Conquest (1983)

The word of the day is "Rotoscope".

Sword and Sorcery films were popular for a short time in the early 80s following the release of Conan the Barbarian, and there were many low budget films made to cash in on that popularity. This film by Italian horror filmmaker is one of those movies, although with the low production values and mist shrouded sets, it feels more like a depraved version of Krull than Conan with it's much better production values.

It starts with a young man named Illias being given a magic bow that creates it own magic blue arrows by an old man and is sent off to become a warrior. Shortly after this, the villain, a woman wearing a golden mask (and only a golden mask) sends her minions (they look like wookies) to kill everyone in Illias' tribe, which they do with glee. They cut the top of the old man's skull off and tear a naked woman limb from limb. (One of the places this movie seems to free up costs is by having all the characters run around naked. Seriously nobody in this movie is fully dressed. The other way they save money is by having all the sets pumped full of too much fog.)

I told you there were wookies in this movie.

The wookies return to Naked Gold Mask Lady's cave where they all snort hallucinogens. While she is lying on the floor wrapped in a giant python and stoned, Naked Gold Mask Lady has a vision of being murdered by Illias. So once again she send her army of wookies out on a murder spree, this time with orders to kill Ilias. Which they almost do, until Ilias is rescued by a man named Mace. Mace likes to wear fur and fights with a set of nunchucks made of stone. He also likes animals.

Zora, Ilias' head, and Naked Gold Mask Lady

Ilias and Mace hit it off and do plenty of male bonding while killing humans, wookies, and mud encrusted zombies. At one point Mace is crucified on a big wooden X and tossed in the ocean by what I think might be a frog man, only to be rescued by dolphins (liking animals pays off, apparently). Topping off the fun, Ilias gets decapitated by Zora, a creature made of little metal plates. That would be the sad part of the movie... but Mace does absorb Ilias' power by rubbing his unwashed body with the ashes of Ilias' poorly cremated body.

Mace kills Naked Gold Mask Lady, and learns that she was really ugly underneath that mask, and the audience asks themselves "What the hell did I just watch?" while the credits roll.

If you wanna start watching Fulci, I'd start with The Beyond. And if you liked the Conan films and wanna see more, I'd suggest watching Krull before this. But if you wanna see a depraved movie with lots of violence and nudity and don't care if the plot makes sense, put this on your list right below Mountain of the Cannibal God.


Trailer (NSFW- boobs)