Yours portly is a sucker for old-school sword and sorcery stories: loin-cloth-clad barbarians; pseudo-Sumerian cults; wicked witches; feisty damsels; ferrets. 1982’s The Beastmaster has them all (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of any purchases made through that link, at no additional cost to you).
This film was on cable all the time when I was a kid, although I think its heyday was passing by the early 1990s. According to the film’s Wikipedia entry, HBO played it so frequently that people joked that “HBO” stood for “Hey, Beastmaster’s On.” We didn’t have HBO (except for those free weekends they would do sometimes, and then we were forbidden from watching it), but the same entry notes that TBS played it enough to be called “The Beastmaster Station.” That’s probably where I first saw the flick.
Regardless, the film made an impression. Coming of age with He-Man action figures, I couldn’t help but equate He-Man with Dar, the titular Beastmaster himself. They look and dress the same; both have a scantily-clad girlfriend; and both have a pet panther that aids them in battle.
More importantly, the essential elements of what I would come to recognize as “low” fantasy, pulpy sword-and-sorcery were all there. The trope of a free and wild rustic using only his sword, his wits, and his animal companions against an entrenched and powerful wizard turns up frequently in low fantasy, notably in the classic Conan stories. The early 1980s was awash in celluloid adaptations of these stories, which meant that late-1980s and early-1990s cable showed them frequently.
So, what of The Beastmaster itself? It’s a great film, not for any deep artistic merit or innovative camera work, but because it’s fun while also creating a clear sense of dread (which is probably why it is currently on Shudder, where I watched it).
The film opens with Maax (which looks like someone shouting the name “Max,” but is pronounced “MAY-ax”), the evil high priest of the god Ar, receiving an unwelcome prophecy: the unborn son of King Zed will one day slay Maax. Naturally, Maax attempts to reverse this prophecy by having the child killed and, just as naturally, this child will be our hero (ergo—naturally—he does not die). To do so, Maax’s witches—who have these incredible super model bodies but horrible, deformed faces—paralyze the King and Queen in their sleep, and use dark magic to transfer the unborn child into a cow. One of the witches births the babe and attempts to slay him, but a villager interrupts and kills her.
The villager raises the baby, naming him Dar. Dar grows up to be a powerful warrior with an uncanny ability to communicate with beasts. The film illustrates this well when a teenaged Dar encounters a bear; Dar is able to calm the beast.
One day, while working the fields, Dar’s village of Emir is attacked by the marauding Juns, a terrifying group of horseback-riding barbarians in league with Maax and his death cult. Dar and the other young men rush back to the village, but it’s too late: the Juns destroy everything, and Dar is only saved when his faithful dog, Todo, pulls him away from the carnage, only to die itself from a crossbow bolt to the side.
Dar awakens and vows revenge on the Juns and Maax, and the adventure begins. Throughout his travels, he communes with a black eagle; two thieving ferrets (Kodo and Podo); and a black panther (actually a tiger died black, as apparently tigers are much easier to work with on a film set than real panthers). Along the way he meets Kiri, the love interest; Tal, his (unknown) younger brother; and the guy who played the dad in Good Times. This ragtag team of men, woman, and beasts will take on the combined might of the Juns and Maax.
The Beastmaster is a masterclass in fun, plot-driven storytelling. What seem like insignificant details almost always have a payoff. The characters are nuanced, but it’s not a rich character study: Dar is unabashedly the good guy, even if he’s a bit impetuous at times. A cowardly villager named Sacco, who’s young daughter Dar saved from a fiery sacrifice, rises to the occasion to aid Dar and Kiri’s infiltration of Maax’s temple. King Zed, once rescued from years of imprisonment, succumbs to a lust for vengeance and leads a doomed attack against Maax.
The animal actors are quite fun, too, especially the ferrets. Kodo and Podo attempt to steal from Dar while he rests. In his pursuit of the furry bandits, he ends up in quicksand (a staple of every adventure story from this time period), and Kodo and Podo chew on a tree limb to save Dar. One of them falls into the quicksand, and Dar returns the favor by saving them. This same action—chewing something to affect some larger mechanism—comes into play later in the film, when K&P chew a rope to open a city gate. It also figures in when Kodo attacks Maax late in the film in an act of weaseled self-sacrifice.
That was pretty impactful, too—the animals are treated as valued, loved members of Dar’s team. Indeed, they are extensions of Dar, as he shares their senses and thoughts. Dar knows their thoughts and experiences (to some undefined extent) what the animals experience. The implication is that they, too, understand what Dar is thinking.
Naturally, Dar saves the day; Maax is defeated; the boy gets his girl; and Tal becomes King of a restored city. In true barbarian story fashion, Dar now strides off with his beasts and Kiri, opening up the possibility for new adventures (and there were, indeed, two sequels, one of which was direct-to-television).
It’s not high art, but it’s unabashedly fun. If a movie like The Beastmaster were made today, Kiri would be a Mary Sue with super powers; Dar would be an allegory for date-r*pe; Maax would be a symbol of the patriarchy; and Tal would be a demiqueer otherkin who promised all the trans kids would get free gender reassignment surgery. Fortunately, The Beastmaster was made at a time when people appreciated fun flicks in which beautiful people in their physical prime fight against evil wizards attempting to kill babies.
Check this one out!