Don Coscarelli‘s awesome 1982 sword and sorcery film The Beastmaster, loosely based on Andre Norton‘s 1959 novel The Beast Master, stars Marc Singer, Tanya Roberts, John Amos, and Rip Torn. The film follows a man who has the ability to communicate with animals (a la Doctor Doolittle), who seeks revenge against an evil wizard and his army.
Marc Singer plays Dar, a boy born of a beast who discovers that he can communicate with animals, which leads him on his quest for revenge against his father’s killers.
He then uses the power of communicating with them as he goes from tragically saying goodbye to his life-saving dog to comically being saved from impending death-via-quicksand by two adorable ferrets. He goes on to meet beautiful slave Kiri, played by the too-hot-for-words Roberts, in a watering hole.
The Beastmaster was unfortunately released the same year as Albert Pyun’s The Sword and the Sorcerer and John Milius’ Conan the Barbarian, which resulted in it being a box office flop. Despite this, The Beastmaster found new life on cable TV, specifically on HBO and TBS, with the channels dubbed ‘Hey, Beastmaster’s On‘ and ‘The Beastmaster Station,’ respectively. As a result, the film gained popularity and spawned two (really questionable) sequels in the 1990s. Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time was released to limited cinemas in 1991, followed by Beastmaster III: The Eye of Braxus, a made-for-TV film for NBC in 1996, which co-starred ‘Candyman’ actor Tony Todd.
You’ll find a LOT of reviews from people that try to trash The Beastmaster. However, almost NONE of these people were even ALIVE when the movie came out, and/or not even fans of the fantasy sword and sorcery genre, whether or not the movie is any good. They also apply modern thoughts to a completely different era of film.
If you watch The Beastmaster for what it is, and don’t overthink it, overanalyse it, or try and apply some over-woke nonsensical bullshit to it, you’ll have a great time. This, however, does NOT apply to the sequels. Consider yourself warned.
With all this said, the copyright to The Beastmaster’s screenplay has been reclaimed by its original creators. Unfortunately, the original camera negative for the film has been lost, and Coscarelli has been desperate to recover it. Sad-boy times aside, this does pave the way for a new iteration of The Beastmaster by its original creators to entertain audiences all over the world.
So, what do you think of our pick for this Throwback Thursday? Who do you think should be next? Let us know on Twitter.
