Was That Film Really That Bad??? Hawk The Slayer (1980)

With the inevitability of death and taxes, we all knew this one was coming. You can't have a series of posts like WTFRTB without having, in my humble opinion, the cheesiest, most naff fantasy film ever to grace some UK woodland. A childhood favourite of mine (I knew no better, honest, M'Lud), it was with both joy and trepidation that I decided to watch it for the first time in twenty years. So sit back, one and all, for the cinematic experience that is: HAWK THE SLAYER!

Elder brother of Buffy.

Released in 1980, this 94 minute fantasy adventure was initially intended as an historic dark ages homage to the likes of Yojimbo and A Fistful of Dollars. Instead, they added a touch of magic (to the story, not the film making itself) and we got this movie instead. The plot, such as it is, follows Hawk (John Terry) whose evil brother Voltan (Jack Palance - this is the first sign that things are not what they seem) has killed their father (and in the past also killed Hawk's wife) after trying to get his hands on the last Elven mind stone. Said stone was around Daddy's neck but Voltan runs off before discovering this. Hawk comforts his dying father, who gives him the mind stone and shows him how to attach it to the hand shaped pommel of a nearby sword (handy that!), which now obeys Hawk's thoughts. Hawk then vows to kill his brother. Voltan kidnaps an Abbess from an abbey where a recuperating soldier (Ranulf) was resting, so Ranulf and Hawk team up alongside a motley crew of fantasy tropes (Gort, (giant), Crow (elf), Baldin (dwarf) and Woman (sorceress - seriously that's what she's called throughout the film), to stop Voltan and his evil ways. 

With me so far? Good. So was that film really that bad?

(Sigh) Where to begin???

Let's get the casting out of the way first. John Terry, nice bloke he may be, is not good here. With dead, soulless eyes (that the camera keeps cutting to) and an unrepentant American accent that compliments his dead badger style delivery, it's almost as if he has watched an Eastwood western but completely missed the point (and tone) of the delivery. Of course, that performance is in complete contrast to Jack Palance who, let's be honest here, must have owed someone a fucking huge favour (or they paid him a metric fuck-ton of cash) in order to have appeared in this. His performance is full of gusto, much like a pantomime dame, and whilst his enthusiasm is contagious, it has all of the effect on Terry as a pocket cagoule in a thunderstorm. Palance knows he's starring in a crap film but is playing it for keeps and I really can't blame him for that.

The supporting cast (labelled guest stars in the opening credits - guest stars in a film??? TV, yes, film, no) are a mixed bag. Bernard Bresslaw as Gort has enough cheap film making experience in his past to know the score and, like Palance, give his role some welly. Ray Charleson as Crow is monotone and serious at all times, the consummate professional gun archer for hire. Talking very much like a robot, he's sounds identical to Roddy McDowell's V.I.N.C.E.N.T from Disney's The Black Hole. Peter O'Farell as Baldin plays it for laughs and pretty much winks at the camera in every scene he's in. The late, great W Morgan Sheppard delivers a sturdy and respectable performance as Ranulf - indeed, he's probably the best out of the lot of them and has that lovely gravelly voice that never seemed to change throughout the years. Patricia Quinn as Woman (Sorceress) gets a deal as raw as her throat must have been from all of that hoarse whispering. Sadly, you will care little for any of our heroes as there is bugger all character development throughout the film. We don't even get much of an explanation of Voltan's reliance on a Dark Lord, who seems to act more as a demonic ophthalmologist than a driving force for Voltan's actions. 

It doesn't end there though. 

Annette Crosbie gives the film some gravitas as the Abbess, gravitas that is kicked, stabbed, garrotted and burned by Shane Briant as Drogo, Voltan's adopted evil son. Every time he appears on screen, you can almost hear the booing from the crew, he's that much of a panto villain. The rest of the background cast, including Roy Kinnear, Christopher Benjamin, Derrick O'Connor, Patrick Magee and Warren Clarke are familiar faces and add a hint of Dr. Who style casting to the proceedings. In fact, it appears as if half of the cast were culled from that show's casting sheets, or were just out walking the dog one day when they were dragged into costume and make up then shoved in front of the camera. At least they'd have been used to the low budget shooting approach to the film, with costumes and props feeling like something out of Who or Blake's 7. That's also the level you should think of when it comes to the dialogue too - and that's not to detract from either TV show - at their worst, they're on a par with Hawk the Slayer, and that's probably doing them a disservice. Depending on the actor, they're either too pompous, too bored, overly dramatic or just plain phoning it in. Combine that with the aforementioned lack of character development and it's hard to feel any engagement with the story or the participants.

We few, we happy few, we band of RADA's

Ah, yes, the budget. Hawk has very much a distinctive look, and that look is either a cheap indoor set that would make the Crystal Maze blush, a random back garden for the flashback scenes or some woods just off the A3. Indoors, you can't escape the lack of money, no matter what the crew do to make it look better. Outside, they mostly rely on smoke machines to hide the fact that they only have 30 square meters of woodland to play with. And when I say smoke, I mean smoke, a Silent Hill level of haze, to the point where it is difficult to see what the hell is actually going on. As for those flashbacks, seriously, that is someone's prized rhododendron bush that Palance storms out of. Props are cheap, studio work is obvious and as for the creature in the dangerous forest, well... Just well...

A Jack in the bush...

The tosh continues with Crow and Ranulf's shooting of bow and crossbow respectively. Repeating the same arrow/bolt firing (did I mention Ranulf has a fully automatic crossbow?) is a basic trick, but falls down when they don't change aim but kill people all over the place. Hawk's sword (no, don't even go there, that's my job and I'll do that later...) is also a doozy, moving into and out of his hands at will, as well as having that same "ting" sound dubbed every single time it makes contact in a sword fight. To make things more exciting, we get slow motion bits, like Hawk on horseback, Hawk running, and even the climactic sword fight. Sadly, these do nothing to raise the pulse - hell, it just makes the latter look as bad as it probably was to film.

Like a "fire bolt", I'll come bouncing back to you...

There are more laugh out loud bits: the Sorceress rescues the team with a stick shooting green silly string to the sound of a gunshot whilst the sleeping bad guys remain undisturbed; the slaver with his over-sized Mace(!), and the use of an actual test tube to deliver a sleeping drug to a mug of beer is the cherry on the top. But hold on, says I, what about the climactic raid on the abbey? Oh Jeez! "Fire bolts" in the form of flashing coloured bouncing balls sounding like laser blasts, followed up by an avalanche of fake snow! By the time that battle ends, the place is a tip, yet two minutes later, Hawk and Voltan have their final fight in the same room with no mess but neatly re-arranged furniture and bodies. You do get to see Hawk's "Sword" pose, so there is that. 

A big Hawk's Sword... told you I would go there...

Finally, we get to the music. Some weird clash of folk, disco and pipe music, with added notes of Western film, pop and synthesiser, this is all over the place but also, curiously, well suited to the film. As batshit crazy as it sounds, you'll find yourself humming bits of it long after the movie has over. 

You may be thinking then that I don't like Hawk The Slayer much. Well, you'd be wrong. This is a gloriously bad film that remains entertaining and a cheesy delight to watch. Yes, the plot is daft. Yes, there are no real characters. Yes, the acting ranges from dire to panto-heaven. Yes, it's cheap. But, it doesn't hang around for long and that's to its credit. What you get is 90 odd minutes of cinematic Stilton that warrants, nay demands, a drinking game. Every time you hear "Woman!", every time pan pipes play, every time a recognisable bit player is on screen, the options are endless. Just don't drink every time there is smoke on screen. You'll be dead before the half way mark! 

A true classic of the "so bad, it's good" genre.