The Dungeonmaster (1984) User Reviews

Very silly - and very amusing.

[Hey_Sweden · 6/10 · 4 November 2013]

Do you love excessive doses of 1980s cheese? "Ragewar" (re-titled "The Dungeonmaster" to profit from the popularity of the Dungeons & Dragons game) is the movie for you! It's one of the most deliriously cruddy B movies that this viewer has seen from that decade. If you're anything like this viewer, you'll be smiling while also shaking (or holding) your head. It's that goofy. The acting is priceless, the special effects plentiful, the sequences blessedly brief, and it never pretends to be serious stuff. Hell, it's got to get an extra point for the cameo by heavy metal band W.A.S.P. alone.

Each sequence is written and directed by a different director, and there are *seven* of them in total: Rosemarie Turko, John Carl Buechler, Charles Band, David Allen, Steven Ford, Peter Manoogian, and Ted Nicolaou. They each tackle a different "challenge" that computer repairman Paul Bradford (Jeffrey Byron) must meet as he is menaced by an overlord named Mestema (Richard 'Bull' Moll of 'Night Court') who's been looking for a worthy opponent. Also along for the ride is Pauls' imperiled girlfriend Gwen (Leslie Wing). Fortunately, Paul has on his side a computer intelligence that he's created that he can conveniently wear around his wrist.

If you're still reading, you should have a fairly good time with this, knowing full well that the movie itself may not be "good", but earns many big laughs. Makeup effects expert Buechler and the late special effects artist Allen do some good work, the music is fun to listen to (both the score and the W.A.S.P. tune "Tormentor"), the acting from the heroes endearing if not that competent, and Band and company throw many different elements - a claymation giant, ice "sculptures", post-nuke mutant bikers, a serial killer, cartoon dragons - to help prevent us from ever getting bored.

If I'd first seen this back when it was originally released, doubtless my rating would have been even higher.

Confused patchwork scifi/fantasy film from producer Charles Band

[AlsExGal · 4/10 · 11 September 2018]

.Jeffrey Byron stars as a computer technician who, along with girlfriend Leslie Wing, gets transported to another dimension to do battle with Mestema (Richard Moll from TV's Night Court). Mestema is a Satan-like evil wizard who wants to pit his magical prowess against the technology of the hero. He does so by transporting the newly-outfitted computer tech to various scenarios that he then has to escape from/defeat the monstrous villains in his way. These scenarios include an ice cave filled with random statuary (a wolfman, a witch doctor, Jack the Ripper) that come to life and attack him; a cave with a little horned troll on a throne who commands zombie warriors; another cave (sensing a trend here?) with yet another horned troll; another scene takes place in a nightclub during a stage performance by the hairmetal band W.A.S.P., because why not? Each segment was written and directed by different people, 7 in all, which helps explain the lack of tonal consistency. Fans of garbage 80's genre cinema may find something to chew on, but most viewers should avoid.

Oh, come on!

[rgibson103 · 4/10 · 12 February 2007]

2.5 out of 10? Really? It's not that bad for what I'd like to call - along with ELIMINATORS - a proto-video game movie. Say you're working at your standard schlock factory - i.e. Empire Pictures - and you and six of your other director friends do a semi-anthology piece for fun together. You end up with this ....

Think DRAGON'S LAIR with a Clark Kentish nerd in Subzero's ninja get-up from MORTAL KOMBAT, only instead of a dragon there's Bull Shannon from NIGHT COURT as the villain. When you're done laughing, crack open your beer. Now here's the punchline: you can watch it with your kids. No boobs, no blood. When you're done doing a spit take, wipe your mouth, and give it a shot.

Vintage essence of 1980s in a bottle, stop-motion courtesy of Dave Allen - of LASERBLAST infamy, and a Charles Band soundtrack.

~Ray

A good movie, misunderstood

[Tallgeese · 13 June 2001]

Part of the problem is the plot summary is innacurate; the idea is that the 'Dungeonmaster' is looking for a worth opponent. He sees the hero, the nerd, and sees his skills, he decides to pull him into his world and put him through the challenges, using the guys girlfriend as collateral should the hero decline. It was a good movie, especially considering that Empire pictures wasn't some huge company like Universal.

Apparently, Bull from Night Court had a secret life as Satan!

[Aaron1375 · 3/10 · 24 May 2009]

I just watched this film again after a very long time. The only other time I viewed this film is when it was released as my parents took me to see this one in the theater. Why we went to see this, is beyond me, but while this film is quite bad it is still rather cool we saw kind of a random film like this in the theater. Back in the day, movie theaters did not just do Hollywood blockbusters week after week, during off times they would show more obscure films like this. House By the Cemetery is another I had the fortune of seeing in the theater (or misfortune). I watched it again and was amazed at how short it was. That is the best thing to be said about the film, it was very short. It was done by Charles Band though of Full Moon fame, so I guess it should not have been that surprising seeing as how many of his films clock in at under 1 hour and 20 minutes. Heck, if you do not sit through the credits here, the thing will clock in under and hour and ten minutes! The film is very random as they had multiple directors for reasons unknown as it really is not an anthology and it is not as if the story is vastly different in the 'segments' if you will. Just seems like a film that seemed like a cool idea in someone's head, but as they filmed they quickly realized they really did not have all that much material to even make it.

The story starts with a dream sequence, at least on the DVD I got. I, for the life of me, do not remember this sequence from years ago. However, the lead girl gets fully nude, so I am thinking perhaps this was not in the cut I saw back then because that is something I would have remembered. Kind of like how I remembered Trash dancing in the graveyard in "Return of the Living Dead". It then switches to a tech geek and establishes his relationship between he and a girl with a throwaway line about him being in an experiment that made him fully integrate with his computer and which seemed to have no real bearing on the story. Then they are both transported to a realm where Bull, oh I mean Mestema sends the hero to do different challenges. The hero must clear all seven or Mestema will have he and the girl's souls! The challenges are random and do not really seem like they have any reason to them! The first is in an icy museum where the figures come to life, the second a cave where the hero must battle the dead, the third a Wasp concert, the fourth battling a giant and little people, the fifth the hero must stop a serial killer. This one seems so out of place and is the longest, so I'm guessing it was needed to be so long to pad the film a little and save some money as it inexplicably took place in the real world. The sixth made no sense as it was the hero throwing rocks at a troll creature and for reasons unknown lasers were shooting and finally a road warrior type area where they use some vehicles that looked left over from the set of Megaforce. Inbetween the challenges the hero would debate Mestema, they had to do something to fill the time I guess.

So this film is random and it just does not work very well. The challenges just are not set up well as there seems to be absolutely no purpose to any of them except the serial killer one. That is like the only one where any kind of rules are established. The most vague is that one where he is having a rock fight with a troll. Richard Moll is not as good here as he normally is in roles like this and the hero is a complete nobody. Still, all this negativity I am throwing at this film and I still have to say it was very quick. Not like it was a painful shot. It felt like a very short film, I have watched a few films where the running time is short like this, but they still take forever. Not this one, I am guessing the randomness of the challenges helps this as at least you are seeing new stuff every few seconds.

There are no words.

[itsbaylis · 2/10 · 26 June 2007]

To describe how laughably bad this movie is. It's dreadful.

I mean, how good can a movie go when the plot involves a man who is so much in the thrall of his computer, his girlfriend is jealous of it. I mean, with a start like that it's not going to be The Godfather, is it? In fact, this movie isn't even The GodSON (that one with Dom DeLuise). It in fact doesn't seem to have a coherent plot at all, and just leaps from sketch to sketch showing off the "amazing skills" of the stop motion animators involved, or more often to show off the boom mike, which keeps dropping into view. It's got 2 stars rather than one purely because some humour can be gleaned from the ridiculously over the top performance of the man playing Satan (Brian Blessed looks calm and composed in comparison) and the repeated inclusion of that boom mike.

This is one of the most awful movies I've ever watched.

[kinzokutaka · 1/10 · 27 July 2005]

Oh, heavens. This is one of the most awful movies I've ever watched. My friend Kevin worked at a video store, and would bring home a free movie every night. We marveled at his horrible taste -- each movie was worse than the last. Years later, however, The Dungeonmaster still stands out in my mind as the worst. It has seven directors and eight writers, and while I'm sure it was meant as a collaboration, it really feels like every ten minutes they decided, "Ugh! This is ghastly!" and got another director and writer to do the next segment, without there ever being any improvement. Even the wonderful Richard Moll as Mestema wasn't enough to save this train wreck of a movie. Go ahead and rent it if you love to revel in the awfulness of really terrible movies… otherwise you might be better off with some of the directors' later works like Troll or Puppet Master 5: The Final Chapter. Er, on second thought, maybe that's not such a good idea, either.

Uggh...

[Xomby · 4/10 · 21 May 1999]

It seems like the movie people who made this thought that seven horrid directors could equal one mediocre director...wrong! Imagine the worst possible movie you could ever watch. Now imagine something a million times as bad. You now have a movie that is about half as bad as The Dungeonmaster. Maybe I'm exaggerating. This film had some merits to it, one of which being one of the easiest movies that I have ever given the MST3K-treatment. Its extremely funny. The villain is an odd hooded individual named "Mestema". I kept saying "Cool-from Nestea---ma!" during his scenes. There was a rather gruesome scene when he was alone in a darkened room and appeared to be doing something..uhh...well, I'd rather not say. The "hero", a computer nerd who jogs in pink boxer shorts and changes Don't Walk signs and makes illegal bank transactions with his wrist computer, is apparantly having some sort of sexual relationship with his computer. (They dont show it, thank God, but its implied somewhere along the line in the beginning of the movie...)Anyway, he's transported to a computer dimension to fight the villain (why I don't know). Along the way he meets bearded midgets (hobbits?) killer wax dummies, bad fraggle rock-style monster puppets, zombies that bear a striking resemblence to Marty McFly and Doc Brown from Back to The Future, and some stupid "Star Wars" robot rejects.He is an incompetant whiny idiot, in other words. I truly had a field day riffing this movie, and it is truly one that Mike and the 'Bots should have on the show as well.

Review was off

[gtanghookup · 1/10 · 17 April 2006]

The summary of the movie is not all there... did the writer watch the movie? Actually, the movie is mostly about a computer programmer/enthusiast who gets sucked into another world where 'The Dungeonmaster' has him and his girlfriend interact in different scenarios/riddles. They must figure out how to escape from each scenario... in most cases the riddle's solution involves zapping things with his arm-computer.

This movie has 7 different directors, each of which direct one of the 7 scenarios the main characters are placed in. This film is awesomely horrible; I loved it and would recommend it to any other fans of crappy movies.

Another interesting tid-bit is that the main character says "I reject your reality and substitute my own" while confronting The Dungeonmaster. I had never heard this used anywhere but Mythbusters before I saw this movie.

Ragewar: Evil Wizard vs Technics Nerd

[Vomitron_G · 7/10 · 10 January 2009]

Aahh... One from back in the days when Charles Band still made *cough* great *cough* movies... I saw this one countless times as a kid, and believe it or not, it was just too much fun re-watching it last week. I admit, it's not a very good movie. In fact, you can hardly call it a real movie. It's more like a collection of shorts, much like an anthology movie. But the main characters remain the same throughout all segments and there is an on-going story present.

If you like your 80's cheese fantastically melted, then you're going to have more than a mouthful with THE DUNGEONMASTER. Jeff Byron plays computer-geek Paul (with a computer called "Cal" installed in his... glasses, no less) with a beautiful girlfriend. Absolutely for no reason at all, he and the girl suddenly get zapped to another dimension where Mestema reigns. Mestema (Richard Moll with evil make-up, very appropriately acting the part), is some devil-demon-dude who is just bored out of his wits, and decides to have some fun by subjecting Paul to seven challenges. This is where the fun begins!

THE DUNGEONMASTER simply is an excuse to display as much 80's special effects wizardry and cram as much horror/sci-fi/fantasy you can in one movie. All segments are utterly pointless. The whole movie is, for that matter - I think the point is: If Paul loses one of the challenges, Mestema gets the girl. Or something. But what matters is: THE DUNGEONMASTER is just too much fun. Especially if you still carry the child within, as they say, and allow yourself to be amazed and entertained by this old school SFX extravaganza.

We've got a claymation giant made out of stone. Trolls. Zombies. A little devil puppet-dude. A werewolf. Blackie Lawless and his band W.A.S.P. performing. A serial killer. Post-Apocalyptic mutant-bikers. Animated dragons. And much, much more... I ask you: How can you not have fun with this film? Also, go take a look at the full crew involved in the making of this film. We are talking the pre-Full Moon dream team here: Charles Band, Richard Band, David Allen, John Carl Buecher, Patrick Manoogian, Ted Nicolaou,...

I admit, when people should give this a first time watch in this day and age, they'll probably call it a bad movie. But if you grew up on silly nonsense like this, there really is no substitute.

So yeah, I should call this a guilty pleasure, but I honestly love this flick. So don't hold my rating against me.

'80s effects-fuelled fantasy

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 6 July 2016]

What the hell? Seems to me this movie only ran for an hour! Ah well, at least the experience wasn't too painful in that respect. Well I would say that this is a film aimed at kids except for the fact it opens with a scene of a woman stripping naked and being captured by mutants! Nothing is too weird for a film that comes from Charles Band's Empire Pictures, a studio renowned for making rubbishy movies before it went bust (and was of course replaced by Full Moon instead). Apparently this film is based on the once-popular Dungeons & Dragons game although you wouldn't realise from watching it.

Basically, this is a film which exemplifies the '80s: the special effects are plentiful but cheesy and tacky, the monster suits look rubbery, the moronic humour is unwanted, and the acting is generally wooden. Most of this takes place in the dark, to either a) be atmospheric or b) to hide the edges of the sets. I would bet on the latter. The film's hero is played by the unremarkable Jeffrey Byron who doesn't convince for a second, and his character is even worse. To show how dated this film is, he has a talking computer which helps him out via a wrist-pad (!) and special computerised glasses which can withdraw money from a bank machine. It's pretty poor.

The action begins almost straight away, with Byron being transported over to a fire-lit netherworld where his girlfriend hangs in chains for the rest of the film. The big bad wizard (Richard Moll from SURVIVOR) tries really had to be scary but his efforts go in vain: instead he just looks ridiculous and rather camp. From then on Byron must battle seven dangers in a bid to rescue the girl. These seven segments are so short that they can't really even be called "segments" as they have no story - they just show Byron battling various enemies. I find it hard to believe that seven directors were brought in to direct each of these few minute sequences!

My favourite segment is the "Stone Canyon Giant" one in which Byron finds himself up against a huge statue which suddenly comes to life to kill him. Yep, it rips off JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS again but here they fight with lasers. Pretty bad but at least the stop-motion animation is cool, even if only on screen for a couple of moments. The second segment is entitled "Demons of the Dead" and as you would guess, it's a horror-themed one. Byron here fights a hideous gargoyle creature (pretty good effect from John Carl Buechler, who also directed) and some disappearing zombies. After a brief interlude with some animated dragons which seem to have come from a Disney film (!), there's a plot less heavy metal scene there just for the hell of it (directed by Charles Band, go figure). After a fight in an "Ice Gallery" where Byron and his character's girlfriend fight reanimated ice statues of historical killers (an idea later echoed in WAXWORK), the longest segment arrives in the form of "Slasher". I probably liked this one the best, as it actually has partly-developed characters in it and some okay action. It's still below average though.

Another interlude shows a demon head in a flame special effect - cool stuff. Then the film stoops even lower as Byron lobs rocks at a demon in a cave (the "Cave Beast" apparently) and things are rounded off with an inevitable MAD MAX 2 rip-off scene involve chasing dune buggies. The only interest of these scene is that cult dwarf actor Felix Silla (from BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY) appears in it for a minute. There's not really much else to say about this film, only that I wish it had continued in the same vein as the opening.

it's movies like this that got me through high school

[goriddle · 8/10 · 14 February 2003]

This movie is vastly imaginative. So imaginative in fact that it took 7 directors to make it! The sets costumes and monsters all work well together to paint a fabulous picture of a computer warrior overcoming adversity through 7 different evil worlds. One of which is an evil heavy metal concert featuring the band W.A.S.P.This movie is filled with marvelous special effects including dueling magical dragons, a stone giant, disgusting undead warriors and a score of fantastic weapons originating from the computer wristband worn by the hero. A very action packed epic by a team of excellent directors including the legendery Charles Band!

Not that bad

[dsfilm123 · 7/10 · 28 June 2000]

This movie is not at all that bad. I rate it a 6 which averages out to *** out of ***** stars. There is some nice stop-motion animation by David Allen and some fine make-up effects, included a neat little creature puppet. The " Heavy Metal " segment directed by Charles BaNd does not have much of a point so this is sort of the downfall on the movie. The acting is somewhat corny but what do you expect. It would have been better if David Allen's sequence--Stone Canyon Giant--would have been longer. It is a fine model and the animation is rather smooth. There are only about 12 stop-motion shots, If there were 20 and add a little more plot to this sequence (the actual sequence lasted only about 6-7 minutes but the giant didn't really get to do anything except chase the protagonist around some large rocks before it gets destroyed. If you liked this movie ok and gave it *** or more you should see----Laserblast, Ghoulies 2, and Robot Wars.

The word is forget it.......

[FlashCallahan · 5/10 · 2 March 2016]

Paul is a computer whiz who spends more time with his machine than with his girlfriend.

He finds that he has been chosen as a worthy opponent for Mestema, an evil wizard who has spent centuries searching for a worthy foe.

After having his computer changed into a weapon, Paul does battle with a variety of monsters before finally coming face to face with the ultimate adversary......

Another typical film from the greatest decade ever, and it's just what you would expect from a film that you may have never heard of, stars who haven't been in anything since around 2003, and a one sheet poster that really makes it look something beyond brilliant.

And you always have one or two people on sites like these who appear to be experts on every aspect of the film, from its delay due to budget, right up to the size of Moll's helmet.

It's a quite a clever concept though, having an anthology movie hidden subliminally as one movie with level like chapters, but it's the fact that the main protagonist is a little bit of a wet blanket.

When we first meet him, he's about to go running after a typical 'I don't run' conversation with a fat man, and he is the funniest person to run on screen this side of Seagal.

So we have random stories where the hero has to get out of a scrape to save his beau, then we go back to Moll and his pantomime villainy (he is the best thing in the film), a random special effect scene, and then repeat until the running time has lapsed.

It's passable stuff, some of the effects are laughable but really suit this film, and when you add some really random dream sequence that adds nothing, only to titillate, you have a very random movie that has to be seen.

But it still proves the eighties is the best decade ever.

A rare gem

[flynnal · 27 April 2001]

Well before its time, the dungeonmaster held me in suspense for hours after viewing it. Chocked full of ingenious lines unparalled by contemporary scripts, this movie provides for an hour and a half of pure entertainment. Richard Moll makes this movie by delivering line after line of unfiltered brilliance...at one point I had to cover my ears because I could not physically or mentally handle his vivid intensity. The line "I reject your reality, and I substitute my own" has no equal. They should require a screening of this movie annually for all Americans. Appreciated by few, hated by almost all, this movie is unbelievable.

Absolute Rubbish....

[mijbril · 1/10 · 19 January 2005]

and for me to say that when I love B movies is a harsh condemnation.

I only borrowed it on video because the cover in my country had Blackie Lawless from WASP on it. Even his 20 second cameo (of WASP, so he was with his then com padres) was not enough to salvage this dog of a movie or for me to give this movie anything but a 1.

You would think they'd actually have a cult winner on their hands though, (well, a cult winner if you thought something like "Hawk The Slayer" was a cult winner, hehe). Geeky guy lead who actually something of a fitness fanatic, gorgeous yet vacuous female lead and genre-standard baddie, how could you go wrong??

You can't judge a book by its cover, neither can you a video it would seem. Avoid, like the plague.....

The absolute worst movie of all time, frighteningly horrible.

[bohab · 1/10 · 15 July 2001]

Sucks. This movie is so bad that it could not have been made worse even if the producers had been forced to do so at gunpoint. Pink satin jumpsuit wearing TV repairman gets summoned to hell where his girlfriend is being held by some cheesy ass heavy metal monster. With his trusty armband this daytime soap reject proceeds to waste the next 75 minutes of the life of whoever is viewing this festering piece of rancid tripe. This movie should be shown in 3rd world prisons in lieu of torture. I would beg for an agonizing death if given the choice between that and watching this unspeakable abhorration again.

Bad ... No VERY BAD

[d_teasdale · 1/10 · 21 June 2004]

I have seen this movie twice, (I must be a masochist), the second time to give it another chance that it did not deserve. This is the worst movie I have ever seen. Nothing could have saved it … well maybe a good fire in the editing room.

There is nothing about this movie that redeems it, the cinematography is poor, there script must have been written by a 3rd grader and the direction … well there is none. I feel sorry for the actors that appeared in this it is a low point in there collective careers. The only reason this is not in the bottom 100 is people have not seen it.

Today "You Got Served (2004)" is in the lowest position an this is MUCH worse.

That was really dumb

[ericstevenson · 2/10 · 8 April 2018]

Well, this is the worst movie I've reviewed for Channel Awesome Month! Let me quickly address the controversy surrounding that website. Many of its contributors left because they were underpaid and some were even injured while filming their anniversary movies. Anyway, I was first interested in this movie because it was apparently one of the lowest rated movies ever reviewed on the website. I think the last time I checked, it had a score of 2.2, but now it's 4.1. I'm sad that it still isn't at 2.2.

This movie is just plain bad. It tells the story of some evil wizard who traps a guy and his girlfriend in some other dimension where he forces the guy to complete seven challenges. The funny thing is that each challenge actually had a different director work on it. It's amazing that a collaboration this big could make something so bad. The dumbest part is when he has to complete a challenge by fighting Jack the Ripper, the Wolf Man, and a samurai while using an exploding ice crystal belonging to Albert Einstein. Yes, that really happens.

It's times like this that make me wish TVTropes still had a page on I Am Not Making This Up. The acting and dialogue are amazingly cheesy and the effects look just plain stupid. Nearly every action scene in this film is idiotic and makes no sense. There's even completely random scenes that serve no purpose at all, like him firing a laser at the negative of a demon or making dragons fight. It's so repetitive as he just uses a laser to beat every enemy. This film is an utter waste of time and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. *

Worst Movie I Ever Saw Part Of

[MatthewTie · 1/10 · 17 December 2005]

I walked out on a movie once. Just once. My buddy Howard and I walked out on a film. Seventeen years old, and we walked out on a film. About two feet of snow outside, and we walked out. My dad had dropped us off, and wouldn't be back for at least another hour (we sat through 30 minutes of it), but we walked out. Walked 2 blocks towards home before we were too frozen to go any further, but we didn't go back. Held up in a little newsstand that had 2 video games until IT was over, then we went back to be picked up.

That film? The Dungeonmaster. (You'd have thought in some way it would relate to Dungeons and Dragons . . . but no.)

Dungeon Master

[johan-404 · 6/10 · 25 June 2007]

It contains a few interesting concepts notably the strap-on arm computer. I see in the real world that you can now start buying a commercial available model.

Considering the fact that the movie does originate from the 80's when computer based special effects were actually very few and far between. In general the story lacks 'n few elements but from an action perspective the movie did deliver the goods. I through that at the time the concepts was very unique even to this day this movie remains a favorite on my list.

The soundtrack was very much classic sci-fi and you end up with a good feeling of good vs evil at the end of the movie. Unfortunately the bad guy does not meet a satisfactory end and it leaves you with a bit of a disappointment as far as that is concerned.

Anyway if you are a sci-fi fan and like to see more or less original concepts this one should be on your list. Now if only they will get it out on DVD.

7 short stories and it still feels like 3 hours

[jellopuke · 2/10 · 10 October 2019]

Bad sets, costumes, props, effects, and acting (except Richard Moll, who is clearly going for broke). A few laughs at the ineptness of it all, but it still drags heavily and every story, despite having different settings, just ends up with laser blasts. Not much to see here, although the WASP cameo is pretty rocking.

B-movie fans are missing out if they haven't unearthed this gem.

[happyendingrocks · 9/10 · 30 January 2008]

I'm quite surprised to see so many people writing negative things about this film. I don't know what they were expecting from a film called The Dungeonmaster released by Empire (this isn't supposed to be Citizen Kane, people), but for those who enjoyed the minute in the 80's where Sword & Sorcery films were being dropped into theaters every weekend (and disappearing the same weekend), this splendid little number provides a nice twist on the formula.

Watching it today, it does seem a bit clunky and dated, but the special effects remain quite impressive considering the technology and budget the filmmakers had to work with. There is a lot of imagination at play here, and it's delightful to watch each of the segments unfold. John Buechler's undead make-up in the "Demons Of The Dead" segment is particularly excellent, and his lord of that underworld is a great piece of puppetry. People who watch a film like this and criticize the execution of such a prop are obviously forgetting that even Yoda looked like what he a was, a rubber puppet, until George Lucas spent millions of dollars digitally enhancing his effects.

Though most of the segments fall squarely into the realm of Fantasy, the "Slasher" and "Ice" pieces are great nods to classic horror sub-genres. The brevity of each segment keeps the film moving along at a brisk pace, and no matter how engrossed you become in one piece of the film, you're assured that there's going to be something interesting around the corner as well.

Enough can not be said about the greatness of Richard Moll's performance as Mestema. Moll is a joy to watch, and he seems to take great delight in chewing up the scenery and delivering the surprisingly strong dialogue he is fed. His "cat" speech is a classic, and I can't imagine a better character or actor to deliver such a great piece of wickedness. Sparring against him, our Paul Bradford makes a fine hero, and the verbal interplay between the two of them is well written and executed.

One thing I haven't heard mentioned extensively is the music in the film, which is uniformly great. It's unlikely that a soundtrack ever circulated, but upon re-watching this, I found myself plotting my own transfer of the audio to CD. Of course, a strong number by W.A.S.P. ("Tormentor", which appears on their self-titled debut LP) helps in that regard. But, even without it, the score alone would make for excellent listening should anyone ever have the foresight to rescue this film and its supplements from obscurity.

It seems so petty to overtly criticize a film that never tries to be anything more than an enjoyable way to spend 80 minutes. To that end, The Dungeonmaster succeeds magnificently. The 80's was a time when films like this flourished, and comparatively, this is far more professionally made and creatively executed than the overwhelmingly poor caliber of direct-to-video fare we are subjected to these days.

DVDs are cheap to produce and release, and because of this, there are a lot of truly unwatchable films in circulation that deserve to languish in the scarce VHS-only netherworld The Dungeonmaster currently occupies. In fact, if I could pick one film to be plucked from the past and given a loving DVD remaster, it would probably be this one, and its digital absence is one of the only reasons I still have a VCR.

Anyone familiar and comfortable with this sort of material will have a hell of a lot of fun watching this film. After all, that's ultimately the point of The Dungeonmaster, so it shouldn't be graded or scrutinized with the same stringent detail we apply to "serious" or "important" cinema. Those looking for thought-provoking social discourse, breathtaking cinematography, or Oscar-caliber performances will hate this film, and that's okay, because they aren't the demographic for The Dungeonmaster.

However, for anyone who enjoys the giddy pleasure of a well-constructed B-movie, The Dungeonmaster is well worth seeking out. If that's you, then prepare for battle, Excalibrate. Mestema awaits you.

Fun, Genuinely Enjoyable B- movie

[nolan-09154 · 7/10 · 10 August 2020]

I've been buying 4 packs of B movies expecting most of them to be so bad they're good and The Dungeonmaster truely surprised me! It was a fun idea with a lot of creative segments and great practical effects. The Stop motion stone man and the slasher segments were my favorites and the acting and characters were enjoyable! The Hair metal scene was too corny (I see that this is a common problem people have with the movie) overall, not a bad movie by any means, fun and entertaining 80s fantasy! Recommend!

Bad but "funny"

[Walle-2 · 3/10 · 26 July 1999]

Saw this once a couple of years ago. It´s a b-movie but kinda funny in a strange way. Some guy goes to different fantazy worlds to save his wife or something. Bad actors, bad plot, bad special effects but it´s pretty amusing to watch. The Dungeonmaster gets a 3 out of 10