literally obliterate everyone there in the castle - be it soldier or townsfolk.
Colwyn fights bravely, as well as every fighting man, but the Slayers seem unstoppable, wielding futuristic weaponry and causing damage to their opponents just by clashing blades with them. Lyssa is being told to escape the castle while escorted by select troops, but they are intercepted by a Slayer party. They protect their princess to the last man, but they cannot prevail against the Beast's underlings. The captain of the Slayers kidnaps Lyssa (though I'm not sure if 'kidnap' is the right word when no one is left alive from her family and subjects), in order to take her to the Beast. In the end, no one seems to have survived when the Slayers leave the castle in flames and cheering amongst each other as they ride through the fire and the smoke.
Colwyn is the only survivor of the siege, and is treated by a wondering hermit who basically tells him the plot and informs him about the Legend of the Glaive, the campaign's Excalibur so to speak. Colwyn and the hermit Ynyr (more widely known as the Old One) go to a volcano and retrieve it, but Colwyn is told not to use it unless it is for the final battle. In their journey to the Black Fortress (the Beast's castle), Colwyn and Yinir meet quite a few characters who join them in their quest. Ergo the Magnificent (think a Monty Python roleplaying as Orko), Rell - a powerful cyclops who knows the exact time, place and nature of his death from the day he was born, and Torquil - a bandit leader accompanied by his band of cutthroats and murderers.
Our band of (would-be) heroes faces many challenges, perils and monsters until the final battle of good vs evil is waged in the end, where True Love conquers all. For you see, Colwyn isn't the only one interested in Princess Lyssa. The Beast wants her to be his bride, even though it is not quite explained why an alien dark lord wants a particular human to be his mate, other then to play the now-extinct damsel in distress trope.
The movie is a product of its time, pure 80s goodness and goofiness. Yet, this picture was surprisingly dark at many points. As a kid, I was literally freaked out by many action set pieces, many scenes of which are literally burned into my mind. There's a sequence where the group has to traverse the ground that the Beast transforms into quicksand via his magic, Ynyr journeys into the cobwebs of a gargantuan spider in order to seek out an old acquaintance of his who is the only one who can move the plot at that time, and the final battle of Colwyn vs the Beast is a product of dated visual effects giving way to creativity in order to pull off a battle between a normal human and a giant alien.
This movie also had a lot of creativity in terms of other things. For one thing, the castle of the Beast - the Black Fortress - has the perfect defense from any kind of attacker. It teleports to a different continent on every sunrise, making an army besieging it utterly impossible.
Its interior is no less awesome. Aside from a space invading tyrant, the Beast clearly has some interesting decorating skills.
Secondly, the foot soldiers of the Dark Lord, the Slayers, are among some of the most capable enemy fodder I've ever seen on cinema and TV. A small group of them is an encounter guaranteed to kill a few of the heroes and even the protagonist has a hard time fighting them. I loved everything about them - their alien design, their weaponry being a mix of laser rifles and swords/spears, their ability to cause electric shocks to an enemy simple by clashing their weapons with the metal swords of the heroes, everything. Heck, even their deaths were original, showing an alien brain parasite screaming like a siren as it slithered and burrowed into the ground.
The soundtrack was made by James Horner (RIP) and it really gives a sense of fairytale, magic, love and dread constantly intertwining into a pretty cool background music.
In the end, a cheesy 80s flick that I'll always love and cherish. In my headcanon, I agree with the people who say the film was originally meant to be a D&D movie, but the license / rights deal never happened so they went with this instead (it was officially debunked, but I don't care).
So, anyone else seen this amazing cheesy and epic film?
Krull is a mix of Star Trek and Lord of the Rings. Basically there's a fantasy medieval campaign setting where the kingdoms of the land are attacked daily by the army of a gargantuan monster only known as 'The Beast'. Now why a creature that comes from space is known to a medieval world is only ONE of the film's plot holes. The Beast's foot soldiers are simply known as 'Slayers' and they live to pillage, destroy and serve their master.
(The Dark Lord himself.)
To save the kingdoms, two kings form a truce because their siblings decided to be wed and strengthen the already weakened kingdoms. Prince Colwyn, played by Ken Marshall and Princess Lyssa, played by Lysette Anthony and dubbed by Lindsay Cruise (because Anthony's voice was not mature-sounding enough for the producers). The two main characters proceed with the wedding only to have it crashed by a battalion of Slayers who literally obliterate everyone there in the castle - be it soldier or townsfolk.
Colwyn fights bravely, as well as every fighting man, but the Slayers seem unstoppable, wielding futuristic weaponry and causing damage to their opponents just by clashing blades with them. Lyssa is being told to escape the castle while escorted by select troops, but they are intercepted by a Slayer party. They protect their princess to the last man, but they cannot prevail against the Beast's underlings. The captain of the Slayers kidnaps Lyssa (though I'm not sure if 'kidnap' is the right word when no one is left alive from her family and subjects), in order to take her to the Beast. In the end, no one seems to have survived when the Slayers leave the castle in flames and cheering amongst each other as they ride through the fire and the smoke.
Colwyn is the only survivor of the siege, and is treated by a wondering hermit who basically tells him the plot and informs him about the Legend of the Glaive, the campaign's Excalibur so to speak. Colwyn and the hermit Ynyr (more widely known as the Old One) go to a volcano and retrieve it, but Colwyn is told not to use it unless it is for the final battle. In their journey to the Black Fortress (the Beast's castle), Colwyn and Yinir meet quite a few characters who join them in their quest. Ergo the Magnificent (think a Monty Python roleplaying as Orko), Rell - a powerful cyclops who knows the exact time, place and nature of his death from the day he was born, and Torquil - a bandit leader accompanied by his band of cutthroats and murderers.
Our band of (would-be) heroes faces many challenges, perils and monsters until the final battle of good vs evil is waged in the end, where True Love conquers all. For you see, Colwyn isn't the only one interested in Princess Lyssa. The Beast wants her to be his bride, even though it is not quite explained why an alien dark lord wants a particular human to be his mate, other then to play the now-extinct damsel in distress trope.
The movie is a product of its time, pure 80s goodness and goofiness. Yet, this picture was surprisingly dark at many points. As a kid, I was literally freaked out by many action set pieces, many scenes of which are literally burned into my mind. There's a sequence where the group has to traverse the ground that the Beast transforms into quicksand via his magic, Ynyr journeys into the cobwebs of a gargantuan spider in order to seek out an old acquaintance of his who is the only one who can move the plot at that time, and the final battle of Colwyn vs the Beast is a product of dated visual effects giving way to creativity in order to pull off a battle between a normal human and a giant alien.
This movie also had a lot of creativity in terms of other things. For one thing, the castle of the Beast - the Black Fortress - has the perfect defense from any kind of attacker. It teleports to a different continent on every sunrise, making an army besieging it utterly impossible.
Its interior is no less awesome. Aside from a space invading tyrant, the Beast clearly has some interesting decorating skills.
Secondly, the foot soldiers of the Dark Lord, the Slayers, are among some of the most capable enemy fodder I've ever seen on cinema and TV. A small group of them is an encounter guaranteed to kill a few of the heroes and even the protagonist has a hard time fighting them. I loved everything about them - their alien design, their weaponry being a mix of laser rifles and swords/spears, their ability to cause electric shocks to an enemy simple by clashing their weapons with the metal swords of the heroes, everything. Heck, even their deaths were original, showing an alien brain parasite screaming like a siren as it slithered and burrowed into the ground.
The soundtrack was made by James Horner (RIP) and it really gives a sense of fairytale, magic, love and dread constantly intertwining into a pretty cool background music.
In the end, a cheesy 80s flick that I'll always love and cherish. In my headcanon, I agree with the people who say the film was originally meant to be a D&D movie, but the license / rights deal never happened so they went with this instead (it was officially debunked, but I don't care).
So, anyone else seen this amazing cheesy and epic film?
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