The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982)

Written by CinemaSerf on November 9, 2022

This actually benefits from having the germ of a decent story of dynastic skulduggery. The evil king "Cromwell" (Richard Lynch) has designs on the throne of the peaceable king "Richard" (Christopher Cary). To that end he awakens the lethal and demonic "Xusia" (Richard Moll) to destabilise "Eh-Dan" and make it ripe for the picking. Fortunately, young prince "Talon" (Lee Horsley) escapes this terror and flees leaving his elder sister "Alana" (Kathleen Beller) behind - a slave. He doesn't forget though, and trains hard, learning how to handle a triple-bladed sword that he plans to use as he returns to reclaim his inheritance and free his sibling. Needless to say, though, neither "Xusia" nor the usurper are going to be welcoming him with open arms! The visual effects are OK here and the drama keeps going fine at the beginning, but the quality of both acting and writing soon starts to drag the whole thing down into cheap and cheerful television movie-dom. The tousled Horsley is pretty amateur from the get-go and although Beller tries to inject a little feistiness into her character, the whole thing just lacks any sense of menace. Indeed, Moll is about as intimidating as yesterday's lettuce. It is little raunchier than many of the genre but in the end it's rather disappointing and eminently forgettable.