Umberto Lenzi's IRONMASTER (1983)

The flood of barbarian movies that stormed across movie screens in the early 1980s was at best a mixed blessing. A direct result of the big box office of CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982), the slew of rip-offs was inevitable as was the variable quality level from production to production. Barbarian movies don’t require much in the way of big budgets and if you’re fairly clever it is possible to create a moderately believable fantasy realm with sword wielding men and women saving oppressed people from evil warlords. If you want to include a wizard slinging around magic spells the price tag might go up a little (‘Find me a cheap FX man, now!’) but there were ways to make that pay off well if it made the film stand out from the crowd.

To be completely clear, none of these movies are classics of cinema. In fact, I would say that most of them would be considered bad movies by non-aficionados of strange cinema. But when you get the desire to see muscled non-actors swing swords and flatly toss out poorly scripted dialog about their beloved princesses and nefarious evil plans there are few options other than cueing up a barbarian movie from the 1980s! The crazy costumes are a big plus as well with the evil characters often wearing objects that a lively audience can spend the film’s entire running time trying to identify.

One of my favorites of the barbarian rip-off genre is Umberto Lenzi’s IRONMASTER. This film is a cut above the average of its type with a good story, some impressive South Dakota scenery and a good amount of well integrated stock footage of dangerous animals. The battle scenes are well done and usually believable in their harshness as the actors work hard to sell the physical nature of their characters. And only a group of mad Italians would have the audacity to conclude such a gory, violent movie with a call for non-violence and pacifism. Chef’s kiss!