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| Article : Hawk the Slayer |
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You know, even with the cheesy 70's special effects, it still beats the official movie for almost everything.
Hawk the Slayer. One of the most time weathered and ancient of the really fun fantasy romps. The tale of a hero, a nasty villain (played by Jack Palance no less) and a whole group of adventurers to put any normal PC party to shame...
First a list of the characters:
Hawk - Noble warrior who uses a special sword powered by elven magics. The power it displays is pretty much equal to the calling magic ability. Known as the Mindsword.
Gort - Giant of a man, he employs an impressive looking stone sledgehammer. His interplay with the dwarf during some of the plot scenes has better lines written for it than anything found in most other movies. The sheer comradery between the biggest and the smallest guy is hilarious, and worth the entire movie I think.
Baldin - Dwarf who has some hygiene problems, uses a whip. Eats like Gort should. Gets a dagger in the ribs and ends up as the dead dwarf in the bubble. Definitally a twist on the Snow White glass coffin revenge thing.
Crow - Last of the elves and his archery skills could make Robin Hood hang his head in shame. However the actor who plays him evidentally went to the deadpan lame Vulcan school of acting. Still even with a monotone grating voice, he even manages to evoke some pathos at the end of his race.
Ranulf - Grizzled fighter with only one hand, he employs a rapid fire crossbow, it actually takes a clip of bolts, much like an gnome made assault rifle! The definitive NPC guard.
Woman - It takes brass cahones to have an ancient seer woman and never name her. Much like Uma Thurman is the Bride, she is the Woman. She is some sort of good witch that Hawk saves from being burned at the stake. Has a bag of 'glow in the blacklight' tricks up her sleeves. Not to mention the funky teleporting Hula Hoop rings...
Elaine - Hawk's beautiful maiden princess wife, who only is seen in flashbacks as she is quickly killed by a jealous (cause he's old) Voltan.
Lots of Evil Guys - These range from hard bitten mercenaries to a truly revolting slaver. Who is amazingly killed by Gort with a display of wit that just causes the idiot to kill himself. Done well. There are times I want to really put people in that situation that the slaver dies in...
Drogo - Voltan's adopted son who just wanted daddy to respect him. The actor playing this guy had a little too much fun, but you can tell he was really intimidated by Jack Palance in some of the scenes. Hell ole Jack scares me watching this...
Voltan - Jack Palance! Evil brother to the noble Hawk, an iron helm hides the hideous disfigurement of his face caused by Elaine sticking a torch into his eye. This guy not only sticks it to his father with a sword, but most of the time he uses daggers! DAGGERS! and he is fast too!
And now the plot. Please, please try hard not to laugh too much. It is so much funnier to watch trust me!
In ages past there are two brothers. One is a good warrior named Hawk, and the other is his older (looks almost as old as his father!) brother Voltan (naming your child Voltan is just freakin' asking for trouble if you want my opinion. That's why I named my boy Rowan. However he sure as hell acts like a Voltan. I keep my eye on him for reasons which will soon follow). The kind and benevolant Hawk is soon to be married. However shortly after the marriage he is ambushed by his brother, who is badly wounded by the bride with a torch to the face. Yes, a torch to the freakin' face...
Needless to say Voltan puts a bolt into not only Hawk, but his wife's back as she attempts to get them to safety in a boat. She dies, Hawk emotes.
Voltan, further proving naming your child evil will beget evil, promptly goes super bad and goes to stab daddy in the heart with a longsword. This he does with much relish. Daddy takes it in the chest like a trooper, and Hawk arrives in time to make Voltan flee happy that ole daddy will soon expire.
Somehow, daddy lives long enough (three minutes I think) to bequeath an ancient magic heritage to his son. The magical elfstone powered sword. Daddy not only bequeathes it, he manages to even get in a lesson in how to use it. Then, he dies. Hawk is mad.
Fast forward some years and there is a little problem in the nunnery at Canteberry. Yes, ole Voltan has decimated yet another army with his black horde of doom. A survivor named Ranulf with his hand hacked off stumbles in and the nuns administer first aid like trained EMTs. Within days the old chap is ready to throw away his life like usual, although for a weapon he packs a repeating (like machine gun speed) crossbow loaded with little red bolts of doom.
Voltan breaks in, beats old guy down, and steals the abess of Canteberry for ransom. No kidding. He does it pretty quick and with tons of gravelly laughing involved. Jack Palance would have made one hell of a Profion!
Grizzled vet proclaims he shall embark on a quest to the order's main keep and either get a hero, or some cash. When he gets there they pull an American move and say no deal. No bargaining with terrorists. However there is this certain freelance good guy and here is a token go look for him. Of course, he gets waylayed by robbers.
The brigands accuse him of murder (to which he says it was justified as the man was hiding in the trees with a drawn bow about to be shot at him. They ignore this protest however.) and tie him to a tree to use as a wager. Yes, they bet they can throw their throwing axes closest to him without drawing blood. Watch carefully, this is where the first 'stop the action and everyone hold still while we stick the weapons somewhere - Ok lights camera action' - method is used.
Hawk shows up in time to stop the second throws in the bet. The actors playing the brigands play it to the hilt. I mean these guys give NPCs lessons that every villain should use. I love this part.
They re-wager who can kill Hawk the fastest, but since Hawk evidentally has Quick Draw for a feat and his sword is calling he can pretty much throw it faster. Needless to say two baddies die fast.
Hawk blah blah blahs with old guy and they proceed on, where they soon find an old woman about to be burned as a witch. However they decide to save her as she is a mystic, and not a witch. Then they need to take a shortcut and take a magical path that is filled with Halloween brand Wal-mart spiderwebs and a cheesy rubber monster, but which features some good home shrieking that will make you stand up and take notice. At the end they kind of run into the wit, I mean mystic woman who tells him he needs his friends to take on Voltan.
With her magic Hula Hoops of teleportation she sends Hawk to find each member of the cast. Involving some damn fine storytelling as each member is gathered up.
Gort is involved in a little dispute with a merchant who won't pay him for fixing his wagon wheel. Needless to say the giant knocks the wheel back off and a few city guards nearby start getting involved and almost run their way to NPC heaven, before Hawk shows up and Gort agrees to take off.
Baldin is up next and Hawk ports in to find the dwarf tied to a raft, wherupon a strange order of hare krishna like monks light their arrows on fire and shoot them up into the air, and hope they hit the raft to light it on fire. This scene alone made me laugh my butt off. Hawk frees the dwarf who proceeds to show how a whip beats a fishing pole and then scares the (ahem) monks away and goes with Hawk.
Crow is having some arrow tips forged by a blacksmith when a pair of scam artists decide to cheat him from money and leave his little elven corpse by running a who can shoot better scam. Hawk arrives to keep the contest honest and of course the elf wins. The human cries foul and wants a dual, and gets shot in the chest for being such an idiot. The death cry of "I never even saw him shoot" will live on in infamy. Crow agrees to journey with Hawk.
With this magical party assembled they head off to the nunnery, where the nuns beg and plead for them to pay the ransom. Hawk may be a good guy, but evidentally not paladin level. His reasoning is that the evil slaver down by the river most likely has some money that would be better off in the hands of nuns. Hey, who doesn't think like that?
Begin fight with several of the jerky stop motion repeating crossbows, elf firing bow just as fast, animations. Slavers die. Elf shoots two hats from some merchants, and a slaver is tied to the ground with his huge spiky mace hanging over his head, and the rope in his mouth. Gort is a freakin' genius. Of course, Gort walks away from a corpse with the line "Some people just can't keep their mouth shut."
Now with money in tow, Hawk decides screw that! No way would Voltan keep his word. Next up is a couple of fun fights. Voltan's creepy boy tries to steal the cash for himself and gets whacked. And the group decides to cut the enemy army down a little with a daring hack and slash raid cutting down as many baddies as they can. For heroes these guys are pretty bloodthirsty. But you will love every minute of it.
Voltan who has to use an evil sorcerer with no name for a little relief gets to see his dead adopted son get carried in by two of his son's friends. Needless to say he wonders why they lived, and then soon remedies the situation with a couple of knives. The old sucker is an evil bastard with knives. Never ever think it's safe when his back is turned either! This is freakin' Jack Palance we're talking about!
Finally some stupid nun thinks Hawk is full of bull feces and puts sleeping potions in the boys food and lets in old Voltan. Voltan arrives, and gets ready to kill them all. However the dwarf gets randy and tells a joke (i.e. kicks ole Voltan in the helmet right over his sore scarred left side of his face sending him immediately into his sorcerer needing headache migraine mode), and gets a knife in the belly. I told you, it's freaking Jack Palance!
Since Voltan is gone the boys escape and the dwarf gets a funeral. He is somehow transumated inside of a lump of glass boulder. Revenge from the humans for the whole Snow White tale I think.
Final battle begins to rage and soon the only ones left alive are Gort and Hawk. Hawk and Voltan banter around, and even though it's Jack Palance, he is still Hawk and has the elven powered Mindsword. Jack Dies. Evil Sorcerer steals the body. Abbess is returned. Hawk rides off.
In summary this movie rocks. Done around the time of a few other movies you may have heard of. Unlike Krull which has way out there stuff, and the Beastmaster which takes its biblical setting to seriously this is a gem. If you could redo this sucker with updated music and special effects you would have a rockin' good movie. Watch it. The conversations between the dwarf and the giant are actually good! The banter is actually witty! The bad guy is actually bad! I love this movie and would recommend it to any fantasy lover. This is one of the few that doesn't take itself so seriously and just runs with it. All in all it simply feels like a rather good game that you have just managed to bring to an end.
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