Hawk The Slayer

For those of you who inhabit this website it is clear to you as a writer that I am a fellow nerd, yet funnily enough the swords and sorcery genre is one casket of history I have yet to fully uncover. My only real exposure to the lands of picturesque mountains and clunky silver helmets is sparse at best containing the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Krull and to a certain extent Highlander. However there was a very special tale that I would like to share with you all; a tale of heroic deeds from one man against the legions of darkness. A tale of rubber rapiers, obvious matte paintings and robotic acting the likes of which you have never seen. This is the story of Terry Marcel's 1980 possible inspiration for many a LARP (Live Action Role Playing Game for those who don't read the internet): Hawk The Slayer.

Once the narration of heroic deeds and valour set the stage, we meet our main villain Voltan (Jack Palance in a genre defining role) while he is commonly referred to as the 'Dark One' I much prefer my mantra: Voltan the Lord of Depth Perception. Seeing as how he comes complete with a half covered Darth Vader mask and all. You know, because he is decidedly evil. Voltan stumbles upon his father, in what looks like a recreation centre jacuzzi draped in gold paint (complete with precisely one guard) and stabs the guy just for the hell of it. Out of nowhere our hero Hawk appears, presumably following Voltan the entire time.

However he is too late as our panto reject escapes into the darkness. We learn from the dying old man that Hawk and Voltan were brothers and that they worked on the opposite sides of the good and evil spectrum. Hawk inherits a family heirloom, a sword of 'incredible' power known as the Mindsword. You can tell it's magic because it glows green, herp derp. Hawk in one of the only instances where actor John Terry emotes, swears revenge on Voltan stating that he will die by the sword.
After the opening credits complete their course we cut to a survivor of one of Voltan's village raids known as Ranulf, wielder of a crossbow (trust me it's very important). He seeks refuge in a nearby church where the resident nuns heal him by amputating his injured hand. To be fair though the nuns must have been lying because the arm is still the same length but covered by a sock and tape. Moving on, Ranulf explains how Voltan is 'a son of Satan' who slaughters women and children. You know, because the audience hasn't guessed he is pretty evil already.

To emphasise this point to the brink of madness, Voltan meets (through lots of loud shouting) with a being known as the Dark Wizard who is basically his weekly eye fixing GP. Immediately after that discussion, Voltan arrives at the church, kidnapping the Abbess for ransom in exchange for all the gold in the church. Ranulf tries in vain to help but one of Voltan's men manages to underarm throw a knife at his chest. Bear in mind this DOES NOT kill him somehow.

Ranulf soon leaves for help travelling to the largest matte painting of an abbey ever created, to seek counsel with the High Abbot. He tells of the location of a brave and noble warrior, Hawk naturally. Hawk rides through the woods, passing through the same stretches of land about three times from different angles. Soon enough, he spots a blind woman being accused of witchcraft about to be burned. By the way in the ending credits they label this character as 'Woman', Lars Von Trier eat your heart out.

After a few Eastwood-style staring contests, Hawk dispatches the evildoers and the sorceress awards him by allowing him to seek out his companions in his quest to hunt down Voltan. Basically each encounter with a companion goes something like this: Companion meets with strangers, strangers nearly kill companion, Hawk arrives in nick of time, villains get comeuppance and everyone is happy. Repeat around four times.
Hawk's companions include Ranulf from before, Crow the most wooden elf character in a fantasy film ever, Gort the giant (played by Bernard Bresslaw of Carry On fame) and Baldin the dwarf. Interspersed with the companion hunting malarkey are scenes of Voltan and his son (sort of maybe) Drogo pissing about and annoying the locals. Sounds like my local corner shop every Friday night; also is it just me or does Drogo look like the bastard lovechild of Rutger Hauer and Adrian Chiles? Two names I thought to be never used together.

Hawk reminisces about the good old days with his late girlfriend Elaine through the use of honey glazed visuals. Voltan still with his dark cloak and helmet mind, was jealous of his brother as Elaine was the woman he loved and accuses Hawk of stealing her. As Voltan tried to steal Elaine, she pokes him in the right eye with a flaming torch giving us the no doubt 'shocking' revelation of why Voltan is half blind. Girl power does not prevail however as Elaine is shot in the back with an arrow, leaving Hawk a little miffed. Believe me when I say that's how deep this movie gets in terms of story.

After trudging through gateways leading to obvious jump cuts, bedsheet wearing priests with flaming arrows as well as spit spewing hunchbacks, our merry band of LARPers arrive at the church where the nuns are no doubt pleased that Jack Palance hasn't returned for his cheque yet. One of the nuns (credited as 'Little Nun') is wary of their actions believing that the way out of this struggle is to pay the ransom. Where is the plot twist kids? It's behind you!

Drogo however tires of his father's leisurely pursuit of Hawk and persues our hero himself, with the help of a disposable Eric Idle lookalike. Drogo attempts to invade the church through his 'message of death' but is instantly overcome by Hawk's Mindsword and Crow's fancy editing trick to fire more arrows. Drogo passes away after returning to Voltan who subsequently deilvers a tear jerking speech. A few shit fits later, Voltan decides enough is enough and prepares to ride to the church with the help of the adorable little nun from earlier. Oh yeah and in between this we get lots of sub-par comic banter between Gort and Baldin about how much food they both eat... don't ask.

Hawk and the others also decide the time has come to overthrow Voltanand plan a raid of his headquarters (represented by a few manky looking tents). After a heroic massacre of the enemy, Hawk's brain thinks 'herp derp, Voltan's gone'. The gang excluding the blind sorceress head on back to the church and are immediately captured allowing Voltan to mug at the camera and overact some more. While Voltan approaches Hawk ready to burn his face, Baldin steps in and boots Voltan in the face subsequently being stabbed. Note the second and only other time John Terry emotes in this entire film.

But what of the sorceress, will she help her possibly dommed companions? Why yes, through the power of green silly string.....of course. Well it is supposed to be a magical weapon of some sort but really this was probably Terry Marcel's way of saying 'look at my opus guys.' This attack is laughably easy as all but one of Voltan's guards were sleeping and none of them were alerted by the incredibly loud silly string attack.
Either way, the sorceress unbinds Hawk and the others as they lay to rest our comic relief character. A fluorescent bauble and feather party ensues as the final battle begins, numerous lackeys are slaughtered, Ranulf is killed, Crow is injured and Gort is briefly knocked out after tearfully holding a dying nun. So now it is the epic confrontation, brother against brother and good against evil. So how do Hawk and Voltan turn up the epic dial on their brotherly conflict? Put simply, the hammiest and most unintentionally comic slow motion brawl ever filmed; trust me when I say the entire battle is filmed in this way.

We also get to know that Voltan is certainly rough around the edges when it somes to sword fighting, all Hawk needs to do is dodge very slightly and Voltan either clumsily bumps into a wall or unceremoniusly trips. Voltan activates his rage time and lunges wildly at his brother who rather nonchalantly slashes him through the side. The dying warlord curses his brothers power over the Mindsword with one last act of jealousy and slips into death's hands. our budding director however hints at Voltan's return as the Dark Wizard warns of his slumber being cut short. Do I need to explain that the Wizard is basically a floating bedsheet with glowing eyes?
Hawk and Gort are awarded with some of the precious gold while Crow stays to be healed by the nuns (sounds naughty), the two ride off to the South as we are informed of a gathering of Dark Wizards to set up the sequel. Cue end credits.

Hawk The Slayer is one of those cult movies that to judge seriously and claim that it is one of the worst films of all time would be considered blasphemy. The film has grown a small but surprisingly devoted fanbase defending this film either as an underrated classic or a tongue-in-cheek send up of the fantasy genre. While I don't truly agree on either of those opinions, I found the film to be like an elaborate pantomime; the story is extremely typical of the fantasy genre ticking the entire list of cliches from magical tales effortlessly.
While the plot and narrative is incredibly hackeneyed as well as derivative, it's paced well and is oddly enjoyable. The main reason for this is because of the wildly inconsistent acting and a low budget that would make a grindhouse director roll on the floor howling with laughter. For example, the liberal use of the same forest locations over and over again (very easy to spot in the horse riding montages). Adding to these are the hilariously bland costumes, rubber weapons and of course matte paintings; only two whole indoor sets were used for the film too.

The music is surprisingly good for a low budget British production but it is certainly unusual for the genre combining orchestral and synthesizer sounds along with some very spaghetti western sounding twangs. What steals the show here though is the acting which truly makes Hawk The Slayer stand out as a camp extravanganza. On one hand you have Hawk played by John Terry whose acting is beyond wooden and becomes almost leaden. Special mention to Crow the elf who is more robotic than the average Star Wars droid. Jack Palance as Voltan is at the opposite end of the bad acting spectrum truly excelling as one of the most overripe, maniacal villains in the genre. The rest of the acting is very bog standard with no-one else really standing out and coming off as very bland. Never mind the character development though, the film does not really go beyond the archetypes it portrays in any meaningful way.

But really, does that matter in this film? Most bad movie and fantasy aficionados older than their mid 20s are most likely aware of the film (my father remembers the film fondly). In any case Hawk The Slayer is probably one of the most accessible and watchable 'bad' movies around. If there was any excuse to have a drunken night at the movies, make Hawk The Slayer your first port of call.

• Surprisngly catchy soundtrack: 4/5
• Lack of budget: Painfully obvious
• Jack Palance as Voltan: Deserves an Oscar 

-Oli, 30 December 2009

Review source: US DVD
Screenshot source: US DVD

Archangel Thunderbird

Wondering where to watch this? Your only option is YouTube, as this thing is not available on DVD nor does it get reruns, it never has and never will. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 & Part 4. 

This is truly something from the depths of obscurity, and never before has there been a beast such as crazy as this. Archangel Thunderbird was the first production Tony Luke ever made under his Renga Studios banner, until he turned it into Renga Media and produced Dominator, a film so insane it deserves to be known, whether you hate it or love it.

This 20-minute short was made to promote the launch of the Sci-Fi Channel in Europe in 1998 and it had record viewing figures, of course, no one remembers it, perhaps due to how it was never really promoted, or because it was an extremely low-budget one-off. Still, one has to ask, once the sight of this has been burned into someone's mind, how can they forget it?

With the first few minutes looking like something from a student film, people probably wouldn't be wrong in guessing that this short piece had a budget of no more than three or four figures; amateurish stop-motion action, laughably ancient CGI, green screen ahoy, and Doug Bradley being the only real name in this thing's cast. Despite my apparent harshness, I don't hate Archangel Thunderbird, it's just for the most part, totally unbelievable, in a way that makes you smirk. What's funny is that this probably would have looked acceptable as a 3DO or Sega CD FMV game, but it actually came out toward the end of the 90s; the style of it all is almost dazzling in a way.

Our plot involves a "renegade scientist" known as John Churchill (Doug Bradley) who discovers ancient texts prophesizing that doomsday will be spearheaded by pre-Christian otherworldly demons. Churchill has gone into hiding after the UN laughed his theories out the door, silly move in hindsight really, because shortly after, Earth was attacked by many giant demons led by the Lovecraftian Baal. Churchill has however assembled Doomshield, Earth's last hope, consisting of soldiers and scientists (a few extras carrying big guns and a guy in a labcoat with crazy hair), along with a very bondage friendly girl called Miki Manson being suspended by wires and tubes (played by Eileen Daly, the only other name in this who at least has some credentials, but I'm being mean). With new recruit Rob (Adrian Bunting, yes you haven't heard of him), who doesn't seem to do much other than turn on Miki, Churchill has Miki control something known as the Archangel Thunderbird, using pages from the Necronomicon, that allow her to shift through giant monster forms.

In all honesty, this is pretty much an accurate live-action depiction of anime; the incomphrehensible plot, insane dialogue, giant monsters killing each other, fetishized-women, and battles with garish special effects, especially when combined with the frenetic feel of the whole thing, and even right down to the inclusion of a cool little end credits song. This pretty much has all the makings of a one-off OVA, it just suffers from being a woefully low-budget live-action product, if it was an anime with money spent on it, it would probably be more well-known. The influence is definitely obvious, and this would probably be good too if it was a well-made kaiju/tokusatsu production.

Many are going to look at this and think it's the worst piece of anything under the sun among the several hundred other films they probably haven't seen yet (the easiest way to say you've seen the worst film ever is of course to just watch Twilight), I still find I have to applaud Tony Luke and his team for getting something as outrageous as this done without much help or without much money, the man may have turned out something really good if he actually did have the proper facilities. It's risible in more ways than one to many, understandably so, but it's a fascinating little hybrid of things, even if it is slightly difficult to watch at a few instances. The highlight of the whole thing are Yasushi Nirasawa's monster designs, which are fantastic as always. Their detailed stop-motion models are very cool, I only wonder where they are now. Also, it's not like Renga acted like they had made something incredible, which is good. I feel pretty mean ripping on such an innocent one-off, one that is not entirely scarce on imagination at all, it's really not all that bad, and if you love cheesy then you might find this is right for you.

I wish I could really extend this article, something like this just feels like it needs more coverage. Like Dominator, there's nothing else like this, and it's been extremely rare up to now, it demands to be watched just for the sheer insanity and novelty that such a thing was ever made.

• Being made on dirt: 4/5
• Insanity: 5/5
• Obscurity: 6/5

-James, 05 November 2009 (original date)

Review source: Original recording

Screenshout source: Original recording

Dominator - An overview

Boy is this a tough one to tackle.

We may as well begin with the origins of Dominator; in 1988, budding music video director and stop motion animator Tony Luke illustrated and wrote a short comic for Metal Hammer magazine, starring the titular character as he fought otherworldly monsters with a sonic guitar. Come 1993, Tony Luke meets an executive from Kodansha and is asked to revamp the character for their Comic Afternoon publication, in which the character would run alongside the likes of Gunsmith Cats and Oh! My Goddess. Dominator became the first-ever British-created manga, being illustrated once again by Tony Luke in his unique style and written by Alan Grant, the manga enjoyed a massive readership and even experienced an odd crossover with characters from another manga called Get a Grip! Tsuyoshi. However, it fell into obscurity shortly after as it was made by two foreigners not staying in Japan, and therefore had no follow-ups.

Back at home in 1995, Tony Luke illustrated the one-off comic for the character 'Hellkatt' for Manga UK and their Guyver releases, while looking to start up a business to make sure his characters remain as his and Alan Grant's property. In 1998, Renga Studios, formed by Luke, produces the thirty-minute, ultra-low-budget short Archangel Thunderbird starring Doug Bradley to launch the Sci-Fi Channel in Europe, this short was noted for featuring monster designs by Yasushi Nirasawa. Soon afterward, as Luke and Grant realized the potential of being able to make productions with new technology for the price of a shoe lace, they decide to bring back Dominator. The concept was to make a CG series based off the manga and animate it through home computers. This was started around 2001 but was later put on hiatus once Tony Luke was diagnosed with lung cancer, a further depression kept the project inactive for a while.

Eventually, after a recovery, the Sci-Fi Channel approached Luke asking for Dominator to be turned into a movie, but given their anime slot and the title's history with manga, it was inevitably dubbed "British anime". With the short notice after only making a recent recovery, Luke and his team were forced to salvage their old CG footage with only limited time to polish it all off (one example is how the character models were all blown up and the textures on them went unchanged from the original smaller models, meaning they appeared extremely blurry). Not just this though, as Alan Grant's script saw minimalistic revision. Regardless though, the final product saw a selected cinema release and a run on the Sci-Fi Channel itself before being put on DVD in 2003. The film features an appearance by Hellkatt, but as not many knew her to begin with, she just seems like another character. It has to be noted that when people say nothing in Dominator looks like it was done professionally, it was because it wasn't - it was literally made by several guys on a few Macs.

If I wasn't searching through old VHS tapes to find stuff off the Sci-Fi Channel's anime slot in 2004, I wouldn't have discovered an old promo for Dominator, I knew the CGI looked extremely amateur, but I was very taken in and immediately searched for information on it. I soon found the Renga Media site and read extensively on the film before ordering a copy, I felt ready knowing how low-budget it was. For a long time, I was incredibly in love with this movie, the whole concept was just so ludicrously appealing, it seemed genius, but many people didn't share the same views, at all. As I've grown up, I can see why, and since then I have never been so torn between a movie. At the age of fourteen, this movie was just so schlocky it had to be a dream, I loved the crazy designs of the characters (even though they probably all looked a lot better on paper), the heavy metal soundtrack (which got me into Cradle of Filth, but I've since long grown out of them) was awesome and without the Renga Media site I don't think I would have ever have become so interested in Devilman and the works of Go Nagai (one thing which I'm never growing out of). Hell, I never would have found out about Robert Rankin, so Renga Media's hellish creation has certainly been helpful to me. Regardless, I was a stupid praise-singing fanboy.

Sadly, I was the only one, despite a few positive reviews the film got, no one shared the same love I had for it, and it was difficult finding people who liked it, I always tried to justify the movie on the grounds of how low budget it was and that it was intentionally cheesy. Things were against me though, the whole promotional campaign for Dominator was just too much in its own favour, Tony Luke by all means had good intentions with the idea of being able to make something with little cash - unfortunately, this doesn't help if the vast majority are just going to take one look at your work, say "that looks like shit" and will have nothing to do with you anymore.

However, it feels like Luke was pretty much forced to keep up a positive attitude about his unearthly lovechild, with the press championing him for keeping up his work while having been diagnosed with cancer, which is all good and well though, but it seems too much positive emphasis was put on something that was just... schlocky and cheesy. It really never helped that the Sci-Fi Channel pinned Dominator as anime, and Salvation Film's tagline, "the new wave of Brit-Manga Animtion is here!" is just cringeworthy, and just makes you harken back to western 'anime-style' abominations, as Dominator is anything but 'anime'. We're not going to get into an argument here that anime just means 'animation' so anything goes; the masses won't accept that.

As a side mention, I suppose it was because of budgetary restrictions, but I think Dominator would have survived a bit better if not released in Europe under the Salvation Films label, a label which specializes in vampire pornography most of the time.

Having spoken to Tony Luke through emails in the past and having done a bit of online searching, it seems he had little say in the matter of promoting his film; Salvation's tagline went on without his knowledge. To know your film has just been branded something without you knowing and can potentially damage any credibility it has earns my sympathy. Because of this mishap, it has been very misleading for many, meaning Luke and his team have been criticized for trying to be Japanese when they actually weren't at all (the DVD is quite incorrectly categorized as anime a lot).

Dominator did enjoy some success though, but Renga Media ultimately struggled with promised projects as a small company; Luke has demonstrated how hard it can be just to get something started when people will only fund so much, and only if they deem it profitable. A (better animated) short was released online in 2004, known as A Brief History of Hell, which was a newer version of the film's prologue, it actually wasn't bad at all. At the same time, word of a sequel began to grow stronger, with early footage even being previewed on ITV's Screentime. The closest that such a sequel came to was the proposed "Dominator and the Cradle of Death" (which I own a small promotional booklet to, along with a Dominator t-shirt), which was canceled. The reason was Luke found himself stuck in a rut in terms of where to take his character, and didn't want to churn out another low-budget sequel, he wanted something a bit bigger. Renga Media did release another short, which was a crossover between their characters Dominator and Lady Violator with Kevin Eastman's Heavy Metal 2000 characters; it was still low budget, but in comparison to the first film, the CGI had been greatly improved and there was actual animation. In late 2006, news of a total reboot began to circulate, with Renga Media promising to deliver the much more anime-inspired Dominator X, which looked a hell of a lot more promising. 

Dominator X looked to make much better use of its small budget, and wasn't just going to be a movie, but also a downloadable series to be distributed across PSPs and iPods, as well as the Internet of course. A new manga was to be printed in Heavy Metal comics, illustrated by Masanori Shino, even a videogame was announced. My disappointment when I learned the entire project was canceled two years later was immense, the cancelation was because of a result of funding and rights holder problems. Since then, Renga Media has become Renegade Arts Entertainment, and whether Dominator will return is unknown.

This has been a long enough article as it is, and I'm yet to talk about the actual Dominator film, which was what this core topic was supposed to be, but the entire deal with Dominator is too big to be ignored. The film is either so-bad-it's-good material to some, or so-bad-it's-BAD material to others, because the entire concept is simply ridiculous beyond words, the CG and animation is hilariously primitive and the plot is riddled with holes. Nothing really makes sense; backgrounds constantly jump between characters even though they're in the same room together, plot devices are pulled straight out of the blue and continuity errors are abundant; one minute Dominator is in a room playing guitar, the next he's teleporting into the same room and talking about something we don't know about! If anything though, I have great respect for Tony Luke for creating what I believe is one of the strangest and most unique film experiences ever. Not only that, but he showed what an effort he could make by simply getting off his behind, while suffering from cancer and spending a million pound on Apple Macs. Unfortunately, far too many people overlooked this, and it's an example of how many people deny the restrictions filmmakers go up against, and too many only care if it looks gorgeous. Dominator is not a glorious film, and I'm honestly stuck between loving and hating it as I've grown older, but I think it deserves a lot more recognition even if it is profoundly trashy. After all, it is the first-ever British-made CGI movie, and you know what? It's not big-budget and it doesn't feature fuzzy animals, it's extremely atypical of what you'd expect from an animated movie. On the other hand though, everything about it is a mess, but that's because it seemed to have such a troubled production.

I can't help but think though how good things would have been if Tony Luke actually had the facilities and the money to make a bigger budget film initially, as I dream of a British-made anime movie starring the character, a well-animated one, as crazy and unique as the first movie ever was, but with the ability to attract a bigger audience. The most that came out of Dominator X was an impressive trailer and Shino's pilot manga (except it was printed in the traditional left-to-right fashion of western comics) that was included in an anime special of SFX magazine. There was additionally a small prologue released in the form of a 'animated comic' online, which explained how the story of Dominator X begins and featured artwork by Larry Bundy Jr. Bundy Jr is by all means a good anime-style artist, but this short video was particularly poor, looking too much like a vapid product that was trying to be Japanese.

Tony Luke had a production diary spread over a few issues of 3D World magazine, in which he discussed what it was like to be working in his position and how the development of Dominator X was coming along. I included all these as well as various other scans on my old website, which is the only website you will find that has lots of information and images on Dominator. I've stopped updating it since, but I think I will keep it open.

The Region 2 and Region 1 DVD releases of the movie appear to be out of print now, which only boosts this oddity's obscurity. It does contain quite a lot of special features though, including several insightful interviews, music videos and various galleries. Unfortunately, other than my old website and perhaps this article, there is no page on the Internet that contains definite info on Dominator, as the Renga Media site is no longer available (I have recently given its Wikipedia article an overhaul as that contained outdated and useless information). The DVD might be worth tracking down if you want to see the first-ever British CGI movie, which has Doug Bradley voicing a skull with tentacles alongside Dani Filth voicing a giant guitar-playing demon while Mark & Lard drink beer; Dominator is a uniquely bizarre experience, but it's not for everyone. The manga unfortunately, is in the extremes of obscurity. Since Dominator X's cancellation, I have not heard from Tony Luke; I hope he is doing well and that the new Renegade team will enjoy much success, and hopefully Dominator will make a return one day.

One last thing, Yasushi Nirasawa's redesign of Lady Violator is fantastic.

-James, 08 August 2009 (original date)