Hawk the Slayer (1980)

Hawk, having suffered the ignimony of watching both his father and fiancée die at the hands of his brother, Voltan, sets out on a quest for companions to aid him in his fight to stop his ... See full summary »

Director:

Terry Marcel

Writers:

Terry Marcel (original story and screenplay), Harry Robertson (original story and screenplay)

Stars:

Jack Palance, John Terry, Bernard Bresslaw

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jack Palance	...	Voltan
John Terry	...	Hawk
Bernard Bresslaw	...	Gort, Giant
Ray Charleson	...	Crow, Elf
Peter O'Farrell	...	Baldin, Dwarf
William Morgan Sheppard	...	Ranulf (as Morgan Sheppard)
Patricia Quinn	...	Woman, Sorceress
Cheryl Campbell	...	Sister Monica
Annette Crosbie	...	Abbess
Catriona MacColl	...	Eliane
Shane Briant	...	Drogo
Harry Andrews	...	High Abbot
Christopher Benjamin	...	Fitzwalter
Roy Kinnear	...	Innkeeper
Patrick Magee	...	Priest

Storyline

Hawk, having suffered the ignimony of watching both his father and fiancée die at the hands of his brother, Voltan, sets out on a quest for companions to aid him in his fight to stop his brother's reign of evil and free the Abbess.

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Plot Keywords:

elf | abbess | corporal punishment | male nudity | slavery | 

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Fantasy

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

18 December 1980 (UK)

Also Known As:

A gyilkos héja

Filming Locations:

Black Park Lake, Black Park, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Incorporated Television Company (ITC), Marcel/Robertson Productions Limited, Chips Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Director Terry Marcel went on to direct two more sword and sorcery type movies, Prisoners of the Lost Universe and Jane and the Lost City.

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Quotes

Drogo: I am no messanger. But I will give you a message. The message of DEATH!

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Connections

References Seven Samurai (1954)

User Reviews

D.I.S.C.O.

It is D. Dully acted. It is I. Irritating. It is S. Stupid-stupid. It is C. Completely rubbish. It is O. Oh! Oh! Oh my God it's bad! It's soooooo bad. So bad that it is fantastic. Just everything about it is wrong, wrong, wrong. So wrong, in fact, that it comes out right.

The disco music is just inspirational brilliance. What better music to go with a sword and sorcery movie than modern (at the time) synthesizer sounds.

The actors are all soooo wooden I kept losing them amongst the trees. John Terry plays the hero. But he's so unashamedly American. Not even an attempt to try a British accent. Totally out of place amongst the other actors. Bernard Bresslaw (of Carry On movies fame, and one of the world's all-time worst actors) plays Gort, a giant. Well, he's taller than anyone else, so he must be a giant, right? He delivers some lines truly terribly. Jack Palance plays Voltan, supposedly the hero's brother, but looking more like his father. He dresses very much like Darth Vader but overacts so completely that I wondered if he was trying to end his career with this movie. Ray Charleson plays Crow, an elf. He can shoot arrows so fast that the camera couldn't catch more than one being fired, so they replayed that shot over and over so you got the idea he was really fast. William Morgan plays Ranulf, a man with a rapid firing crossbow (they obviously had those in pseudo medieaval times) and Peter Farrel is Baldin, a dwarf. You know he's a dwarf because he's the shortest one of the group. He also acts and delivers some lines so badly you won't believe (see the raft scene).

The story is a standard rescue scenario, though why anyone would want to rescue the Mother Abbess is beyond me. Ineffectual would be a polite word to describe all the nuns, who mill about and cower a lot, but do little else.

Did I mention the special effects? They really are special. Laugh at the teleporter. None of that fancy Star Trek malarkey about slowly disappearing. Here you simply sit inside two rings welded together at an angle and placed on a turntable. Then there's the "storm of whirling fireballs" which appear to be ping-pong balls fired horizontally. And then there's the silly string to immobilize the guards.

"One ping-pong ball to blind them, lots of silly string to bind them"

The only half-way decent effects are the mindsword, which has a cool glowing orb held in a fist instead of a pommel. And the healing orb, which Voltan uses to soothe his damaged face. But that's it. In fact, everything magical glows. The teleporter rings, the ping-pong fireballs, the sword, the healing orb, all of it.

One thing I never understood about Voltan's face. It was supposedly burnt, which is where the damage came from, but it won't heal naturally?

Anyway, this film has all the bad things that make a classic B-movie and is well worth a look. But it still amazes me how good a bad film this is. If you set out to do everything wrong in a movie it would be truly awful, but here, it just works. Recommended.