Cheap B Grade Fantasy Flicks...

[Brown Jenkin]

While not a movie, but availible on DVD, The Black Adder series. While all four seasons are good in thier own right, season 1 is smack dab in the dark ages (I know this is a bad term but it realy fits here). An accurate representation of the filth and brutality of those times with more than enough good writing to point out the humor in it all.

 

[jdavis]

I remember a movie I think was called Barbarian Twins, it had the musclebound twins who did a lot of late 80's and early90's straight to video stuff. It definatly qualifies as a fantasy movie and a B movie. It in no way qualifies as good though.

 

[Mistwell]

I remember a movie I think was called Barbarian Twins, it had the musclebound twins who did a lot of late 80's and early90's straight to video stuff. It definatly qualifies as a fantasy movie and a B movie. It in no way qualifies as good though.

Oh man, I remember that stuff! Check it out:

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0092615

The young orphans Kutchek and Gore have been adopted by a tribe of clowns, jugglers, and entertainers. The tribe is led by the queen Canary and its wealth stems from her magical belly stone. The evil ruler Kadar desires Canary and her stone, and attacks her clan's caravan to gain possession of them. Before the clan's defeat one of the clansmen sneak away to hide the stone. Canary is locked up in Kadar's harem, Kutchek and Gore in his quarry to be trained as gladiators, and the rest of the clan is to live as outlaws in the woods. When Kutchek and Gore have grown up to VERY big gladiators, they run away and break into Kadar's harem with the aid of the young woman Lemone. Canary quests them to find "The Old King's Weapons" and with these kill the dragon that guards the hidden belly stone. Afterwards they should find a new queen and give her the stone, to restore the tribe to its former glory.

Wow, now that is some serious shlock!

 

[Sulimo]

Re: A few things...

I'd bet a lot of people would consider Boorman's Excalibur pretty accurate, except all the knights go running around in armor that won't be developed for 6 or 7 centuries. By comparison, A Knights Tale is off less than 500 years.

Well, as a HUGE fan of Excalibur (hell until FOTR came along it probably was my fave fantasy film) I'll comment here. I certainly never felt it was historically accurate....I did think it was a pretty good attempt at _one_ version of the Arthur myth though.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

For those that haven't seen A Knights Tale, the incongruities are intentional. The peasents beating out and singing We Will Rock you, and later at a dance scene, the hero does the hustle to Bowie's the Golden Years.

I like the movie in a goofy sort of way. It makes me think of really good somewhat lighthearted game sessions, where the players throw little in jokes in with thier characters.

The second Ator movie got the MST3K treatment.

I'm surprised no one mentioned the Gor movies (2 of them). Worse than Ator. I had to rent one of them for the same reason you slow down at a car wreck.

 

[jdavis]

Oh man, I remember that stuff! Check it out:

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0092615



Wow, now that is some serious shlock!

Magic Belly stone huh, I wonder if anybody has ever worked one of those into a adventure?

I just vaguely remember the movie, me and my younger brother rented a lot of crap from a local gas station/video store in the early '90's, wonderful movies like Hell comes to Frog Town and Yor the Hunter from the Future.

 

[Chauzu]

What is A-Grade and B-Grade?

 

[Ranger REG]

"A" grade films are usually of high quality, mainly because they're given a big budget for casting, visual effects, because the production company is banking on it to make lots of money.

"B" grade films are usually of mediocre quality, just above amateurish, mainly because they work on a small budget. Production companies like Troma are known for making B movies, like Kabukiman.

 

[Villano]

The Ator movie that got the MST3K treatment was shown under the title The Cave Dwellers. You should really check it out if you haven't seen it. It's one of their absolute best.

I love the scene where Ator tells the girl and his assistant, Thong (yes "Thong"), to sneak in while he distracts the guards. Ator disappears for about 2 minutes and suddenly swoops in on a hanglider, dropping grenades. I'm sure that Joel and the bots speak for everyone when they groan, "Oh, you've got to be kidding me!".

As for recommended B movies, I'm partial to Conquest, a stone age sword and sorcery flick directed by Lucio Fulci, best know for his horror pictures like The Beyond and Zombie.
It sort of combines Conan and Quest For Fire (an excellent film in its own right).

Lots of nudity, blood, brain eating, and monsters.

The downside is that every scene has fog in it. Every scene. Sometimes it made it hard to tell what was going on. I'm still not sure what attacked the heroes in the water (but reviews described them as zombies).

Also, as far as I know, it hasn't been on video in years.

And the first Deathstalker film is great, especially the boar man. Before LotR, he was the best example of an orc. In fact, he's so cool his scenes were inserted into every one of the Deathstalker sequels (which are all horrible, btw).

Of course, it goes without saying that The Sword & The Sorcerer is a classic. BTW, anyone own the dvd of this flick? I've heard that there are a lot of complaints about flaws in the disc (freezing up, I think).

Also, one of the premium channels remade a bunch of old horror movies from the '50's. I saw She-Creature and Earth VS The Spider and they were both excellent.

Spider starts off as kind of a take on Spider-Man and goes off into horror as the guy becomes more and more spider-like.

And She-Creature deals with a killer mermaid in the 1800's (I think that's when it's set). Very cool.

I've heard that two of the others in the series, How To Make A Monster and The Day The World Ended, are also great. In fact, the only bad film in the series is supposed to be Teenage Caveman, which is a shame since its the one I was most looking forward to. One critic likened it to when a person films his own vomit and calls it art. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

And, while not a fantasy film, I really recommend Battlefield: Earth. One of the funniest films ever made. It's a shame that MST3K never had the chance to get their hands on it. My own favorite part of the film was when I realized that the lightbulb were still intact after 1,000 years.

 

[Kilmore]

I've said it before and I say it again... If you want great B-movie cheeze, go to www.badmovies.org

This guy has hilarious reviews for all sorts of classics including Hawk the Slayer, Deathstalker, and Army of Darkness.

Check it out before talking back! This site is made with luv.