Viking Night: The Beastmaster
By Bruce Hall
April 26, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The A-Team. Knight Rider. The Dukes of Hazzard. MacGyver. All beloved television shows from my youth, and I actually got to enjoy them AS part of the demographic. That's probably part of what made the shows so much fun. At a time in life when most of us are still developing our sense of identity, I had shows that felt like they were aggressively made just for me and my friends. And by that, I mean “stupid, horny 12-year-old boys to whom the concept of a grown man in leather pants giving orders to a talking car, or a team of escaped paramilitary convicts operating openly in Los Angeles seems plausible.”
Smash cut to me, today, sitting on my living room couch, sad. Needless to say, those old shows don't always age well. It didn't help that they were made at a time when the industry finally figured out how to create superficially appealing content for kids (violent, sexually suggestive toy commercials), which meant I couldn't have stopped watching even if I wanted to. I was destined to remember it all fondly! But the lack of any competition to the networks at the time meant that quality could, and did, tend to take a back seat. Looking back, I know that these shows are shit, and and that any attempt to revisit them in their original form (or with Liam Neeson) will lead to nothing but pain and suffering.
So believe me, I knew what I was getting into with The Beastmaster. The last time I saw it, when I was in high school, I remember thinking it was awesome (it was not). Marc Singer was awesome (he was not). The dad from Good Times was awesome (he...was, actually). The Beastmaster may also single handedly be responsible for the “ferrets make good pets” cult that swept through my friends at the time. Well, ferrets are cute. And they are also smelly, bitey, awful little things. Likewise, The Beastmaster has an absolutely kick-ass one sheet that is oddly reminiscent of the superior one from Conan the Barbarian.
The Beastmaster does not smell, or bite, except in the figurative sense. But it is absolutely an awful little thing, and it's telling that John Coscarelli has never made a movie that I liked. I concede to you now that The Beastmaster was, in fact, awful in ways I hadn't even anticipated or remembered. But don't worry, I don't WANT to be negative. I'll just very gently, very professionally tell you how much I hate this stupid fucking movie.
Our story begins in the mystical realm of Aruk (loosely translated as “Simi Valley”). It is the exact moment when the evil sorcerer Maax (Rip Torn, and it's pronounced “mayax”) has just learned that he will one day die at the hand of the king's unborn son. An understandably emotional Maax loudly proclaims his intention to brutally murder the child just as soon as he can arrange it. On cue, King Zed himself (Rod Loomis) bursts into the room and says something to the effect of (and I may be paraphrasing) “I hear you're planning on murdering a child” - and with all the gravitas of someone who'd literally been fed his line on the way in.
Wait just a damn minute. Had I really just seen that? Stop. Rewind. Play. Yup. That's what happened. Now, you'll be glad to hear that the rest of the film isn't quite that bad. No, the rest of the film is more or less a straight knockoff of Conan the Barbarian. Yes, it has some genuinely interesting ideas of its own, but it lacks both the budget and the will to capitalize on them. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind whatsoever that someone at MGM saw that film, ran out of the theater with his mouth still full of popcorn, picked up a pay phone, called his office and said “I want something just like that ready to shoot in a week or you're all fired.”
Smash cut to a week later, and Rod Loomis and Rip Torn are glaring at each other like two old ladies fighting over a tea biscuit.
Anyway, as the king of any half decent forgotten realm knows, when your evil court sorcerer threatens to sacrifice your unborn son to the Elder Gods, you should have your henchmen kill him on the spot. King Zed does not consult the manual, which results in one of Maax's witches smuggling the child from its mother's womb by hiding it inside a cow. I know, if the object was to kill the child, then why not just...look...this is something I'm going to need you to just accept, without further explanation, so that we can move on.
Thank you.
The witch brands the child's hand, and is then apparently about to sacrifice the child when she is interrupted by a passing villager stabbing her and setting her on fire. The villager raises the child as his own, naming the boy “Dar” (thereby assuring the older version of him would be played by beefy Canadian actor Marc Singer). The villager is also apparently a retired whatever secret service agents are called in this world, because he seems proficient in many forms of combat. All of this he teaches to Dar, because “foreshadowing.” Dar also displays an ability to communicate telepathically with both animals, and actors in bear suits (a by-product of having a witch stuff you into a cow, no doubt).
Dar's father carefully instructs the boy to hide this ability, thus fulfilling his character arc and allowing him to be brutally murdered in the next scene, when their village is annihilated. The marauders are led by Maax, who is looking for - you guessed it - the child with the hand brand. Dar escapes, and decides to dedicate himself to hunting down Maax and his followers, who have somehow, at some point, kidnapped the king and taken control of the kingdom. Maax, it turns out, has a real thing for sacrificing people, particularly children. The highlight of his day really seems to be holding a seven-year-old over his head and tossing the screaming tot into a flaming pit of hellfire. He's more comical than scary, because it's never explained what his motivations are - he's just cackling madman who likes burning people alive, for some reason.
This is part of what makes The Beastmaster so simultaneously fascinating and infuriating. I don't have a problem with someone deciding to mimic another successful movie. That happens all the time, and in the case of this film, there are actually some benefits. Dar's ability to speak to animals is intriguing, but like most of the more interesting aspects of Beastmaster, nothing is ever fleshed out. How did he get his powers? Are they from the Gods? Is it a mutation? Did he have a 104 fever for three days when he was a toddler? How does it work?
You may think I'm nitpicking, but the entire film is like this. From one scene to another, events are either influenced by things that happen offscreen or are never explained in at all. Dar's powers add an interesting element to the story - he can command animals to protect him, he can see through their eyes, and he seems to care for them very deeply. But we never discover much about how his powers work or their extent. When Dar wants to see what's happening miles away, he calls out a hawk to do some sightseeing. When he needs delicate work done, he has a pair of ferrets at his disposal. But whenever Dar and his friends are being chased by mutants on horseback, it never occurs to him that he can just command the horses to stop.
And it never occurs to anyone to ask him.
At some point, Maax and his followers apparently overthrew the government and imprisoned the king and enslaved the population. But all of this happens offscreen, and it's never clear exactly what the hell is happening in the realm of Aruk and why. Who is Maax? Why does he like barbecuing little kids? Why was such a sadistically evil whack job even working for Zed in the first place? Does Zed ride a hog? How did he get captured? What is even happening in this movie? There are long stretches of time where literally nothing happens to move the plot forward, or dialogue is delivered that means next to nothing, robbing the story of interest and momentum.
The Beastmaster was clearly made to capitalize on the success of another, better film, but it never even attempts to capitalize on what newness it does bring to the table. Rather than engage in any world building or expand on these characters' stories and motivations, Beastmaster is content to just check boxes off the Conan The Barbarian Emulation Matrix. There's a love interest, and she's tougher than she looks. There's a sidekick, played by John Amos, who is still super buff at the time and doesn't get nearly enough time killing people on screen. And speaking of the battles, marc Singer has like three moves with that sword, tops. There's just nothing interesting going on in this film at any time.
Ever.
The only upside here is that I was ready to be disappointed, so in a way, I got exactly what I wanted. There's a significant gap between the film Beastmaster IS and the film it THINKS it is. As a child, I was probably more in love with the potential of this movie than the movie itself. Every aspect of this story that might have made it unique and memorable are put on the back-burner in favor or reminding you of another movie. For that reason, I might suggest that if you're in the mood for a little swords and sorcery, skip Beastmaster altogether and check out That Other Movie instead.