We are momentarily escaping out of the 70s era to 1981 for the movie “Hawk the Slayer”. If I had a top 10 movie list as a child this movie would have been in it. I loved this movie almost as much as “Excalibur”. The concepts of the characters were pretty cool, though the dwarf was a bit too comical for me. I even incorporated the automatic crossbow into my Dungeons and Dragons game. There is a bit of cheese to this movie but it still is a must see for you fantasy lovers.
This might be pushing it for a 1970′s blog being that this series aired in 1983. I would have been 15 or 16 years old in 1983, depending on what month this movie aired, and I consider that the last year of my child hood. (Let’s face it, 16 years old and a drivers license meant your whole world changes.)
Wizards and Warriors
Wizards and Warriors was a fun, campy series about Prince Erik Greystone who was engaged to Princess Ariel, the daughter of King Baaldorf and Queen Lattinia. Prince Dirk Blackpool was the villain from another kingdom who, along with his brother Justin and servant Marko tried to wreck havoc where ever they could.
Erik, Ariel and Dirk
The one thing I remember most from this series is Ariel had a unicorn that she rode and the horn was always flopping around. Great spoof on sword and sorcery genre and I am waiting patiently for a DVD release.
At some point I am going to have to admit that I am a fantasy freak. I loved fantasy books and movies when I was a growing up and also played lots of Dungeons and Dragons. For those of you with similar interest you may not recognize the name of the movie, The Archer: Fugitive from the Empire, that aired in 1981 but you will remember the story.
The Archer
Thoran is given a magical bow called the Heartbow (Hartbow?) by his mentor. The bow fires blue arrows that blow up on impact. Thoran was part of a nomadic tribe that was wiped out by the evil Draikian Empire. He is on a mission to find the wizard Lazar-Sa, who might be able to help him, and is joined by a thief named Estra who is looking for revenge herself on Lazar-Sa for crimes against her mother.
This was a great movie (great as in how I remember it as a child) but I can’t find it anywhere. Amazon does have some third party resellers but the prices are a little steep for me. I will keep looking for something closer to my price range and preferably already transferred to DVD.
