Despite the enduring love for the series, there are few people you could find who would tell you that the original Deathstalker is a great movie. It's even surpassed by the first sequel it had. So to say that this reworking of the property is better than the first film is quite easy. Yet it has something that still holds it back slightly, just a feeling that . . . well, I can't quite put my finger on one specific fault, but hope to mention a number of factors in this review.
Daniel Bernhardt plays the titular hero this time around, and he certainly looks the part. He's soon joined by a small creature named Doodad (voiced by Patton Oswalt) and a young female thief named Brisbayne (Christina Orjalo). Their fates are all tied together by a magical amulet that is desired by Nekromemnon (Nicholas Rice), and he expects his right hand man, Jotak (Paul Lazenby), to retrieve it from our hardy little band of heroes.
Written and directed by Steven Kostanski, who has been responsible for one of my all-time favourite genre movies of the 2020s (Psycho Goreman), there's a lot here that should be expected, if you're familiar with his work. Plenty of impressive practical effects, a decent amount of blood and guts thrown around, and clear affection for the source material.
The cast all work well in their roles too, which is a big help. Bernhardt has both the muscles and the attitude, Oswalt's voice is a perfect fit for his character, and Orjalo, Lazenby, Nina Bergman, Conor Sweeney, and John Clifford Talbot all feel well-suited to the onscreen environment. Rice is hidden under a lot more make up and prosthetics, as are both Jon Ambrose and Troy James, but the physicality is spot on.
Nobody could accuse the Deathstalker movies of striving for any kind of realism, and they were made with low budgets and limited resources, but this particular Deathstalker movie feels just as limited in one or two other ways. I'm surprised to say that part of that is due to how it lacks a specific charm, perhaps due to the knowledge that everyone involved is very much clued in on the kind of film they want to make. Original films of this ilk were made by people trying to present a fantastical world and a mad menagerie of monsters with whatever they had to hand. This is made by people trying to present a slightly more polished version of an older movie, and part of the charm of the older movies often stems from seeing the tape holding the cardboard together at the very edge of the frame, metaphorically speaking. I also can't help thinking that there's a bit of gentle mockery mixed in with the affection here, a feeling of Kostanski saying "you know this is silly, we know this is silly, but let's enjoy it nonetheless". It's not an overriding sensation, but I could feel it just underpinning almost every scene, and that was enough to stop me from loving this as much as I had hoped to. The Deathstalker movies were not without humour, but it was a very basic and genre-specific kind of humour (aka very '80s humour). This film doesn't have that, and it's the absence of THAT humour, the way that Kostanski tries to allow everything to be played quite straight, that paradoxically makes me sense some of the other humour layered throughout.
Maybe I am being too sensitive, maybe I am responding to something that wasn't intended the way I am viewing it, but I cannot help thinking that many other Kostanski films have been made with the feeling that they're loving homages that couldn't possibly rival the impact of the original films that inspired them, despite how those original films are viewed with disdain by those who just don't understand the way to the heart of a horror fan who grew up through the halcyon days of VHS madness. Deathstalker somehow makes a major mis-step by being better than the 1983 original, which makes even the slightest wink or smirk feel like it's "punching down" at a beloved film series.
Still, when it comes to the film-making basics, there's no denying that what is onscreen here is done well. I'd love to hear from others, whether to help me better word my opinion or just tell me that I am talking nonsense, but, in the meantime, I still have to rate this as an enjoyable bit of sword 'n' sorcery entertainment. It's just not great, and left a slightly sour taste in my mouth as the end credits rolled.
7/10
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