Deathbone — Deathbone(DVD)
During the 1980s the sword and sorcery movie rose to prominence through a handful of really strong movies, most notably John Milius’s Conan the barbarian starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Don Coscarelli’s Beastmaster and John Boorman’s Arthurian classic Excalibur. These movies led to a host of copycats including the likes of the Roger Corman produced Deathstalker series, and a host of cheap Italian rip-offs including Umberto Lenzi’s The Iron Master and Joe D’Amato’s Ator the Fighting Eagle. In the 90s the genre fell out of favour until it was revitalised by the likes of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of Rings series and HBO’s Game of Thrones. Ten years after Jackson’s first instalment of LOTR was released Chris Seaver(Mulva 2: Kill Teen Ape, Sexsquatch and The Meter Man) released his own interpretation of the genre, Deathbone, Third Blood Part VII: The Blood of Deathbone to give it it’s full title.
Shot on a budget that looks minuscule, even when comparing it to the cheapest Italian titles, Deathbone is a very silly parody of the sword and sorcery movie. After an Elvin village is attacked and taken captive by the Goblin warlord Vondruke, the warrior Deathbone is pressed into action to banish evil and restore peace to the kingdom of Mukklak.
Billy Garberina (Necroville, Moist Fury and Alice in Deathland) takes on the role of the hero, Deathbone. His performance is disturbingly and deliberately awful, a spoof Johnny Rambo playing at being Conan the Barbarian in what looks like a home movie. He is assisted by a band of misfits who look like they’ve been dragged straight from a LARP session. The script is rubbish, the special makeup effects are second rate, the humour and pop culture references are all over the place. In fact, there are no real redeeming features with the exception of the use of some great power metal tunes that don’t fit the movie at all. Somehow, these elements combine to create something that has a cheesy charm all of its own. Sometimes we hear the term so bad it’s good, well this isn’t good by any stretch of the imagination but it’s still fun in places.
The film is shot on video, and I would imagine it looks and sounds as good as it is ever going to. It may not be the next Lord of the Rings, Beastmaster or even Deathstalker but it remains a very cheap fun parody of those films. This DVD from SRS Home video adds a bunch of crazy trailers to the mix as well as an audio commentary with director Seaver and actor Casey Bowker, who plays the evil Vondruke in the movie. There is also a making of documentary to round out the bonus materials on the disc. Overall, they’ve done a pretty good job of putting this disc together, the film won’t appeal to everyone, but there are a select group of individuals who will probably love this. I must admit, despite the ineffectiveness of its various different parts, I still managed to enjoy it.