The Beastmaster

release year: 1982
genre: fantasy
viewing setting: home Bluray 6/21/23 and home DVD 2/12/13 (and many other times throughout the 1980s and 1990s)

synopsis: Orphan Dar, with the power to talk to animals, must save the kingdom from an evil tyrant and his human-sacrificing minions.

impressions: This is one of the best of its genre. It has everything, and I mean everything: a simple standard plot, a big tiger, a hawk, ferrets, Tanya Roberts, a razor-edged metal boomerang, cannibal bird-people, human sacrifice, spike-armored berserkers, Tanya Roberts in skimpy clothes, witches, monks with quarterstaves, fire-pits, pyramids with dungeons beneath them, fanatics with swords, Tanya Roberts naked, and lots of swordplay. Get the picture? Good. Now go watch this movie.

something this movie has that no other movie has: Creatures who enfold victims in their winged arms and dissolve them into bones and green goo.

acting: Marc Singer does a good job as a warrior who must avenge his family and save the land. Tanya Roberts is a slave girl who also turns out to be some sort of warrior-woman. John Amos is a big, staff-wielding monk who helps take on the bad guys. Rip Torn is over-the-top as the evil high priest.

final word: Classic early-1980s fantasy fare, and more importantly, it's FUN.

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