Entry 111: The Dungeonmaster (1984)

The Dungeonmaster (AKA Ragewar-1984)

Dir: Charles Band, David Allen, John Carl Buechler, Steven Ford, Peter Manoogian, Ted Nicolau, Rosemarie Turko

"He is the overlord of strange beasts and stolen souls..."

 

When I started this movie, I thought I'd flipped on VH1 Classics instead, as it begins in fantastic 80's music video style, with a man with improbably-feathered hair waking up in an inexplicably smokey bedroom with a sexy brunette in a wind-blown red dress standing over him.  He arises and chases this mystery woman through some industrial-looking tunnels, before cornering her in a run-down warehouse, where she proceeds to strip down to nothing but her high heels and our hero mounts her on a bed that appears out of nowhere.  "Fucking A," I thought, "this is an 80's porno!"  Before I could begin masturbating, however, a couple of slime-faced mutants bust in and ruin the party, and our hero wakes up.  It was all a strange dream/nightmare.  Welcome to The Dungeonmaster.

The aforementioned hero is Paul (Jeffrey Byron, Nickelodeon, Metalstorm: the Destruction of Jared-Syn), a computer analyst who, in a refreshing change of pace from most films of the time, is presented here as something of a sex symbol; he has a pretty goddamn great head of hair and spends his time away from work running and working out while wearing some uncomfortably short Magnum, P.I.-style shorts.  He also has a pair of bitchin' glasses that allow him to interface with ATMs to withdraw money without a pesky card and PIN...innovation!  After an unnecessary (but not unwelcome) women's aerobics scene led by the "dream woman" in the red dress, we learn that the "dream woman" is, in fact, Gwen (Leslie Wing, Ghost Warrior, The Frighteners); Paul's real-life girlfriend.  Paul wants to marry Gwen, but she's jealous of his obsession with CAL, the computer program he's developed/is linked up with.  After going to sleep that night, Paul dreams of himself in a fantasy land, wearing a grey vest and bracers that make him look like he's going to D&D night at a gay bar.  He finds Gwen chained to a rock and is challenged by Mestema (Richard Moll, House, TV's Night Court), who is impressed by his development of CAL.  CAL informs Paul that Mestema is a pseudonym for Beelzebub (in actuality, he's one of God's angels from Jewish mythology; CAL straight-up sucks), and Mestema informs Paul that, thanks to his harnessing of technology, he's the "challenger" he's been waiting for for 1,000 years (if he's been around since the dawn of man, what's he been doing for the other 1,000?).  Mestema lets Paul know that he's gonna have to partake in several challenges, and if he fails even one of them, his soul will writhe in eternal damnation (I feel cheated; I'm pretty sure that's where I'm headed, and I haven't gotten to dress up like a medieval warrior even ONCE).  We're then treated to the challenges, each taking the form of a short film directed by one of Band's Empire Pictures stable of directors:

-Paul and Gwen battle a slew of frozen historical figures (including Genghis Khan and Jack the Ripper) in a cave, directed by Turko (Scarred).

-Paul battles a bunch of pasty-faced monsters, his own undead double and a foul-mouthed demon that looks like a Jim Henson first draft in another cave in a segment directed by effects artist Buechler (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, Cellar Dweller).

-Paul goes to a WASP concert, where the band performs "Tormentor" and Blackie Lawless turns out to be Mestema in disguise, who Paul and CAL defeat by disintegrating with a high-frequency tone.  Band himself directs this portion.

-In the film's best segment, Paul is harassed by two little people (including Phil Fondacaro; Vonkar from Willow), before being forced to do battle with an animated, laser-shooting stone idol.  This sequence was directed by stop-motion wunderkind Allen (Star Wars, Laserblast), who deserves better.

-Paul saves Gwen from a serial killer in slasher-inspired segment directed by actor Ford (Escape from New York, Starship Troopers).

-Paul gets involved in some shapeshifting (once again cave-bound) bullshit I can't even begin to wrap my brain around in a segment directed by Manoogian (Eliminators, Arena).

-Finally, Paul races around the desert in a souped-up car and saves Gwen from Mestema and some fetish-gear attired thugs in a Mad Max 2-inspired post-nuke sequence directed by Nicolau (TerrorVision, Subspecies).

After that, Paul and CAL interface and defeat Mestema "for real" in a Laser Floyd-looking lightshow duel and Gwen suddenly gets over her discomfort with CAL and agrees to marry Paul.  The end.

I'm not gonna lie; The Dungeonmaster is a shitty movie.  At only 77 minutes long, it's barely a feature, yet it took me two attempts to get through it.  The central conceit (a fantasy anthology utilizing several different directors) isn't a bad one, and given the right talent this could've been the schlocky horror equivalent of Lumiere & Co.  However, Band has neither the budget nor talent to pull bring his vision to fruition.  None of the segments link up in any sort of clever or meaningful way and the episodic narrative just slowly plods from one event to the next until it's over.  Perhaps the biggest problem is that the directors involved (all pulled from Band's Empire Pictures stable) aren't particularly talented (Buechler and Allen are great effects artists, but they're not directors) and none of them brings any sense of individual style to the table.  As a result, all the segments look and feel more or less the same and the whole film may as well have been directed by Band.  I do wanna give a shout-out to Moll, the film's strongest asset; he chews the scenery with gusto and seems to be having a ball reciting dialogue like: "You have spirit, woman; why waste your tender youth, your supple body.  He is a mere child."  Skip it.