Bad Movie Review - Wizards of the Demon Sword

I started to watch Wizards of the Demon Sword, and couldn't get much past "wow, this movie sucks".

So, rather than watch it alone, I brought in the help of experienced bad movie watchers Julie and Ismarc. Who may forgive me someday.

Wizards of the Demon Sword opens with a woman clad in a surplus "Logan's Run" mini-dress running across the desolate Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park while chased by three generic henchmen on horseback. She seems to either be enjoying her running a bit TOO much, or they accidently used the special effects CD from the same porno film they got a good chunk of the extras. After a few more breathy gasps and moans, she's wanders in a circle, runs TOWARD the lead bad guy, lets out a few more orgasms, and gets captured in a net. Right around now the generic fantasy film guidelines require that the mysterious sword-wielding hero appear.

And so he does, in all his blow-dried glory.

Right about now, the audience of this movie will want to give in to the temptation to shove knitting needles into their ears to escape the GOD-AWFUL dialog. This movie doesn't need a dialog coach, it needs a dialog intensive care ward. Or maybe actors who's primary skills aren't on the casting couch.

Anyway, blow-dried hero manages to run off the bad guys in a fight scene that my daughter could do better with pool noodles and a foam shield. Afterwards, we establish that the blow-dried hero is "Thain of Hawksridge", and the Logan's Run reject appeared in "Electric Blue 53", "Emmanuelle V", and "Nudity Required" is Melina, first-born daughter of Ulrich the Elder, Keeper of the Blade of Actar. Now that they've established the name of their D&D player characters, they establish that the object of this dungeon run is that the evil sorcerer Khoura has stolen the Blade of Actar and kidnapped Ulrich the Elder, Keeper of the Blade of Actar. The desire to jam the knitting needles in a bit more happens around now, especially when Thain "Khoura! Are you telling me that I've wandered into his evil realm of corruption?" Well, that and you've wandered into a evil realm of suck. Melina ups the horrid dialog ante by responding "Yes. And each day the fingers of his iron hand reach farther across the land, spreading a blight of misery and destruction." Misery like "watching this movie" and destruction like "the careers of all involved."

Right on cue we have the evil sorcerer Khoura attempting to use the Blade of Actar to work his evil magic. Evil Khoura is being played by Lyle Waggoner, who is turning in a performance that would make William Shatner say "dude, you're overacting". Lyle Khoura is being backed by his leather-clad domnewitch Selena and whiny fop boy swordmaster. The problem is that evil Khoura doesn't have the owners manual or root passwords to the Blade of Actar in order to use the silly thing. He scowls down at it and says "The Blade...of Actar. The key...to eternal dark power. But how do you use it?" His own blood doesn't seem to do it, so he sends his henchpeople out for untainted blood, warning""Only it must be...new and pure". By which they mean "virgin". Yeah, good luck finding any in this movie.

Meanwhile, Thain and Melina are riding though the park, stopping to show dragons of the type Thain has claimed to have slain. By "Dragons" I of course mean "really bad stop-motion stegosaurs" which are almost as cheesy as the dialog.

At this point I need to explain the music. Which is the same cheesy chords over and over and over again. I kept thinking "I played this video game in the late 80's" After a while you have to wonder if it's the music or the dialog which is more painful.

Stumbling into a tribal fetish. Thain remarks that the hill dwellers are weird and shirk travels. Which is of course the cue for Melina to be kidnapped by the hill dwellers. Thain chases after them, kills most, and allows Melina to punch out the remaining one. More painful dialog occurs, finally they decide to seek out a seer to Help them get Melina's father and the Sword of Actar away from Khoura.

But first: "Perhaps we can partake of rest and nourishment in the town down below," Thain says. Melina replies "But let us not forget to inquire about the seer. And a bath". "Ow" goes the viewer as they jab the knitting needles in another inch.

They get to the auction, you see a slave girl's "treasure chest", and they decide to enter a brothel to ask about the seer. Because everyone knows that mystic all knowing and all powerful seers are suckers for working girl booty. The guard asks for ID, Thain tells the guard Melina is a virgin, (in her left ear I assume), and they enter. Various low-grade T&A happens, a couple decent belly-dances, and the whole thing looks like the parties at an SCA war or Ren Faire I never seem to get invited to. It's hard to say what the point is other than the T&A shots, since all they determine is that they're looking for "The Seer of Roebuck". Nobody there has his catalog number, so they end up leaving. Thankfully the slave trader seems to know where Seer & Roebuck is, and off TweedleDork and TweedleTart go into a whole new part of Vasquez Rocks.

Eventually the dialog-challenged twosome pass a few more claymation dinosaurs and stumble to the faire pavilion tent of the Seer of Roebuck, a ratty looking gentleman sounding a lot like the shaman in the 90's video game "Sam and Max Hit The Road". He shows his ugga-booga powers and tells Melina that the last place on earth she should go near is Khoura's castle. As in "fate of the world depends on you not going". Which of course means that TweedleTart is going to head there ASAP.

It seems that the Blade of Actar is this thingajiggy used to partially slay this world-eating demon and bind it in another dimension. It's powers are pretty much unlimited if you get the upgrade package and by upgrade I mean "plunge into the still beating heart of the keeper's first born". Which of course is why she-who-fakes-orgasms-while-running is supposed to stay the hell away from Khoura. Finally the Seer goes "Eh, screw this, you want to be an idiot, fine, get some sleep before you run off and ruin everything", and the dialog-challenged twosome settle down for a nap in the Seer's tent.

Meanwhile, back at Casa Del Khoura, the leather-clad witchypoo decides it's easier to get forgiveness than permission and sends her soul out to take over the body of Melina. She wakes up, cackles, slips her top down, and tries to get some midnight action with Thain while the seer is snoring up a storm. This is interrupted when she tries to go all stabbity on him, then attempts to beat him to death with her boobs. However, Thain realizes she's possessed and punches her lights out, earning him a small amount of approval from the audience. Leather witchypoo gets kicked back into her body in time to deal with Mr. Khoura's disapproval. However, he manages to tell him where TweedleTart is and all is forgiven, ending with "You survived transport of the spirit well". Can I get a larger gauge of knitting needle please?

Meanwhile, TweedleTart wakes up, notices her top is down, and slaps TweedleDork. She then says "If I was possessed by Khoura or one of his evil minions, surely they know of my intent to penetrate the dark domain and free my beloved father". The audience screams at the screen,"What foul demonic beast of ultimate darkness and evil WROTE THE BLOODY SCRIPT!!!!" (answer, Ernest D. Farino, who has no writing credits since this movie. With good reason. Also Dan Golden, writer of such gems as "Venomous" and "Naked Obsession")

Daylight back at Vasquez Rocks, and the inane twosome are heading for the last place they should be at. There's a round of indecisiveness over lunch:

Thain - "What do you want to eat?"
Melina - "I don't know, what do you want to eat?"
Thain - "I don't know, what do you want to eat?"
Melina - "How about that?"
Audience - "How about you both eat shit and die?"

"That" turns out to be another cheesy stop-motion dinosaur, which Thain kills with one flip of his dagger. They have a hearty meal of char-broiled claymation with Melina being preachy about the terrible responsibility her father, Ulrich the Elder, keeper of the Blade of Actar, has. And, of course, being Melina, first-born daughter of Ulrich the Elder, Keeper of the Blade of Actar, she shares her father's terrible burden. Thain goes "uh-huh" and tries to put the moves on Melina. Note to wanna-be heros. Don't close your eyes when you try and kiss the girl. It just invites a kick in the face.

Yep, it's evil Khoura's mandatory deformed henchmen, earning the audience's undying respect by kicking Thain in the teeth and knocking him cold. Melina goes off for another breathy, moaning, panting chase scene, before the henchman captures Melina. Pausing to earn more street cred with the audience by staking Thain out to roast to death in the hot Southern California sun, they take Melina off to Castle Khoura.

Deep in Khoura's sex dungeon, Melina is thrown into the same cell as her father, Ulrich the Elder, keeper of the Blade of Actar. Ulrich the Elder, keeper of the Blade of Actar figures that the audience fell asleep while the Seer of Roebuck explained about the power of the Blade of Actar, so Ulrich the Elder, keeper of the Blade of Actar, does a recap for his darling daughter. Since darling daughter grew up with Ulrich the Elder, keeper of the Blade of Actar, and the Blade of Actar, one assumes that darling daughter has the IQ of lichen if she needs this recap.

Back at Vasquez Rocks, Thain is getting terrorized by the deadly Rattleboa, which at least has better dialog than Thain. Then a shadow appears. Who should show up but the mysterious lone swordsman attempting to prove his mettle to the world, right on cue. There's some taunting, and finally Damon, (the mysterious swordsman's name), unstakes Thain so they can prove who has the biggest penis which is the best swordsman.

Damon is played by Dan Speaker, who IMDB claims is "one of the world's foremost experts in the art of sword fighting for the motion picture industry". I can only assume he was either having a bad day, or the actor who plays Thain sucks as badly as swordplay as he does in acting. Because what follows is about 10 minutes of the worse flailing about with fiberglass swords I've ever seen. Two crisco-covered drunks on a slip and slide would have done better job fighting. And I'm sorry, TWO-HANDED SWORDS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE FREAKING DUELING WEAPONS!!!!

After several minutes of always failing their dexterity rolls, they ditch the swords and go mano-a-mano with bare fists until collapsing into the puppy-pile of male bonding. Thain tells Damon about his quest to go to "the evil castle of the evil warlord" Khoura and save Melina. And lies though his teeth to get buy-in with Damon. The audience, meanwhile, have graduated to sharpened dowels to try and block out the increasingly painful dialog.

Meanwhile, back at the International House of Khoura, Evil Khoura has taken Melina away from Ulrich the Elder, keeper of the Blade of Actar. He then plays dress-up with her, putting Melina up in a black leather outfit of her own. Chaining her to the wall of his evil sex dungeon, he's threatening to torture her unless she spills the beans about the "ultimate power" upgrade to the Blade of Actar. Melina sneers at evil Khoura, saying "You will suffer the fires of eternal damnation for this." Evil Khoura says "I'm already in this movie" "I am eternal damnation."

All the time evil Khoura is chewing every single bit of evil scenery into evil woodpulp. Lyle Khoura OWNS this role and he's gonna be the most over-the-top evil sorcerer in an evil castle you're ever going to see.

Meanwhile, outside Khourahaus, Thain and Damon sneak inside, aided by the fact that the guards have the IQ and fighting skills of wallpaper paste. After several more unconvincing fight scenes ending in the death of Fopman the swordmaster, Damon decides to lounge in Khoura's throne while TweedleDork goes off to rescue TweedleTart. He first rescues Ulrich the Elder, keeper of the Blade of Actar, and then finds Melina chained to the wall of Khoura's extra-special sex dungeon. Thain starts to rescue her only to get ambushed by Selena the Leatherwitch. A few more sub-par fight scenes and a singularly unconvincing death scene, Thain defeats Leather Bodicewitch and runs back to the throne room with Ulrich the Elder, keeper of the Blade of Actar and Melina, first-born daughter of Ulrich the Elder, Keeper of the Blade of Actar in tow......

Only to find evil Khoura sitting on his evil throne leering at Thain and friends, the bloody body of Damon at his feet. Thain says something like "you will pay for your misdeeds you foul evil sorcerer" or words to that effect. And they take off from the throne room.

On the battlements of TGI Khoura's, their escape is stopped by the leering face of Lyle Khoura, now with extra crunchy evil berries. Evil Khoura, rather than doing the smart thing and blasting away at Thain until he's a greasy spot on the plywood, pulls him to his evil leering face and starts to crush the bones in his hand. A thought starts to wander though Melina's mind. Being in an unfamiliar place, it takes a while before she suddenly goes "Oh yeah, I should remind Thain that the Blade of Actar in in evil Khoura's evil belt. Twisting in evil Khoura's evil grasp, he pulls the knife out and plunges it into evil Khoura's evil stomach. Evil Khoura screams as the evil light pours from his evil body and he becomes a evil laserium show. Thain and Melina embrace, while Ulrich the Elder, keeper of the Blade of Actar has the smiling look of approval of a father who knows his child is going to give it up for something lower down on the evolutionary scale, and the audience goes off to find boiling tar, feathers, and rope for the writers of this turd in the punchbowl of fantasy movies.

(Here's a bit over 8 minutes of the movie for you to.....enjoy)

Over all, my original comment holds true. Wow, this movie sucks.

Comments

[passing stranger]

But is it as bad as "Battlefield Earth"?

[Patrick McKinnion]

passing stranger - In a word, yes. :-)