Conquest (1984)

So much average

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

A studly young man named Ilias (Andrea Occhipinti) embarks on a quest to vanquish evil. He's soon joined in his travels by Mace (Jorge Rivero), a Conan type lone wolf who saves Ilias' ass at one point basically because he admires his weapon, a magical bow. Together they fight the minions of evil witch Ocron (Sabrina Siani), some of them looking like bargain basement versions of Chewbacca, among other creatures.There's barely a coherent story here, but people who just adore the trashiest and cheesiest of low budget fantasy features aren't going to mind very much. Celebrated Italian director Lucio Fulci puts his indelible stamp on this genre, completely saturating it with surrealism and atmosphere. Viewers will love all the details, especially the fact that Siani, although masked, plays her role almost completely nude, and sometimes has a snake slither over her body. Claudio Simonettis' score is simply perfect for this sort of entertainment. The soft focus photography by D.P. Alejandro Ulloa won't be to everybody's taste, but everything is filmed on some attractively exotic locations (Sardinia, Italy). The performances are appropriate to the occasion, with Rivero and Occhipinti as moderately engaging heroes, and sexy Ms. Siani, and Conrado San Martin as her equally diabolical associate Zora, functioning as amusing villains. The special effects are enjoyably laughable in their incredible tackiness. There's some wonderfully mean spirited gore here, supplied by Franco Rufini.There's a lot of buildup here to a finale that is over a little too quickly, but "Conquest" does deliver the sleazy goods for those that like their fantasy as R rated (or unrated, as the case is here) as possible.Fulci fans will recognize the mark between Maces' eyes.Seven out of 10.

Here's an interesting failure: goremeister Lucio Fulci's take on a fantasy film is packed full of excessive and disgusting violence guaranteed to bring up the lunch. Otherwise, it's a poorly-shot, poorly dubbed and poorly edited epic which relays the most simplistic of stories and tells it like it's something phenomenal and important. Sadly Fulci's decision to shoot some of the film through a gauze - in order to give it an appropriately other-worldly look - means that it's difficult to see what exactly is going on for a lot of the time. This spoils what is otherwise a fun film to watch. It's not in the least bit original, however; Fulci's two main influences seem to be CONAN THE BARBARIAN (inevitably) and the little-scene prehistoric gore flick MASTER OF THE WORLD from which all the head-cracking and brain-scooping is inspired.The show-stopping opening sees an innocent woman being captured by beast-men (who look like Chewbacca rather than anything resembling convincing) and then dismembered. Her severed head is taken to the evil chief, a woman known as Ocron who looks quite the part, naked, covered in gold paint and wearing a weird kind of mask. Ocron proceeds to bang a hole in the head and devour the brains inside - it's clear that Fulci puts his trademark gruesomeness into this film from the very beginning. From then on, we're introduced to the two leads, one a long-haired lout who is in touch with nature, the other a foppish kid who's handy with a bow and arrow. More baddies are spiked and clubbed than you can shake a stick at, often spilling blood as they do so. Any hits with blunt instruments also result in gouts of blood splashing everywhere.For his fantasy landscape, Fulci tints the sky red and shoots in an eerie, desolate moor land – the isolated setting is one of the film's best aspects and to the film's credit, a lot of the atmosphere comes from the backgrounds. This does generate some atmosphere, and it's just a shame that the world Fulci and his fellow producers created is hidden behind a white mist (or looks to be) for much of the film. Some crisp cinematography would have done wonders for this film and lifted it no end. Still, there are a lot of basic thrills to enjoy here; plenty of battles between good and evil and even some cheesy computer effects thrown in, which is pretty much par for the course for any low budget fantasy or sci fi flick of the 1980s. Fulci even finds time to throw in a cool zombie interlude which sees a load of marsh-strewn corpses wake up to attack our do-gooders and then get staked (perhaps they got confused with vampires).Other highlights see a poisoned man erupt with festering boils which then proceed to spill gooey slime everywhere - it's absolutely disgusting! The acting from the likes of muscle-bound Jorge Rivero (DAY OF THE ASSASSINS) and Andrea Occhipini (A BLADE IN THE DARK) is pretty hopeless, but Sabriana Siani (who made a career out of Italian fantasy flicks with this, THRONE OF FIRE, ATOR THE FIGHTING EAGLE and many others) is a pleasingly unconventional villainess. The blood is always flowing thickly and freely which make this bizarre outing worthwhile. It's not a good film perhaps, but certainly an entertainingly bad one just because it's so different.

Crashing in to the craze set-up by "Conan the Barbarian" came quite an amusingly pulp sword and sorcery fable by Italian horror maestro director Lucio Fulci, which might be slender on story, packing a random, if stiff script and looking to be rather cheaply pulled off but he crafts out a lasting atmospheric air of odd imagery (as well as eerie sound effects) and hands out slabs of gusto violence (adding pulsating shocks of bloody violence --- especially to the head). In his latter career he would always be remembered for the excessive gore and nastiness in his features, but I what impressed me more anything is the moody atmospherics he brings aboard. I found "Conquest" to be quite effectively simmering in that regard. Helping out a lot is Claudio Simonetti ticking time bomb of an electronic score too. Rather unhinged, but extremely exhilarating and mystical. Fulci moves through one set-piece after another, either being a quick moving clip or a rather sluggish passage; nonetheless the primitive tailoring with its tacky make-up and chintzy special effects only add to this nightmarish air where a striking surreal edge is presented. Maybe taking away from the story's questionable developments. Some tripped out visuals of swirling mists and dark lighting compositions are caught by some innovative, flowing cinematography that's not afraid to get up close and personal, and also perfectly frames the picturesquely verdant backdrop. The performances are acceptable, but still on the plain side with the likes of Jorge Rivero, Andrea Occhipinti and Sabrina Sellers. I found the feature to get better as it went along, but it seems to make sure everything that occurs comes off too easy without much struggle and that goes for its anticlimactic final showdown. A fun and tatty exploitive tilt at the sword and scandal fantasy faze.

Conquest (1983) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Fulci's cash in on the Sword and Sorcery genre, which was at that time was popular due to films like BEASTMASTER, is what many would consider a low point in his career but I call it a fascinating mess that contains a little bit of everything. A young man (Andrea Occhipinti) is given a magical bow and for some reason ends up traveling in a strange place where wolf like monsters and cannibals are. He teams up with an older man (Jorge Rivera) to try and destroy these monsters who are being led by a wicked princess (Sabrina Siani). I think the people who are going to have the biggest problem with this movie are those expecting a horror movie like ZOMBIE or THE BEYOND. It seems Fulci's non-horror films always take a beating an in some cases (MANHATTAN BABY) it's really not called for and I'd say that's the case here as well. This certainly isn't a good movie or a well made one but I have to judge what it is and that's an Italian rip off. There are so many campy and over the top moments that I can't believe the film doesn't have a larger camp appeal. The English dubbing isn't horrible but the dialogue certainly is and some of the lines spoken appear to have been written by ten-year-old boys. The performances are on the fair side but there's really not too much acting required. The gore is also here with some nice looking effects including top of heads being chopped off, body sores oozing pus, the werewolf like creatures getting their heads beat in, cannibals and even a stranger scene where zombies attack. As you can see, just about every genre is thrown into the mix here and on that level the film was mildly entertaining. The adventure aspect could have been pumped up and the movie certainly needs more energy but there's enough goofy stuff here to keep the movie going for its 93-minutes.