Review of Hawk the Slayer (1980) by Jean-Francois V — 02 Jun 2008

"Hawk the Slayer" is the kind of heroic fantasy film I would only watch if it were the last heroic fantasy film on Earth. And back in 1981, this is about what it was. I couldn?t believe my luck when I discovered that it was showing on a boat I took across the North Sea back in my mid-teens. I had seen some of the advance photos in a magazine, and I felt like Samwise Gamgee going to see the Elves, or rather the Elf, as I knew there was one in it, and he had pointed ears and a bow. Imagine that!

Well, even at fourteen, I could tell this one was really bad. The dwarf is just a short guy, the giant just a tall guy, the Elf speaks like the ship?s computer from the original Star Trek (what were they thinking ?) and "the monster" is just a four-inch muppet on a stick. The whole mess looks as if a team of sitcom producers for British television had suddenly decided to ride on the Tolkien wave by producing a medieval version of the Seven Samurai on a £2.50 budget.

This said, I did enjoy watching the film again a year or two ago, partly for its nostalgic power (like gazing at the lousy illustrations for some amateurish RPG you played as a teen), partly for its camp value (the disco score and the laser beams that go pew-pew), and partly for some genuine qualities like the weapon designs, the British accents and the Christian imagery and themes.