#1980s fantasy

[gurumog]

Masters of the Universe (1987) The Cannon Group, Inc. Dir. Gary Goddard

Frank Langella as Skeletor Meg Foster as Evil-Lyn

[gmzriver]

The Neverending Story (1984) headers

like if you save or use.

[who-canceled-roger-rabbit]

The Goblin King and Beetlejuice exist at opposite ends (Lawful Evil and Chaotic Evil, respectively) of the Paranormal Dirty Old Man From The '80s spectrum

[wormycomic]

[kekwcomics]

CONQUEST (Fulci, 1983)

[dailyflicks]

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) dir. Hayao Miyazaki

[garbage-connoisseur]

Ator, The Fighting Eagle (aka Ator l'invincibile)

Just a heads up, this movie has spiders in it, and I will be showing them in this post.

Stop me if you've heard this one before:

In a time of magic, the ruled by an evil overlord worshiping a spider god. However, it is prophesied that he shall one day be overthrown by a hero of good. On the prophesied day of the birth of the hero, a mass infanticide is committed. Where all newborn babies are murdered by the followers of the overlord. But one child is saved, and taken by a mysterious stranger to be raised by an adoptive family, who is of course unaware of the child's true destiny, even though all those baby murders just happened. Now, as a young, strangely muscular and very handsome young man, our hero has fallen in love with his sister, which fortunately his parents are totally okay with, because they're not blood related, and so that's totally fine actually guys. But in the middle of their marriage ceremony, the overlords evil henchmen raid the village, killing everyone and kidnapping The Chosen One's sister-wife. Now it is up to our young hero, dressed in a loincloth and accompanied by a cute but dangerous critter, to save her and bring about the end of the evil tyranny.

Wat, let's focus on that cover again... What sort of animal companion do you think Ator has besides him? He's named "The Fighting Eagle" on the cover, and next to him is a saber-tooth tiger. Perhaps this is ripping off Beastmaster? That one has the hero accompanied by a black panther, an eagle and two mischievous ferrets. Well...

Okay, that is a VERY cute bear cub... I'll let it slide.

Now that Ator has something to avenge and a damsel to save, it is time for him to meet a mysterious stranger from his past with the worst wig you have ever seen, so he can be told of his destiny and also have a training montage.

Soon after Ator gets caught in a tiny net by a group of warrior women however.

Thankfully it all turns out to be a big misunderstanding. You see, as a tribe of amazons, they just need him for a a big fighting tournament, which will decide which one of them will bear the child that will become the next leader of the tribe. Oh, and after that they'll just kill him. But thankfully our himbo is such a pure boy, that he impresses the winner of the tournament with his goal of winning back the love of his life and also slaying the evil warlord and his spider god, that she agrees to let him go, on the condition that she gets to tag along, and get all the treasure. Also, she's definitely not going to be all tsundere about it.

It's around this point that the movie sorta forgets where it's going for a little bit to instead have a little filler chapter or two, in which our himbo protagonist gets himself into trouble because he's too pure for this world. Ator follows the vision of his sister-wife into a cave unaccompanied by his cute animal sidekick and amazon companion. In this cave he meets a mysterious horned woman in a room whose primary furniture seems to be a king-sized bed. The woman offers him a golden chalice containing an unknown liquid to drink, which he immediately does without question.

He then proceeds to have to be rescued from the very obvious Circe-type enchantress trap by his significantly smarter companions.

While Ator & co. are busy side-questing, someone on the writing team remembers that they're supposed to be moving towards a big final battle, and decides to alert the spider-loving big bad, who is conveniently named Daker, exactly like his actor...

And he mobilizes his vast army of exactly ten people to prepare to defend against the guy destined to kick their asses.

I won't spoil the ending, even though you can probably all guess it. Bu I will show off the genuinely cool giant spider, which they make sure to never show too much of at once, which keeps it from looking too goofy. I'm honestly very impressed!

Overall Ator: The Fighting Eagle is a quite charming, if very cliché Italian sword and sorcery flick. It checks off all the boxes, but unlike many such 80s sword and sorcery movies there's no gratuitous nudity, attempted sexual assault scenes or other sleaze, which alone puts it in the better end of the scale (and is honestly surprising given that it was directed by Joe D'Amato, who is best known for his sexploitaiton films). This is the first of four movies featuring Ator and so far only the first and third have had blu-ray releases.

While it was pretty trope-heavy and meandered for a bit in places, it was also competently made for its genre and well worth watching if you enjoy movies like The Beastmaster or Conan.

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Castles - art by Alan Lee (1984)

[53v3nfrn5]

‘Heart and Dagger’ by Robert Mapplethorne for Helmut Lang (1982)

[goobersplat]

The Last Unicorn VHS Rental Tape

[filmgifs]

"Longing. Longing for a wave of love that would stir in me. That's what makes me clumsy. The absence of pleasure. Desire for love. Desire to love."

Wings of Desire (1987) dir. Wim Wenders

[gurumog]

Masters of the Universe (1987) The Cannon Group, Inc. Dir. Gary Goddard

Frank Langella as Skeletor Jon Cypher as Man-at-Arms

[gmzriver]

The Dark Crystal : Age of Resistance headers.

[oldschoolfrp]

Those who try to steal from the hoard may become part of the hoard (Carl Lundgren cover for Dragon 50, June 1981)

[wormycomic]

[kekwcomics]

IRONMASTER (1983)

Dir by Umberto Lenzi

A cheap Italian Conan cash-in staring body-builder Sam Pasco aka legendary gay porn icon Big Max.