The Beastmaster
There is nothing like a prophecy of doom to stir an otherwise indolent religious zealot to action, Maax, scheming High Priest of the city of Aruk, warned that he will die at the hands of the as-yet unborn son of King Zed, sending his witches to steal the child to be sacrificed in the name of the god Ar, yet fate intervenes at that last moment, the child stolen and branded but the murder thwarted and the baby saved from the flames.
Raised in Emur as Dar with no knowledge of his true identity, his adopted father warns him that his strange affinity for animals will scare the other villagers, but that power is not enough to save them when they are attacked by the barbarian Juns, Dar the only survivor who sets out and gathers allies, an eagle, Sharak, the ferrets Kodo and Podo, the panther Ruh, and friends, Seth and Tal, setting out to rescue Tal’s cousin Kiri, a slave in Maax’s retinue.
The “swords and sandals” Italian films of the fifties and sixties having given way to spy thrillers and science fiction in the seventies, the announcement that Arnold Schwarzenegger would play Conan the Barbarian ushered in a new wave of sword and sorcery films in the early eighties, first among them The Beastmaster, released only five months after Conan’s premiere and directed by Phantasm’s Don Coscarelli from an adaptation of Andre Norton’s 1959 novel so tenuous the author disowned it.
Shot in California and the Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada, the production values are high, the pyramid where sacrifices are made to Ar built full scale though the surrounding city is a forced-perspective miniature, the chambers, labyrinths and dungeons beneath lit by flickering fire, the effects practical as flame rains down on the stunt performers in the final scene and Marc Singer a practiced swordsman and martial artist, carrying the otherwise undemanding role of Dar with ease.
The budget meaning sacrifices were required elsewhere, while the costumes are impressive there is often very little of them, none of the cast owning a pair of pants between them and the Death Guards looking like a Gwar tribute act in leather studded thigh length boots and not much else, while panther Ruh is quite obviously an astonishingly cooperative tiger painted black other than its white mouth and pink nose, possibly licked off before takes and the continuity team too afraid to make a fuss.
With Rip Torn defying subtlety as Maax, John Amos steadfastly refusing to smirk as Seth and Tanya Roberts’ Kiri making it clear that even ancient realms have hair and beauty products, The Beastmaster is unambitious sword and sorcery with very little sorcery other than the ring of the seeing eye and the undeniably creepy nocturnal bird people, moving in an uncomplicated linear direction with challenges which never amount to much, a cheese pudding which despite all the strikes against it manages to be energetic and entertaining.
The Beastmaster is streaming on Shudder now
