The Beastmaster *** (1982, Marc Singer, Tanya Roberts, Rip Torn) – Classic Movie Review 8750

Handsome hunk Marc Singer stars as young son of a king Dar, the eponymous mixture of Conan the Barbarian, Tarzan the Magnificent and Doctor Dolittle, in director Don Coscarelli’s deliciously daft 1982 sword-and-sorcery fantasy adventure The Beastmaster.

The amusing beasts Dar commands, and has the ability to communicate with, include a panther, an eagle and two comic ferrets. Other extravagant support comes from Tanya Roberts as the gorgeous slave Kiri and Rip Torn as the over-the-top evil priest Maax, who lives down to his evil name by enslaving villagers and sacrificing their children.

The Beastmaster is entertaining and surprisingly well made by Don Coscarelli, the young director of the 1979 Phantasm, there is plenty of the required sword fights and sorcery, and it looks a treat, thanks to committed people prepared to treat the frivolous seriously. Youngsters should beware creepy things like the living eyeball ring and the fluorescent blood.

Also in the cast are John Amos as Seth, Rod Loomis, Ben Hammer, Ralph Stratt, Josh [Joshua] Milrad, Billy Jacoby, Tony Epper, Janet De May, Chrissy Kellogg, Janet Jones, Vanna Bonta and Kim Tabet.

The UK cinema print was hacked for a PG rating with cuts to shots of impaled bodies and the puncturing of a ring containing an eyeball, and to remove all topless nudity. The cuts are restored in home releases after the 1998 Director’s Cut.

Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time followed in 1990, also with Marc Singer. Beastmaster 3: The Eye of Braxus followed in 1996.

Tanya Roberts posed for the cover and an inside spread in Playboy to promote the film. Roberts’s appearance in the film led to her casting in the title role in Sheena (1984) and as Bond girl Stacey Sutton in A View to a Kill (1985).

RIP Tanya Roberts, who died on 3 January 2021, aged 65. She was both a Bond girl and the last of the original Charlie’s Angels.

R.I.P. Rip Torn (1931 – 2019).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8750

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