Deathstalker II (1987)

Wonderfully offbeat film!

i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

Good movie but grossly overrated

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

I used to be stationed in the Mojave desert in the 90's. We used to have B-movie parties in my barracks room since I had a couch, a love of B-movies & no one had anywhere else to be.I picked up this gem in the used-for sale bin at the video store & it went into the rotation at least once a month. enough nudity to keep a young man watching, enough humor to keep a drunk mob laughing, enough plot to be a movie.Found the director's cut DVD all these years later WITH commentary. Snatched it up and haven't looked back. The commentary is even funnier than the movie. 10/10

Look at the poster for this film, its damn cool with a really hot barbarian female, aggressive and looks like some old Amiga computer game box art. Remember the old classic computer game 'Barbarian'? I wonder if they got their box art ideas from these films and the poster art? Now I look even the font on the text is similar for both, curious.Now watch the film and you notice some slight differences with what you may have been expecting. Not that you really should be expecting much with this franchise. The cheap cheap low budget sequel to the first film really does earn the label of B-movie in every aspect.The first film was reasonable but this is dire. The main lead looks the part but acts like a buffoon in lame attempts of badly executed humour. The continuity is gone as 'Deathstalker' is now a different younger actor, not that continuity was probably high on the directors list...or your expectation list either.As before there are plenty of topless females running around, this is fine, its just a shame they are all running the flimsiest sets you have ever seen. The comedy is in watching the bad acting against the homemade sets, just like good old Ed Wood. Of course you can't really knock such a film as it was never meant to be a serious major production, although there is care involved clearly. Its nowhere near as good as the first and that was average at best, they actually use many old clips from the first film to flesh out this one. Bad move when you see the characters from the first film, ones that were killed even, errr...did anyone check that?2/10

"Deathstalker" of 1983 was an incredibly crappy movie, but in its own way incredibly entertaining and fun to watch, simply due to its value as an unintentional comedy. The first sequel, "Deathstalker II: Duel Of The Titans" of 1987 almost seems to be a spoof of its predecessor. As the first movie, "Deathstalker 2" is again extremely crappy and therefore quite funny, but it seems that director Jim Wynorski as well as the actors and everybody else connected with this film were actually willing to do a movie as crappy as possible on purpose. While the Deathstalker was basically a brutal and invincible Barbarian cheapo version of Conan played by muscleman Rick Hill in the first movie, the title character became a skinny guy with a tendency towards stupid jokes. The dialogue is even sillier and out of place than in the first movie ("a cigar for the lady", "is that your sword or are you just happy to see me"...), the acting is (intentionally?) terrible and hardly anything in the movie makes sense.The movie is set in some fantasy land and fantasy time that seems lie an in-between of the middle ages and the stone age. The fact that the people are clearly pagans, of course, doesn't stop graves on cemeteries from having crosses on them. At one point of the movie a warrior explains that he had fought under Attila The Hun's command, while his buddy has served for Ghenghis Khan. The fact that Attila The Hun died over 700 years before Ghenghis Kahn was even born is, of course, ignored. Scenes like these, and other oddities, should keep the viewer entertained. "Deathstalker II" also features an Amazon tribe and warriors with human bodies and pig heads (one of those was my favorite character in the first film). Some of the women are lovely to look at, especially Monique Gabrielle, who plays the female lead, and Maria Socas, who plays the Amazon Queen, are a treat for the eye. One of the main aims of "Deathstalker II" is to show breasts (although not quite as often as the first film), but sadly it fails to achieve the amount of gore featured in its predecessor. All said, "Deathstalker II" is an extremely crappy movie, but great fun to watch. I recommend to watch the first "Deathstalker" before watching this, and I personally laughed more during the first film, but I guess it doesn't quite make a difference. People with a sense of humor and able to bear a bit of awfulness should certainly have a good time, 3/10

Yeah, this is a sequel with nothing to do with the first one, and yeah, it's no Conan, but it doesn't try to be. Just remember who the writer/director is (the esteemed Jim Wynorski), take your mind off the hook, and go with it!The premise (soldier of fortune helps a princess in disguise regain the throne)is classic, but it's all told with such a goofy tone that comparison with a more serious film is, well, goofy.If you have the DVD edition with the director's commentary, you'll see where Wynorski was going when he made the film. The script is full of in-jokes from other movies in the genre, jokes from television, and more than enough one liners to fill a dozen old Bob Hope movies. You also get John LaZar (from Beyond the Valley Of The Dolls) as the evil sorcerer, Monique Gabrielle (of a zillion b-movies) as the damsel in distress, and Toni Naples in black leather as Sultana, who swings a mean sword.Add to that a gazillion extras (all masked so they can be used over and over in other scenes), lots of wooden swords painted silver, a fight to the death with Queen Kong (featuring Amazon ring girls holding up the round number painted on cardboard). Yep friends and neighbors, this one leaves no cliché unheard. Do I recommend it? Wholeheartedly. Genre fans won't be disappointed.