Im honestly drawing a blank as to how I’ve seen this movie before truth be told, I picked it up after swearing BLIND that i’d seen it riffed by the MST3K or Rifftrax lot, but a quick google search reveals that neither of them have touched this thing…which in some ways is an even bigger confusion causer than how I randomly stumbled on this thing…In either case i’ve definitely watched this one, but I have no memory as to where, when, why or how. All I remember is watching it, enjoying it, and deciding to grab Vinegar Syndromes 4k release of it at the last ‘Halfway to Black Friday’ sales.

And I dont really have a lot to say about this one really other than, it was exactly as fun as I remembered it. The plots a basic Swords and sandles feature about an evil priest/warlock who uses his arm of melty witches to attept to abduct and sacrifice the kings first born before he is born, as the melty witches have prophesized that his birth will mark the death of the Warlock/Priest.

He fails in the abduction however, but not before the Witches brand our hero with a mysterious mark, and possibly do some magic on him that allows him to communicate with animals. Anyway, we flash forward to his adolesence and eventual adulthood where, after a day out training, our now muscular ‘Beastmaster’ returns to his village to find it raised to the ground and news that the warlock/priest is now leading some kind of necromantic army of cursed soldiers, while continuing his tradition of sacrifice…and when a beautiful young slave lady gets thrown into the mix. Well…you best believe adventure is afoot! including 2 deligtful ferrits, a panther and a hawk, who also tag along for the ride and help out using their magical animal powers.

The worst part about this thing? It’s 2 hours long. Thats a real kicker really because not only did this not really need to BE 2 hours long, its easy to identify exactly where it went wrong, when the 3rd act opens with a buldging great wodge of plot filler, that slows things down to a craw about 30 minutes off the end, where it doenst manage to get back up to pace till the final 10…

Outside of that though, this is a big dumb cheesy hoot in every sense. It’s MGM so you know the direction and cine are AT MINIMUM going to be ‘of standard’ but with Don Coscareli behind the wheel in a fairly early directoral piece, it does get a much needed boost that helps take things to the next level. Its all fairly competent, but it does excel in places with weird effects and interesting and creative shot choices.

The scripts pretty basic, but the weirdness and cheesiness shine through beautifully, with some interesting dialogue, strange fight scenes and interesting act structuring. Its an odd duck in this era of ‘swords and sandles’ fodder. But one I really dig the vibe of for just how committed it is to not really taking itself entirely seriously.

The performances match the script perfeclty, adding a big fat slab of ham to proceedings in the best possible way, the added organised chaos that is the fight sequences in this thing really only add to the sense of this being some kind of studio picture that had to be locked away due to being ‘Too radical’

‘Beastmaster’ is a film that tries to keep things as simple as possible, but Coscarelis style and charm ooze out of this thing in buckets, resulting in an end product that is, in my opinion, one of the best fantasty/adventure flicks to come out of this decade. I have SUCH a soft spot for it. If you enjoy the kinds of movies that MST3K riff on the regular, then this absolutley wont dissapoint.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-beastmaster/