Red Sonja (2025)

If you're nuts about sword and sorcery movies chances are you'll enjoy the new RED SONJA, which we were treated to a Bristol MegaScreen big screen showing of last night. The photography is frequently gorgeous, there are some nice bits of production design, and the world building is a lot of fun, suggesting a land filled with weird creatures and a world of men powered by arcane devices rather than magic. 

        It's the standard plot: all-powerful villain wants the thing, hero has to stop him getting the thing, with the help of an unruly but likeable band acquired during the journey, and if that's what you fancy then you'll be happy. However, if you want something a bit more, or if you're a fan of the Robert E Howard-inspired character from the books (and the comics, apparently), you may find yourself having less of a good time. 

The biggest problem with RED SONJA is the casting, in particular the lead. To play a Robert E Howard hero you ideally need both physical presence and the ability to evoke the magnetism necessary to have your audience believe you could be a leader in a brutal world of gods and monsters. Unfortunately Mathilda Lutz possesses neither in sufficient quantities to make her believable in the role. Of course it doesn't help that we are expected to accept her as a great warrior when she has seemingly spent most of her life faffing about in a forest with her horse. 

Similarly, Robert Sheehan, an actor I like a lot, has quite a bit of fun with his role as the evil Emperor but it's far harder to believe his character could have ascended to such a position on sheer graft alone, as opposed to Eddie 'Does it hurt, mother?' Redmayne's baddie in JUPITER ASCENDING who got there by birthright. Best sword 'n' sorcery performance of the entire film is Wallis Day as the evil Empress-to-be who plays it as mad and obsessed, frequently talking to the demons in her head when she's not whacking people with her massive swords. She's the only one in this film whose characterisation approaches that of the characters of Howard, Karl Edward Wagner et al and she would have been a much better lead, although presumably a less marketable one.

The fight scenes are good, the music needs the kick up its arse that most modern movie music does (do they not teach Jerry Goldsmith 101 in film music school anymore?), and while some reviews have called the film out over an overly long running time (close on two hours) I'll admit I enjoyed this sufficiently that I was surprised when it was obviously close to the end. 

        RED SONJA is going straight to digital in the UK which is a bit of a shame as, for all its faults, it looked fantastic on the biggest screen it is ever going to play on according to director and special guest MJ Bassett. It's nowhere near as good as Bassett's 2009 SOLOMON KANE which also played last night, also looked fantastic, and which I have always been happy to defend as one of the best sword and sorcery films out there. Having James Purefoy along for a Q&A with Bassett helped make the event special as well. If you're pining for something epic with swordplay and monsters RED SONJA may well fit the bill for a quiet evening, but don't expect too much. Here's the trailer:

MJ Bassett's RED SONJA is out on digital platforms from Signature Entertainment from Monday 18th August 2025. It's getting a Blu-ray and DVD release on Monday 8th September 2026

The Spine of Night (2021)

After a successful festival run (including Nottingham's Mayhem Film Festival last year) and a release on Shudder's streaming service, Acorn Media International are releasing Philip Gelatt and Morgan Galen King's ambitious old-school animated fantasy THE SPINE OF NIGHT on Blu-ray.

Tzod (voiced by Lucy Lawless), a swamp witch, needs to find out more about a mysterious blue flower and its magical properties, and so she embarks on a journey, seeking out The Guardian (Richard E Grant). When she finds him, he has a number of tales to tell of the flower. They range from ultraviolent to weird to thought-provoking and we get to see them all via the stylised rotoscoped animation the film employs. Guest voices also include Joe Manganiello, Patton Oswalt and Larry Fessenden (as - what else? - the Prophet of Doom). 

It's always good to see animated epic fantasy aimed at grown-ups and THE SPINE OF NIGHT definitely isn't for kids or the overly sensitive. There's buckets of violence, lots of nudity (Tzod wears next to nothing for the entire film) and some of the terrifically trippy imagery is designed to give you nightmares. The animation style has been compared to that of Ralph Bakshi but THE SPINE OF NIGHT is actually quite a bit better and more interesting than fantasy efforts like WIZARDS or his version of THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Its plot is that of a lengthy fantasy book sequence (or perhaps even a 1970s concept album) and gets the whole thing done and dusted in 94 minutes.

Shudder's Blu-ray comes with an excellent thirty minute Making of which includes a lot of the filmed footage that was then rotoscoped, as well as interviews with the writers-directors, composer and assorted 'cast' members (but not voice artists) and which concludes with an excellent further recommend reading / watching list from those involved. You also get the two animated shorts that preceded the movie, EXORDIUM (8 minutes) and MONGREL (3 minutes) as well as trailers for PSYCHO GOREMAN, MANDY and ARCHENEMY. 

THE SPINE OF NIGHT is out on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital from Acorn Media International now

Britannia (2018)

"Absurdly Entertaining"

Sky / Vertigo / Amazon / etc's attempt to jump on the Game of Thrones bandwagon gets a DVD and Blu-ray release from Sony. But does it ride that bandwagon with pride or slip, fall off and land squarely on its embarrassed bottom?

It's 43 AD in a fantasy version of Britain where the sun shines quite a lot, the water is clear, and it's warm enough to wander around wearing very little, especially if you're an attractive female character (score several points on the exploitation-cum-GoT-ometer for that at least.)

The Romans are coming! Or at least David Morrisey and his averagely good legion is. I'm guessing this because their standards have LEG-AVG written in gold on them. Is Britain not worthy of the best? It would seem not.

As usual, every British community within spitting distance of each other is fighting. The two main contingents are the Blues led by Zoe Wanamaker going full Vivenne Westwood, and the not-Blues led by Ian McDiarmuid who has instead opted for a ginger theme to his tribe, specifically his two children played by Kelly Reilly with her frequent Derek Zoolander Blue Steel expression, and Julian Rhind-Tutt. His wife is played by Liana Cornell who seems to be channelling late 1970s Joan Collins and for that I take my hat off to her.

The fate of the British tribes seems to be decided by Skeletor (MacKenzie Crook) who lives at Castle Grayskull with a bunch of similarly cadaverous weirdos. He's the one who dictates who lives, who dies, who gets flayed alive and who has to eat what look like mint imperials before being slaughtered at Stonehenge, etc etc.

As historical dramas go, BRITANNIA is about as accurate as HAWK THE SLAYER, and less accurate than CARRY ON CLEO or Hammer's THE VIKING QUEEN. That's hardly the point, though. What we have here is a riotous attempt at doing epic fantasy using the Roman settlement of Britain as an excuse for it all. There's a hefty dose of supernatural weirdness, the locations are beautiful, the photography is gorgeous, all the parts are played with admirable gusto and some of the shots and set-ups are breathtaking. 

So I find myself unable to be hard on BRITANNIA in any way at all. It's well-made, engrossing, has the courage of its daft convictions and as a result ends up being tremendous fun. It's like watching a bunch of 21st century actors with more enthusiasm than sense engaging in some sort of misguided drug-fuelled live action role play. I kept expecting someone to run onto a main road or for a helicopter to fly over. I do hope there's a second series. And if there is, I really hope they choose Spinal Tap's 'Stonehenge' for the theme tune this time.  

Sony's disc release contains all nine episodes of the first season of BRITANNIA, plus two featurettes - 'Rome's Pagan Nightmare' and 'Bloody Birth of Britain'. 

The delirious daftness that is BRITANNIA is getting a DVD & Blu-ray release from Sony on Monday 26th March 2018

Kull the Conqueror (1997)

A sword and sorcery movie that really wants to be another CONAN, or at least one of its imitators from the early 1980s, KULL THE CONQUEROR is getting a new UK DVD release courtesy of Fabulous Films.

After a curiously anachronistic-sounding voiceover and some even more curious soft metal rock music over the opening titles we get introduced to Kull (Kevin Sorbo), merrily whacking at people with his axe as he auditions for a place in the king’s army (I think). He takes on General Taligaro (Thomas Ian Griffith) and his enormous blonde mullet, only for the two to be interrupted by the news that the king has gone bonkers and is killing all his heirs. Kull arrives at the palace in time to be pretty much randomly handed the crown and is made king. 

You too can be king and wear this pot on your head

Needless to say, the general and a bunch of British character actors including non-singing evil wizard Ed Tudor-Pole and Douglas Henshall are soon plotting to usurp Kull’s place on the throne by resurrecting ancient sexy witch Akivasha (Tia Carrere). Soon she’s put Kull under her spell and bumps him off. Somehow he survives and has to travel with dull and listless harem girl Zareta (Karina Lombard) and her trippy priest brother Ascalante (Litefoot) aboard the boat of everyone’s least favourite Bette Davis impersonator (Harvey Fierstein). They need to find the breath of Volka to defeat Akivasha and etc etc.

KULL THE CONQUEROR is one of those movies with the potential to make one weep for what could have been. Everyone is trying terribly, terribly hard. The production design and costumes are great, as are the makeup effects by ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS’ Gianetto De Rossi, and while the acting isn’t great on the whole it’s entirely acceptable for this sort of thing.

But there’s something very important missing, namely a guiding hand to make all of this work, give it a good sense of pacing and paper over any cracks. And that just doesn’t happen. The script by Charles Edward Pogue (allegedly author of one word in the final screenplay of David Cronenberg’s remake of THE FLY) takes far too long to get going, and director John Nicolella seems happy to let things meander along to no great purpose. 

        Even an hour in, when the plot finally has a direction, we’re still stopping for ‘comedy’ interludes. The quest itself has a distinct lack of peril and incident because there just isn’t time after all the faffing about. Joel Goldsmith manages a reasonable attempt at being Basil Poledouris with the music, but every now and then it’s as if a WHITESNAKE tribute band has run into the recording studio and taped over some of the score. 

If you’re a fan of sword and sorcery, KULL THE CONQUEROR will give you a rainy afternoon’s worth of entertainment. In the grand scale of these movies, one sadly has to place it just above Joe D’Amato’s ATOR THE FIGHTING EAGLE and way, way below Michael J Bassett's far superior and unjustly neglected Robert E Howard adaptation SOLOMON KANE. Fabulous Films' DVD has nothing in the way of extras. 

Fabulous Films are releasing KULL THE CONQUEROR on Region 2 DVD on Monday 10th August 2015

The Four Warriors (2015)

A brave, if ultimately flawed, attempt to give us some very low budget sword and sorcery in the wake of the success of GAME OF THRONES, director Phil (LAST SHOWING) Hawkins’ fantasy film arrives on UK DVD courtesy of Metrodome.

Returning home from the crusades, three soldiers and their prisoner come across a village devastated by an evil force that has abducted all the men and nearly all the children. The women of the village eventually manage to convince our heroes to stay and help them and pretty soon everyone is erecting barricades, organising a formal night’s watch and keeping an eye out for the mystical baddies. Despite their best efforts, the one remaining little boy gets pinched, and so off into the forest they go, minus one of their number who’s been scratched by Something Evil, with village warrior Alina in his place. 

With the help of the wizard Baliphar (Kristian Nairn) they discover the men are being put to work in nearby mines to dig out four fabulous jewels that are the actual four warriors of the title (I think). Will the gang be able to infiltrate the mine, kill the bad guys and rescue both the village people and the jewels? Will the prisoner from the start of the film come through to keep the numbers constant in a no doubt unintentional tribute to BLAKE'S SEVEN? 

FOUR WARRIORS is a bit of a curate’s egg of a film. The costumes and production design are excellent - one presumes this was filmed in one of those Museums of Rural Life but if not they’ve done an excellent job of building a medieval village. Performances are best described as coming from enthusiastic amateurs. I don’t necessarily mean that in a bad way, but one gets the feeling this is more a project put together on weekends by fantasy fans than a professional effort.

The main problem with FOUR WARRIORS however, is the pacing. It desperately wants to be GAME OF THRONES meets THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN but it could actually learn a thing or two from less worthy efforts like HAWK THE SLAYER and SWORD & THE SORCEROR. The time spent in the village is probably intended to build the characters and allow for relationship development, but the whole thing just drags when there should be more monster fights. Consequently, when we get to the end and find that there is a villainous monster king-thing, it feels like an afterthought and comes as something of a surprise, as if they suddenly realised it was supposed to be a sword and sorcery picture rather than just sword (something FOUR WARRIORS would probably have been better off doing). 

        As the above hopefully suggests, FOUR WARRIORS isn’t all bad. There’s a pleasing sense of period and every now and then the photography is really pretty good. Just don’t go looking for an adventure picture and, if you’re an undiscerning fan of period fantasy, you might well enjoy this. Metrodome’s review copy did not provide any extras, but cast and crew interviews are promised. 

Metrodome are releasing THE FOUR WARRIORS on Region 2 DVD on 13th July 2015

Hawk the Slayer (1980)

"Gloriously entertaining"

If there is one work of epic fantasy that deserves to be preserved on Blu-ray for all time, it’s probably LORD OF THE RINGS. Or GAME OF THRONES. Perhaps CONAN THE BARBARIAN (the 1982 Schwarzenegger version) would get a few votes. But the film that preceded it by a couple of years, and was the UK’s only contribution to this genre boom of the early 80s (at least until KRULL) probably wouldn’t figure highly on the list. However, there are still a few of us out there who have been waiting with barely-controlled enthusiasm for a Blu-ray release of HAWK THE SLAYER.

One of the more restrained acting scenes

It’s difficult to explain the appeal of the film to those mystified by its charm. Perhaps you had to be a certain age when you first encountered it. Tellingly, there are reviewers on Amazon who claim their children enjoyed it more than Peter Jackson’s acknowledged masterpiece, and perhaps that’s something to take note of. HAWK THE SLAYER may be cheap, it may be hokey, and it may be frequently ridiculous, but it’s packed with incident and the pacing doesn’t let up for a second. It may lack a charismatic leading man (sorry John Terry) but how can you complain when you have Jack Palance acting for two? Or three? Or possibly four? Only Shane Briant dares to match him and we all know what happens if you try and match Jack - he just turns it up from eleven to a hundred and eleven. Watch and revel! The giant may not actually be a giant or the dwarf a dwarf, but how can you complain when they’re introduced through such charming vignettes, one of them featuring Patrick Magee as a high priest wearing silver Doc Martens? Ray Charleson’s Crow the Elf  may have the most curious rapid-editing way of firing a bow and arrow, and his dialogue may be as flat as a pancake, but was Orlando Bloom really that much better? 

Going all the way up to eleven

Other fantasy epics have had the gorgeous locations of Tunisia, Malta, and New Zealand to help them create their lush and tropical environments, but only HAWK THE SLAYER somehow manages to make a Buckinghamshire forest look like something out of the end days of Jack Vance’s Tales of the Dying Earth. Kids these days may not be familiar with silly string but we certainly were - watch and marvel at the bravado of the film-makers as witchy Patricia Quinn despatches a baddie with it! 

Lovely

And then there’s the music. Undoubtedly forward-thinking and cutting edge for its time, sadly this was before everyone realised (thanks to Basil Poledouris, David Whitaker and others) that the music of epic fantasy has to be epic orchestra and not tinny Jeff Wayne-style synthesisers, Morricone-esque flutes riffs and menacing zithers. That doesn’t mean it’s not great, though. In fact Harry Robertson’s ambitious (oh yes it is) music helps add to HAWK THE SLAYER’s unique charm. I own the CD and am proud to do so.

Oh yes!!!

Network’s Blu-ray is not a restoration, so expect speckles and crackles and some wonky colour stripes at points, but it IS nice to see HAWK out on this format. Special features include everything ported over from the Network Special Edition DVD (Clapperboard Special, Interviews for The Electric Theatre including a Jack Palance who clearly isn’t quite sure where he is or what film he’s in, trailer and behind the scenes footage). New to the Blu-ray are a couple of minutes of ‘Raw textless elements’ which are some more behind the scenes stuff without sound. As an added bonus you get the screenplay as a pdf, so you can recreate key scenes in your own home, if you haven’t been doing so already.

Floaty glowing sword fun

Gloriously entertaining, incredibly good-natured and thoroughly deserving of the love aficionados fashion upon it, it’s great to see HAWK THE SLAYER finally on Blu-ray. Now, where’s that sequel director Terry Marcel keeps promising us? 

Network are releasing the truly epic HAWK THE SLAYER in Region B Blu-ray on 6th July 2015