Conquest [1983]

Hold onto your hats, interpals, because I am going to pitch Lucio Fulci's "Conquest" to you:

A young twink named Ileus in scanty leather armor traverses a swampy stone age wasteland on a quest for personal improvement, armed only with his magical bow. He is befriended by a Beastmaster-like warrior named Mace, runs afoul of a topless be-G-stringed sorceress in a metal mask and her legion of trampoline-bouncing wookies, learns to steal food from unwitting cavemen, falls in some holes (significantly, NOT in an If-You-Know-What-I-Mean way), gets kidnapped a few times, and teaches Mace the true meaning of friendship... or... something.

I know, I know--you're racing to your DVD seller of choice RIGHT NOW, but I urge you to read further and, much like the hero of our tale, make wise decisions that will aid in your personal growth as opposed to just falling into another hole, which would just result in your re-kidnapping.

"Conquest"could have--should have--been an absolutely off-the-charts, pants-wetteningly awesome film. Further to the pitch above and certainly in line with Fulci's output during the 1980s, "Conquest's" sword-and-sorcery-meets-"Quest for Fire" story is injected with a significant amount of squishy gore effects work. Any excuse to show exposed brains, squirting wounds, melting flesh, and/or dripping neck stumps is capitalized upon--including making the funeral pyre of one character into a gross-out setpiece. Hell--the movie *almost* earns the coveted Rapey Half-Mans-Half-Monkeys tag when the evil sorceress' wookie-ish henchmonsters grab an unwitting cavegirl by the ankles, only to tear her in half rather than engaging in an UNHOLY UNION with her.

The creature effects range from hilarious to actually-kinda-creepy. The evil wolf-like monsters made me chuckle in the best possible way when they were on-screen, looking as if they were made of carpet remnants. A group of creatures made of rock look not un-good when they're lying in wait for Mace, and the swamp monsters that Mace fights are downright eerie. The design of the demon summoned by the sorceress is evocative of primitive Chinese jade statuary and looks pretty boss as well. Bonus points that, by wearing masks, all the actors in these roles have plausible deniability for appearing in this film!

Moving on to the Boob Quotient in "Conquest." Simply put: It's high--REALLY high. Not so much in the number of boobs one sees, but the relative quality of the boobs is extraordinary. There are a few cavegirl boob cameos, but the boob star of the film is Sabrina Siani as evil sorceress Ocron. The camera positively *leers* over her pulchritude as she engages in (sexy) magical rituals, (sexy) wookie-torture, and (sexy) exposition. I mean, seriously--is there ANYTHING the camera loves more than a lightly-oiled model wrapped in a boa constrictor? THIS person with a fine art degree thinks NOT.

There's an aggressive flaunting of continuity in this film that warms my heart. The entire story hinges on the fact that the people of this kinda-magical world have only stone age technology and are awed when Ileus waltzes into town with a bow and yet... multiple characters wear metal masks, and an unseen, unnamed and never-revisited being launches volley after volley of arrows at the heroes at one point. Someone, somewhere used some hott smelting action but never thought to apply it to weaponry, in spite of the fact that fighting seems to be the only thing these motherfuckers DO in this universe. Maybe in the Stone Age, people (and, presumably, wookies, swamp creatures, and rock monsters) have not yet developed long term memory? Perhaps in the ancient past, life was like "Groundhog Day" ALL THE TIME?

I know--you're five paragraphs in, you're salivating, and you're wondering why I'm still reluctant to lavish the Tenebrous Praises on "Conquest." That, lieblings and liebchens, means it's time to move on to the regrettably bad portion of the conversation--trust me when I say it goes WAY deeper than the lack of any actual conquesting in the storyline.

You know all that AWESOME JUNK detailed above? Well, it seems like Fulci and cinematographer Alejandro Ulloa don't actually want you to see any of it, because they do their best to obscure the mind-boggling visuals with the softest focus lens this side of vintage "Penthouse." Better yet--sometimes they throw mist, smoke, AND darkness into the mix (sometimes all at once) to ensure that there's no fucking WAY you're going to slap eyeballs on any nipply, blood-soaked goodness. It's not as if these are accidental choices, either, since many of them are contrived within the plot! Our heroes are constantly falling into caves, being stolen away at night, and traversing swamps, and Ileus' bow has the magical power to call the sun from the sky in order to create a magical arrow, thus--you guessed it-- plunging the world into pitch darkness.

I was desperate to love "Conquest," but the cinematography used is just so bad, it distracts and ultimately detracts from everything that's so marvelous about the movie. Towards the end of the film, I had to admit defeat when close to a minute of on-screen action was obscured by darkness, leaving me with nothing more than grunting, thudding, squelching foley work. By dint of the glaucomavision used throughout, I just can't bring myself to tag this movie for re-watch, which is just a goddamn shame.

Click here for a Flickr gallery of stills from "Conquest"--if you squint, you can almost make out the contents!