Action star and stunt pro Daniel Bernhardt takes on the title role in Deathstalker.Supplied
Deathstalker
Written and directed by Steven Kostanski
Starring Daniel Bernhardt, Christina Orjalo and the voice of Patton Oswalt
Classification N/A; 103 minutes
Opens in select theatres Oct. 10
Canadian filmmaker Steven Kostanski has a wonderful knack for turning trash into treasure. For the past decade and a half, the director has used minuscule budgets and heaps of let’s-put-on-a-show enthusiasm to spit-shine forgotten cinematic artifacts that have been left to gather dust in the back rooms of abandoned video-rental stores.
Just as the director’s 2011 feature debut Manborg was a gleeful refashioning of such cyborg-punk junk as Guyver 2 and Robot Jox, his wonderfully funny 2020 splatter comedy Psycho Goreman was a gonzo re-appropriation of Power Rangers by way of Tromaville, while last year’s delirious Frankie Freako was a disturbingly meticulous ode to such Z-grade ’80s totems as Ghoulies and Garbage Pail Kids.
Kostanski’s films are not for everyone – least of all audiences afraid of getting a little syrupy fake blood on their hands – but to paraphrase the marketing campaign of another bargain-basement Canadian cultural icon, those who like them like them a lot.
All of which should make the new fantasy-comedy Deathstalker the movie that Kostanski has been working his entire career toward. A remake of the 1983 film of the same name – which prolific producer Roger Corman pumped out on the cheap in Argentina to capitalize on the success of John Milius’s Conan the Barbarian – Deathstalker has all the ingredients ripe for an affectionate and energetic Kostanski-fied reappraisal: swords, sorcery and the severing of so very many limbs, all delivered with a loving wink and a playful nudge.
The director has even assembled his highest-profile cast to date, with direct-to-video action star and stunt pro Daniel Bernhardt (Bloodsports 2 through 4) taking on the title role, and Patton Oswalt voicing a comic-relief troll who tags along for the mayhem.
Christina Orjalo stars as Brisbayne in the film.Supplied
And yet, as Kostanski’s version of Deathstalker unfolds-slash-unspurts, the project feels torn between goofy irreverence and something approaching self-seriousness. Not that any movie featuring a mystical character named Doodad or an opening shot in which a demonic warrior bonesaws a man’s head in half can be described as serious, exactly.
And the key to unlocking all of Kostanski’s previous films has always been his unwavering belief that there is joy to be found in the crevasses of junk. But there are too many points in Deathstalker where it feels like Kostanski has convinced himself that he’s making an honest-to-goodness epic, a genuine challenger to Conan’s skull-lined throne.
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The films opens in select theatres on Oct. 10.Supplied
Not to knock the ambition, but Deathstalker works best when it’s more firmly in Kostanski’s wheelhouse of affectionate pastiche.
Mostly this is when Bernhardt gets to go full deadpan, the actor wisely choosing to play the swordsman as a walking, talking slab of blue-collar beefcake who could just as well be patching drywall as he could decapitating evil wizards.
Christina Orjalo is just as charming as a clever thief who threatens to melt Deathstalker’s cold heart, albeit in a more brother-sister fashion than the expected love-interest route. (The original Deathstalker infamously contained heaps of sexual violence against women designed not to horrify but to titillate, a staple of ’80s exploitation flicks that Kostanski has wisely opted not to revisit.)
For a committed enough midnight-movie crowd, that might all be enough to keep Kostanski’s party going till dawn – which is when, at points, it feels like the exhausting carnage is going to last until. But just a few moments too often, you want Psycho Goreman himself to make a surprise cameo and lay waste to everyone and be done with it.