User reviews

At the end during the credits there is basically something that says there is going to be a sequel, but there never was one. Kind of surprising they didn't considering this made 39 million back in 1982 which was a good take to say the least for that time. Considering it was rated R and didn't have anyone really big in it...the only person I recognize in the cast is Richard Moll. In the end though they didn't, which is too bad. This one is a good, bloody, fantasy film. The story isn't the best, but it has good action and sword fights, though the director really likes to show scenes where swords break like glass. As a kid I had trouble following the plot though as it was a bit hard to distinguish the good and bad guys, but later when I saw it, it was easier though I still say it could use a better plot.

The main reason this movie was even made was that they wanted it to be in theaters at around the same time as the film "Conan the Barbarian" in 1982. Believe it or not, both films were even released by the same studio! If the films had been made thirty years earlier, they would have been released as a double feature. They were part of a wave of sword fight pictures that included "Excalibur" and "Dragonslayer." Without a lot of fanfare, "Sword and the Sorcerer" managed to become a minor hit. One of the cast members was on a talk show and confessed that the success of the film was a surprise because that person thought it was not very good.

I enjoyed the action scenes and some of the humor. It has some good one-liners. The second half also has generates a fair amount of tension concerning the whereabouts of the sorcerer mentioned in the title. I also liked how the forces came together randomly for the climatic battle scenes. True, the film has many flaws, but it still works for me as an enjoyable adventure. It is the kind of thing I watch on a Friday night to ease me into the weekend.

Add me to the list of those disappointed that the sequel promised in the closing credits was never made.

One of the first fantasy adventure flicks to cash in on the success of Schwarzeneggar's Conan, The Sword and the Sorcerer has stuck in my mind over the past 30 years thanks to its relatively high level of gore and female nudity. Unfortunately, what I couldn't remember was just how crap the less exploitative elements of the film are. Lame fight scenes, a confusing meandering plot, half-assed humour, characters with really dumb names, wooden acting, and terrible direction: they're all here in abundance.

Let's concentrate on the positives then...

Pop this one into the player and you'll be greeted by a surprisingly good opening scene in which ancient sorcerer Xusia, resurrected to help villain Cromwell (Richard Lynch) in his quest for world domination, demonstrates his power by using magic to tear the heart from a witch. Some decent splattery make-up effects easily make this one of the best parts of the whole film. Juicy!

Not much later and we get to see the film's titular sword, a truly impressive piece of weaponry—triple bladed, with two of these blades able to be fired from the hilt at high velocity. This is inherited by young warrior Talon after Cromwell ruthlessly slaughters his family and their people. Boo hissss!

Years pass, the story gets awfully convoluted and characters come and go, but at least we get some scantily clad wenches to help take our minds off the sloppiness of the script, best of all being buxom, doe-eyed beauty Alana (Kathleen Beller), who along with her brother Mikah (Simon MacCorkindale) is plotting a rebellion against Cromwell. They hire the now grown up Talon (played by Lee Horsley) to help their cause. Cool!

Talon gets in lots of fairly bloody but badly choreographed fights, encountering more semi-clothed women along the way, but is eventually captured and crucified, large nails piercing both his hands. He gets free, of course, and with the help of Mikah, some friendly seadogs, and a few farmers, defeats Cromwell's soldiers. During this fight, we get a brief but really gory shot of a head being cleaved in two. Nice!

The end of the film sees Talon, armed with his massive weapon (oo-err), chasing down Cromwell only to be confronted by Xusia, who has been masquerading as Cromwell's evil adviser Machelli. Here we get another decent effects scene as the sorcerer sheds his human guise, tearing away the flesh from his face and arms. Yuck!

However, as enjoyable as certain individual moments are, the movie as a whole is a mess, a distinctly mediocre fantasy that I imagine will have many viewers fast-forwarding through in order to get to the next 'good bit'.

Albert Pyun's minor budgeted sword and sorcery foray is just as amusing now, as I remembered it to be and one of the better (if not one of the best) attempts of the over-flooded sub-genre that skyrocketed in the 80s. Never does it cop out on the ingredients that make this type of b-films fun. The wonderful camp level is high, as blood and flesh (topless mainly) run freely. Pace stays zippy, and while the pulpy story has cut and dry outline, it still has personality and a complex array of schemes to keep it excitingly brash, and not just relying on set-pieces. Don't go looking for a mythical medieval journey filled with a variety of beasties, and obstacles on this one though. It's the standard boy seeks revenge when grown up on the man who killed his family, and took over his father's thrown. The hacked-up script is colourfully tacky, but has an agreeable sarcastic edge and unpretentious novelties streaming off it. Sure there are some untied plot details, but never does it fault the entertainment. Yes its entertainment, that's better not to delve too hard in to. Pyun (in his directorial debut) confidently does a workable job constructing an epic scale treatment, by using his budget wisely. Enthusiastic set-designs, and prop work look respectable and are well-integrated. We get bravado sword fights, busting with adrenaline and guts. It's pure mayhem during certain stages, but commendably executed. Then there's the potent make-up FX that holds a vivid imagination, and brutal punch. David Whittaker spirited score chimes in largely, and overwhelms many sequences. Lee Horsley makes for a charming, brawn heroine and a lively Richard Lynch mercifully eats it up as the clichéd villain of the piece. Kathleen Beller stands tall with her bold performance, and makes for nice eye-candy. Simon MacCorkindale has a strong showing, and Richard Boll (in gooey make-up) stands out too in his role as a monstrous sorcerer. In solid support are George Maharis, Joe Regalbuto and a formidable Robert Tessier.

An evil conqueror Cromwell (Richard Lynch) revives an even more evil sorcerer Xuxia (Richard Moll) to help him to battle against the king of Aragorn (no kidding) Richard. So short story short, the Vromwell wins and executes the king and the queen and guess who stays alive to seek vengeance? Bingo. The prince Talon (Lee Horsley) and his silly three bladed sword, that can shoot blades as a projectiles.

Now, all things considered, this is a silly movie. In fact, I would dare to go as far, and say it's pretty idiotic. But, from the reasons beyond my poor knowledge, I liked it. not that I'm gonna give it 10 stars or anything, but it was surprisingly enjoyable, as far, that I liked it better than Red Sonja and that dreadful Conan The Barbarian sequel, Conan The Destroyer.

Acting is pretty horrendous in this film, just as the plot. But the film manages to be pretty funny, some times unintentionally (the projectile sword), sometimes intentionally. It keeps its quirky tongue in cheek atmosphere pretty well to the end, so it ain't that bad way to spend a couple of hours.

I'm sorry that a sequel was never made of The Sword And The Sorcerer. It was fairly obvious that Lee Horsley got caught up with his Matt Houston series at the time. This one was a very well done fantasy adventure.

Lee Horsley plays Talon deprived of his rightful place as king by evil usurper Richard Lynch who employs the black arts of sorcery to conquer the kingdom run by Horsley's father. Talon who is a child at the time flees, but grows up to be an adventurer medieval soldier of fortune with one nasty triple sword that actually fires two of its blades like a spring, the better to take care of more than one adversary.

In the meantime brother and sister Simon MacCorkindale and Kathleen Beller are having Richard Lynch now threaten their domain. Of course it is the mysterious Horsley that comes to their aid.

Lynch of whom I can't think of playing any good guys in his career is as evil as they come. Soon after resurrecting a wizard to help him in his quest, he kills the same wizard played by Richard Moll. But the sorcerer is far from done with him.

And there's George Maharis a mysterious nobleman with his own agenda involving the kingdom.

Horsley cut quite the romantic medieval figure and Kathleen Beller is a beautiful doe eyed princess who knows exactly where men are vulnerable in protecting her virtue. Nice special effects also characterize The Sword And The Sorcerer. I wish Horsley had done more films with his Talon character.

Okay, I won't say this was a bad movie. I will say it was underdeveloped and not very entertaining. As part of the "80's fantasy" genre, this movie had a lot to live up to. It should have at least been mildly entertaining, but very little, if any, of this movie was entertaining or memorable.

The Sword and the Sorcerer is a cult classic about a warrior prince named Talon, who sets out to bring down the evil king, Titus Cromwell, who killed his parents and stole his kingdom. And...And...from this point on, the movie has no plot, simply winging it's way through the story. As I'm sure has been mentioned before, this movie seems to shift from an adventure movie, to a scary movie, to a fantasy movie. There were also a lot of gaping plot holes, most notably, when a group of warriors plot to break in to Cromwell's dungeon. Wow, that sounds exciting. And then, the very next scene shows all of them talking about how the plan was a failure. Seriously, we never even get to see the actual fight. Wasted opportunity! It's good as a Laurel and Hardy moment, this isn't a Laurel and Hardy movie, is it?

The acting was mediocre to just plain bad! The characters were two-dimensional at best. There was no backstory for any of them, and none of them really had anything interesting to do or say. There were some characters with some potential, but they were overlooked. However, my favorite character in the movie was Cromwell's harem, Elizabeth. Not only was she cute, but she was the one character who had any sort of personality. She was sweet, she was caring, and she was brave. Unfortunately, she was killed off halfway through the movie. What a waste! You don't feel for any of these characters, because you just don't care. The funny thing is, you actually want to, but this movie gives you nothing to like about them.

As the title suggests, there is a sword and a sorcerer in the movie. But neither are on screen for very long. The Triple Sword was an unrealistic, but still very cool, weapon. It's a sword with literally three blades, and the two outer blades shoot out like missiles (like I said not very realistic, but still very cool). It only appears at the beginning and end of the movie. The sorcerer, Xusia (played by Bull from Night Court), also appears in the beginning and end of the movie, although he appears in disguise for most of the movie. Xusia's main power seems to be ripping out people's hearts by waving his hand at them. He helps Cromwell take over, and then Cromwell tries to kill him. Xusia plots his revenge for most of the movie. For a fantasy movie, I would've also liked to have seen more monsters, more magic, more...fantasy elements.

The only really entertaining part of this movie is a showdown between Talon, Cromwell and Xusia. Talon uses the Triple Sword, Cromwell gets a good weapon and Xusia tries to pull out their hearts by waving at them (Talon stops him by shooting him with the sword). It's an entertaining fight, but really doesn't redeem the movie.

A weak plot, no good special effects and a lot of underdeveloped characters, I think this movie was still in post-production when it was released. Oh well, if you happen to see this in your local video store, just leave it alone.

This is a wonderfully well-done feature with top marks for its value in sheer fun.

If you're not into fantasy, see this anyway as a great swashbuckler a la the Errol Flynn-as-hero genre. (And Lee Horsley even resembles Errol throughout this film, which I was fortunate enough to see theatrically at time of release.)

There are terrific villains galore, rip-roaring adventure, great castles and dungeons, complicated skullduggery, and comeuppance aplenty, all done with delicate humor.

This is great screen entertainment with a '40s-'50s look to it, and that's a compliment. There are no wasted moments. The fast-moving story relies much more on quality writing, acting and expert direction rather than copping out with the sort of elaborate special-effects that producers/directors of such films seem to lean on so heavily now, nearly two decades later.

I think it's a classic, and a model, of its type.

Highly recommended to all except small children.

In a distant fantastical past, the rightful heir of a conquered kingdom (Lee Horsley) returns to his homeland as the formidable leader of a mercenary band. He assists "Prince" Mikah (Simon MacCorkindale) and his cute sister (Kathleen Beller) to overthrow the evil king (Richard Lynch) and his former evil sorcerer (Richard Moll).

"The Sword and the Sorcerer" debuted two weeks before "Conan the Barbarian" in the spring of 1982 and it's just a second-rate S&S adventure by comparison. It's heroic fantasy with the tone of Star Wars, but without the blockbuster budget and in-depth characters. In light of the somewhat kiddie vibe I was surprised by the female top-nudity. "Conan" was heroic fantasy as well, but it lacked the Star Wars air, had more interesting characters, a compelling story and a mind-blowing score by Basil Poledouris. I'm surprised that BOTH movies raked in roughly the same amount domestically at the box office, almost $40 million.

Speaking of the story, the set-up in the first act is too convoluted to create any drive, although the opening on Tomb Island where the hideous Xusia is resurrected in the bowels of the earth is well done. Horsley is gallant and Beller is adorable, but the characters are paper thin. At just over an hour and a half, the tortuous story has no time to breathe and therefore fails to flesh-out the heroes or villains, like "Conan" did. That said, some of the characters are kinda memorable, like the spirited black warrior (whom I can't discern from the cast list). While there are worthwhile bits throughout this movie they don't amount to a quality S&S picture. "The Sword and the Sorcerer" is decidedly bush league.

The end credits claim that the sequel is "coming soon." Actually, it didn't surface until 28 years later under the title "Abelar: Tales of an Ancient Empire" (2010).

The film runs 1 hour, 39 minutes and was shot in Southern Cal (Griffith Park, Los Angeles; Culver City; and Riverside).

GRADE: C/C-

"I have a debt to pay" ... for 15 years of viewing pleasure. This film is an absolute joy, untarnished by repeated viewings, sadly overshadowed by Schwarzeneger's vastly inferior Conan movies, and unreasonably critically trashed alongside truly terrible contemporary low budget thud and blunder efforts. The script creaks more than the plot, but reigned in from the curse of camp by director Albert Pyun the actors deliver their lines with a straight face and leave the the audience to find the comedy themselves. Almost a dictionary definition of "ahead of its time", the film is a blueprint for the success of Sam Raimi's Hercules and Xena, right down to the use of Australian bit players. Effects like the demon sorceror's tomb might be managed better technically today, but no more atmospherically, and the closing sword battle is a triumph. The performances are eccentric and electric, and you could not wish for a more motley crew of cut-throats and sidekicks. Richard Lynch eats the scenery with unalloyed zeal, and quite simply more of Lee Horsley as Talon would have made the movie world a better place.

If you can possible get hold of the Rifftraxx version of the film, it turns this piece of ponderous dreck into something really fun.

Lee Horsley (Easily the most likable barbarian warrior) stars as Talon a mercenary hired to save the brother of a rebel princess, the reward of course is one night with that said rebel princess and so armed with a spring loaded sword which shoots out (Also looks heavy as hell) Talon takes on Titus(Richard Lynch) the man who killed his father much sword and sorcery action takes place. I proclaimed in one of my reviews (That dealt with Albert Pyun) that I figured his best movie was Kickboxer 2 or Kickboxer 4, that is until I went and clicked on Albert Pyun's name and saw that he had gone and directed one of my childhood favorites. The Sword And Sorcerer is of course a rip off Conan The Barbarian but this one feels no less epic and Pyun's style seems appropriate provided he doesn't go crazy with his camera angles. He keeps it under control here and he brings a real sense of excitement to the action. Sword and Sorcerer is also helped by Horsley's performance which is build on humor, intelligence and charisma. Whatever to this guy? So even though Pyun did direct the movie this is still a must see and I think it is perfect for anyone who likes the Sword and Sorcery genre. Also there is tons of gore which I look at as very favorable.

* * * out of 4-(Good)

..You know what to expect from this another Conan the Barbarian rip-off this time from Albert Pyun and 1982. The Sword and the Sorcerer is incredibly stupid and the film makers were of course serious. It is funny how these film makers who cashed in with the success of Conan (John Milius) and Excalibur (John Boorman) miss the point which made these two films so great and classic. It was and is not about big men playing with magic swords and every place filled with busty females (always naked), but still these rip offs are so much guilty pleasures that I think I can sit the film for the second time in near future before selling my DVD away.

The atmosphere is occasionally, especially at the end in the cave, pretty nice as the ground is covered with mysterious mist and fog. Also, the sword fight in the cave with the fountain on the background looks great, really. So Pyun must have some visual eye, too, unless some other directed those scenes, which I don't want to believe, for Albert's sake.

But when the monster arrives the credibility tones down a "little" bit. The monster is very cheesy even though it was meant to look scary and HORRIFIC! The sword action and fist fights are there to deliver some violence and on that level this succeeds as greatly as showing the females naked. When the stupid and calculated finale and irritating attitudes and pieces of dialogue are added, I should already hate this film, and that, unfortunately, I think I do. If it was even little less childish and more serious I would appreciate this much more, but now I have hard times even to appreciate it as a turkey. Fortunately there's Kathleen Beller, who is very beautiful creature in this film otherwise full of ugly men and macho attitude. The three bladed sword is pretty interesting and seems to work fine, too.

Albert Pyun has made alarmingly many bad films (check out Cyborg (1989) starring Jean-Claude Van Damme), and The Sword and the Sorcerer isn't an exception. Some may enjoy this but I think this is too stupid and I don't want to waste my time with this kind of cinema as there are so many greater films which still wait to be watched and discovered. But due to the few scenes of genuine atmosphere, I give this 2/10.

I'm watching the RiffTrax version, but I've seen this years ago.

Another movie based entirely around a gimmick weapon.

His sword has the same flaw as the original Clash of the Titians... No torque.

Why is this guy holding a pineapple helmet?

Isn't Talon overheating? He is wearing way too much for the temperature.

Talon is a one trick pony. Use something besides fire.

Don't thank him until your out.

So many people in this movie need a serious haircut. I've seen less out of co trim hair during the pandemic.

There is not a lot of sword and barely any sorcerer.

Is it in his contract that he must always wear something overly fluffy on this shoulders?

I was gonna say this is the perfect time for a headbutt.

Who puts people in jail with all their stuff?

Thanks for the needless slow pan to his other hand.

Well you wasted a lot of time passing swords.

Why did he keep pumping the grinder when his own head was going into it? At least less fever.

Why is that random noble at the dinner table wearing a plush hat, a cape, and not shirt? I mean there are plenty of people in this movie without a shirt that should have one, but this guy is just awkward looking. No one will take him seriously.

How did this movie make almost 10 times its budget?

Shouldn't bleeds from his neck have an advantage over bleeds from his eyes?

This is where they got the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

What's not to like? A great balance among all the elements of what makes film fun. Lee Horsley resembles Errol Flynn, and Robert Tessier fills the screen and steals every scene, as always. Richard Lynch curls his lip a lot, the sneering Jay Robinson is on board, and the special effects don't interfere with the plot, as in today's SFX-o-ramas. Plenty of gorgeous gals in great costumes, and without great costumes. Shakespearean skullduggery abounds everywhere, buckles get swashed, and people walked out of the theatre saying "I thought they didn't know how to make them like that anymore." (Hey, wait a minute ... we're STILL saying that!) Highly recommended!

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.