Wednesday, April 2, 2008

FF#6: Conquest (1983)

Whoa! I'm not really sure where this movie came from. In 1983 Fulci decided to try his hand at the sword and sorcery genre, and here are the hilariously mixed results.

The film is about a young man from a "distant land" who must hang out with this older man until they both fall madly in love and go try and kill the evil Ocrin. One thing that can often be said about the sword and sorcery films is that they almost always contain a gay subtext, and this film is no exception. In this film, if there wasn't a gay subtext, you'd be hard pressed to get through the whole thing without falling asleep. Also, this movie is about Fulci attempting to get artsy with his direction. There are so many filters and weird lenses used that it is often difficult to tell what's going on. Sometimes the sky is purple and the grass is yellow, other times everything is just black...for long stretches of time.

Being an 80's sword and sorcery film, you can't escape bad/awesome laser effects, and again this film does not skimp on them. Besides a bow that shoots glowing laser arrows, our heroes at one point find themselves under attack from hundreds of dubbed in normal arrows, that look like and are simply animated scratches in the film print!

But the real kicker, and the thing that best shows Fulci's love of jumping on trends, is the inclusion of wookies. That's right, like the Star Wars wookies. Those Life Day celebrating dogmen are all over this movie, and a lot of fun to watch as they celebrate life by scalping foes with their giant clubs!

So in the end, this movie is all about a nude lady with a gold mask, wookies, and two closet homosexuals swinging rock-nunchucks and teaching each other how to shoot laser arrows (seriously).

F for Fair (because it is watch-able...but only if you heckle the crap out of it)

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