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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.

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