Conquest (1983) Online

"Conquest" is a typical case of a "love it or hate it" movie. The crossover which Fulci tried was: take some of the barbarian hero stuff popular in the 80s (Conan, Beastmaster), combine it with the splatter horror the director is well known for, and give this a psychedelic edge with blurred, constantly foggy visuals and haunting synthesizer music. Surely not everybody's taste, not even for many fans of Fulci's other works. However, if you are in the right mood, "Conquest" is an experience that compares to no other fantasy horror movie...except maybe Bava's "Ercole al centro della terra"! The story can be given in a few lines: Ilias, a young man from a comparatively civilized country, travels to a barbarian land of many terrors. He meets the warrior Mace, and together they fight an evil sorceress who claims to be responsible for the rising of the sun, and is worshiped like a goddess by everyone who believes her (surprisingly many).

Fulci doesn't give any explanations, but lets us dive in head first. Don't ask "why do those zombies exist in the swamp?", "why does Zora appear out of thin air?" or "how can Sabrina Siani be beamed from the mountain top into the cave without Scotty around?". This is not the point. What Fulci shows us is a dream where everything is possible. Meet the creatures that lurk in your nightmares, and when there are no more arrows for the bow, it shoots lightning beams. A dream does not require logic. Even death is not certain here. I perfectly understand when people don't like this movie, because it is opposed to what one normally expects from a movie. However, I don't see this as a dumb or sloppy script - to me it appears to be a purposeful experiment that did not succeed entirely, but is unusual and challenging. As I said at the beginning: love it or hate it.

Adults deserve to have their fairy tales & fantasies too, and I'd say Lucio Fulci cooked up a pretty potent adult pulp fairy tale here. I'll leave it to others to describe the plot: My first indication that this wasn't going to be your average CONAN ripoff when the four guys dressed up like Smokey the Bear rip a cave girl babe into quarters, snort drugs with a nude sorceress witch babe with a body from hell who then copulates (R-Rated style) with her companion python while having a vision of someone shooting her with TRON's bow & arrow. Talk about weird!

The film is an interesting combination of opposites that aims right at the atavistic, adventure-loving 14 year old with a desire to see bared breasts in all of us. While the narrative is somewhat confusing in your typical Fulcian kind of way the visuals are just as striking, with costume design by Mad Max and Larry Flynt, including oddball touches such as the Dog Men, the Gauze Men, Ape Guys and that far-out sorceress. She really is the focus of the film: The two guys out gallivanting around saving each other from imminent doom are more sort of there to give the film an excuse to have such an outrageously sexy harlot as it's force of evil, complete with a bestial contingent of half men half animals to do her evil bidding.

But seriously, if you go into this expecting anything other than complete dreck the movie *WILL* annoy you. For fans of be-headings, clever escapes, back-flips, fights to the death, mystical snake babes, ferocious howler guys, Atari era computer graphics, ridiculous cornball dialog and equal amounts of beefcake and cheesecake, this movie should be your priority rental next time you're in the mood for something other than a Global Warming movie. CONQUEST may not change the world, win any elections or even be that good, but I'd rather be confused by something that knows it's garbage & has fun with the idea than snookered by ideology disguised as entertainment.

7/10, even if it doesn't make much sense ...

The atmosphere in this movie is like nothing I have ever seen. Absolutely bizarre, beautiful, and brilliant. The plot and acting are not important. Instead, they merely provide a stepping stone for Lucio Fulci's beyond-superb cinematography.

OK, the "atmosphere's plot" revolves around the pursuit of the sorceress villainess Ocron (Sabrina Siani) by an archer, Ilias (Andrea Occhipinti), and Mace (Jorge Rivero), a sidekick picked up along the way. Sabrina is more of a form figure than a person, and has a fluid gold mask. However, Ilias and Mace are regular homo sapiens. The setting is, you know, sci fi, caveman outfitted, medieval, monsters and wolfmen and zombies, and a few more people.

Funny thing, the silhouettes of both Mace and Ilias -- most notably, their hairlines -- give them a resemblance to Jim Morrison. When the facial details are observed, the comparison lessens, but one almost thinks a crossing of those details would bring a nearer result. Plus, like other animal forms in the movie, snakes are prominent. And you know, that scene in Oliver Stone's flick with "The End," is there more coincidence...

OK, enough of that. Ocron's efforts to eliminate her stalkers seeking to end her evil rule center around beast and wolfmen attacks, and there are various other graphic scenes. For those who dislike violence and gore, graphic imagery, this film has them, yes, but they are mitigated by the atmosphere. "Cannibal Holocaust" and "Jungle Holocaust" are real (very), "Conquest" is surreal (equally as very).

To communicate what the atmosphere is like, I might initially say something like "darkly impressionistic." But first of all, it's not dark as in nightworld -- not really dark, but somewhat murky; Fulci enlists fog, as a matter of fact. Besides, "impressionistic" applies only in the broad association of the word of nonreproduction of realism, not the narrower definition involving use of light and uneven depth. For what makes the cinematography so fantastic is the depth of the backdrop--colors and form, and the blending of the colors. Motley, variegated? But don't these terms perhaps imply brightness and individual definition? Yet the brightness in "Conquest" is subtly refined, filtered within the nebulous atmosphere. The effect is nothing short of a dazzling work of art, a real treat for the viewer. For your eyes only.

Fulci is very successful in his efforts with broad, elaborate images -- the sky, the sun and moon, the sea and earth and vegetation. But he is also good on detail in the living beings and their surroundings. And although the movie's tale is only silly, the scenes are presented skillfully, well crafted and well edited.

So inferior are the pompous, amorphous special effects that viewers are barraged with by modern Hollywood movies (Mummy II, etc.) when measured against Fulci's work in "Conquest" that they come out as nothing but a joke by comparison. I wish to point out that I am no particular fan of European movies, preferring Hollywood overall, but I must say that in certain genres some Italian flicks represent the best of the Old World, with their exploration of basic human desires and instincts, their depth and bite, sometimes great humor, and, as here, atmosphere. See references above, plus "The Good the Bad and the Ugly," "The Sensuous Nurse," "The Legend of Frenchie King," "Farewell Uncle Tom," "La Dolce Vita..." For atmosphere and visuals, "Conquest" is triumphant.

If there's any movie Lucio Fulci made that inspires equal love and hatred, it must be this, the director's lone fore into the Sword and Sorcery subgenre. The general opinion of its detractors seems to be that "Conquest" marked the beginning of Fulci's descent into both commercial and artistic mediocrity, and while the former may be true, I'm not understanding the latter. In light of what Fulci's work aspires to be, "Conquest" can in many ways be seen as a culmination of his style, and if your best criticisms of the movie are that it's "plotless and cheap," I wonder why you're watching a Fulci movie in the first place.

Sure, the plot is a rudimentary blob that in the end amounts mostly to characters wandering back and forth as an excuse to get them into perilous situations involving traps and monsters, but Fulci's visual sensibilities are positively ON FIRE here, so much so that the limitations of the story become pretty much inconsequential. They take a back seat to the otherwordly mythic fantasy environment that Fulci is able to create with the most frugal materials. It is the foreboding fog-shrouded swamps, ancient stone temples, grotesque creatures and lurid-colored alien skies that will linger in the mind as the work of an artist who clearly has an eye for distinctive visuals. You could only accuse this of being a movie derivative of "Conan the Barbarian" if you completely ignored this aspect of it, because I can't think of another film that looks anything like this.

Other aspects of "Conquest" work to its advantage in subtle ways. The spare, monosyllabic dialogue helps to create the sense of a primitive and brutish world and the minimalist pulses of Claudio Simonetti's electronic score mesh well with the stunning visuals. Bizarre details - the villainess' gold mask and fascination with snakes, the enchanted bow that glows blue, the dolphin rescue - border on the surrealistic. The effect achieved, at least to this viewer, is hypnotic. I find myself wondering how so many filmmakers today, when they are given all the resources in the world and can't give us one interesting thing to look at, can be treated so leniently by critics who would jump on the bahnwagon to slam Fulci without a second thought.

Bored with watching Zombie Flesh Eaters? Fed up with trying to figure out the End of City of the Living Dead? Scared that you'll waste money on 500 late era Fulci horror flicks?

Well, Conquest is the film for you....if you like drug-snorting wolfmen,

people being split in two lengthwise, topless sun Goddesses, and a director who must have replaced his corn flakes with LSD, replaced his milk with LSD, then ate all that LSD with a special spoon, made of LSD.

Fulci just goes beyond the call of duty in the 'creating another world' stakes, messing up just about every shot on purpose by pointing the camera in the direction of the sun. Otherworldly? How about 'throw out any notion of reality whatsoever'. Don't take this the wrong way though, the insane cinematography just helps this movie.

And as for plot, well there's this guy, see, and he sort of appears on a beach with a whole bunch of transparent people, then gets sent on some sort of mission of some sort, with a magic bow. He ends up, erm, somewhere else, and ends up getting his arse kicked over and over again until an animal rights barbarian shows up and helps him, and the two of them travel the land, fighting folks, heading for the topless Godessess place. For some reason.

Conquest is one of THE finest Italian insanity flicks I've sat down to watch - Here's a quick rundown of some of the madness:

1) Grenades made from leaves and rocks 2) Plenty of gore, including feeding from a severed head like it was a coconut. 3) Dolphin rescue teams 4) zombies, and bizarre cobweb monkey things. 5) The most awful special effects of flying arrows you'll ever see. 6) Great almost techno-like score. 7) Gore galore 8) Sudden plot twist that comes out of nowhere for no reason. 9) Concrete Nunchuks!

Great stuff all the way through - As it's a Fulci film, it has that dream-like quality that's almost like a sedative, but this film is a must for fans - get the Blue Underground, cleaned up, uncut version.

Fans of Fulci, you will love this! This film is no Zombi or Beyond but it has the feel and atmosphere of a Fulci masterpiece. He may be the Godfather of Gore, but if your just looking for that certain aspect in the film, then turn away. With the exception of one or two scenes(which are pretty decent), Conquest has little gore to offer. What Conquest does have to offer tho is a great atmosphere and music score. Around the time of Conquest's release, the sword and sorcery genre was very popular. This film is merely Fulci's take on the genre and he pulls it off brilliantly. The story may be simple and seem generic yet it is pulled off well enough to make the plot of the film enjoyable and entertaining through the use of great settings, creatures, cheesy special effects and a cool techno score of the early 80's. If you're a fan of Fulci or even a fan of cheesy 80's movies, then Conquest would probably be a great film for you. 8 out of 10!

I am a big Fulci fan, but I will be the first to say that some of his lesser films are endearingly lame (Aenigma, A Touch of Death, Demonia, etc). Luckily this sword and sorcery epic does not belong in that group. Instead, this film is just shy of standing shoulder to shoulder with the all time Fulci zombie classics (The Beyond, City o' the living Dead, Zombie, etc.). In other words, Fulci made some bold choices throughout his prolific career involving genre, as well as the actual content of the films (obviously). The fantasy/barbarian category may seem like an odd choice considering his other films, but this is a crossover type project that is very successful from an entertainment point of view. Although some may view this as a "genre" or "exploitation" movie, in my view Fulci was able to bring his stylistic flair to a different place. The result is a film that is very soulful for a Fulci film, in as much as this is about honorable warriors who are involved in a quasi-mystical quest involving magic weapons, animal rights and what not. Yet he still continues the gore and the general feeling of menace mixed with tension and chaos that permeates the aforementioned Zombie movies. There is a considerable amount of bludgeoning and rather disgusting body fluid squirting here. But the action sequences themselves have a somewhat frenetic choreography that Fulci does well with, all the battle scenes were much more enjoyable because I was invested in the characters and the spirit of the thing. The wolfpeople masks and costumes are also kind of clever, as are the swamp people. Special mention should be made of Claudio Simonetti's perfect synthesized score. The music adds a lot of depth to the characters and the great locations, adding a little sophistication to what is essentially a very simple and well told tale. During the briefly sluggish pace of the middle portion of the film, the music saves the picture from losing steam. The acting and dubbing were also better than average, and I don't want to give up the ending, but I will say that it had me engrossed and guessing. Actually the end was the best part for me, which is not usually the case with me. The Blue Underground DVD that I watched looks excellent, not to mention the Dolby 2.0 Surround Mix that is perfectly mixed. In summary, I really liked this a lot, I think most hardcore Fulci watchers should at least give it a look.

Crashing in to the craze set-up by "Conan the Barbarian" came quite an amusingly pulp sword and sorcery fable by Italian horror maestro director Lucio Fulci, which might be slender on story, packing a random, if stiff script and looking to be rather cheaply pulled off but he crafts out a lasting atmospheric air of odd imagery (as well as eerie sound effects) and hands out slabs of gusto violence (adding pulsating shocks of bloody violence --- especially to the head). In his latter career he would always be remembered for the excessive gore and nastiness in his features, but I what impressed me more anything is the moody atmospherics he brings aboard. I found "Conquest" to be quite effectively simmering in that regard. Helping out a lot is Claudio Simonetti ticking time bomb of an electronic score too. Rather unhinged, but extremely exhilarating and mystical. Fulci moves through one set-piece after another, either being a quick moving clip or a rather sluggish passage; nonetheless the primitive tailoring with its tacky make-up and chintzy special effects only add to this nightmarish air where a striking surreal edge is presented. Maybe taking away from the story's questionable developments. Some tripped out visuals of swirling mists and dark lighting compositions are caught by some innovative, flowing cinematography that's not afraid to get up close and personal, and also perfectly frames the picturesquely verdant backdrop. The performances are acceptable, but still on the plain side with the likes of Jorge Rivero, Andrea Occhipinti and Sabrina Sellers. I found the feature to get better as it went along, but it seems to make sure everything that occurs comes off too easy without much struggle and that goes for its anticlimactic final showdown. A fun and tatty exploitive tilt at the sword and scandal fantasy faze.

In an unnamed pre-historic land, a gold-masked sorceress named Ocron (Sabrina Siani) rules all evil. A young archer (Andrea Occhipinti), equipped with a magic bow-and-arrow, sets out to kill her, teaming up with a hardened, animal-loving muscleman (George Rivero) along the way...

This was the first movie Fulci made after breaking his assocation with Fabrizio De Angelis, and is recognised as the one that would stop his career in its tracks. Fulci's quarrels with producer Giovanni De Clemente really show through on screen, with some particularly cheap special-effects and mangy-looking monsters.

To his credit, Fulci tries hard to work up an atmosphere (orange skies, fog, green mossy plains), but gives up towards the end. Some scenes are just plain stupid, such as the wolfmen attacks (they look like Dulux hounds!) and Rivero rescued from drowning by dolphins. As with his earlier CHALLENGE TO WHITE FANG, the sheer nastiness of what goes on weighs against the fantastical, magical backdrop Fulci was trying to create. But FANG had lovely locations, good acting, a pacey storyline and excellent photography to fall back on.

Gore fans do get their money's worth, however. An old man's brain is exposed after receiving a cranial axe-blow, Ocron whacking open a severed head to feast on its brains, various gore-spewing arrow hits, zombies being staked, several graphic burnings, and Ocron's heart blown out after receiving a laser-bolt to her chest. Not forgetting the notorious 'wishbone' sequence, where a naked girl is spread-eagled until she splits right up the middle.

Of course, many video-releases are cut, including the UK and Dutch tapes. Go for the Belgian or Greek release, they're both uncut and LBXed. That is, of course, if you care!

It's not surprising that the Italian spate of CONAN rip-offs only lasted about a year. This unimaginative effort, which is adequate at best, is actually one of the BETTER rip-offs. You don't even want to know what Lenzi's IRON MASTER and Tonino Ricci's THOR THE CONQUEROR are like!

A young man, Ilias(Andrea Occhipinti) ace with his bow and arrows(..both of wood and lasers), is sent by his people to execute an evil sorceress, Ochron(Sabrina Siani, under a mask, her breasts on display, only a g-string "shield" covering her vagina, often seen with a snake slithering all over her body) who is a viable threat to the rest of the human race. Ilias is quite brave, but notwithstanding green, despite his abilities as a marksman, he'll need help, receiving assistance from Mace(Jorge Rivero), a skilled warrior who understands Ochron's land and how to survive on it. Mace mentions how he cares little for his fellow man, having adopted a special relationship with the animals of all kinds, seemingly able to communicate with flying creatures(..birds and a bat, both which guide him to a kidnapped Ilias). Yet, he will eventually bond with Ilias as they escape numerous encounters with Ochron's furry, ferocious dog-men, dangerous pine needles which shoot from "angered bush"(!), "spider-web men"(..they look like humans cocooned in web, their eye sight visualized in a green tint), a magical "assassin" named Zora(Conrado San Martín, also under a mask, who is able to move from one place to the next, his body simply vanishing, also, at one point, taking the shape of Mace in order to surprise a sickly Ilias who was incapacitated, eventually losing a battle with the one whose form he "borrowed"), cavernous monsters(..barely visible, with long nails and glowing eyes), and dangerous bats. The humans are of a "tribal" variety..skin often colored with dirt, mud, and other materials, hair mangled and filthy, bodies covered with skins(..or not covered at all), feasting from flesh in the same way as the beasts they killed for their meal.

Lucio Fulci creates an atmosphere that certifies that CONQUEST is pure fantasy. The creatures in his film are what you might read about in fantasy fiction..they are quite violent, often subservient to their queen's wishes, leaving nothing alive in their quest to secure Ilias at Ochron's command. Mace is always asking Ilias to return home due to his understanding of just how sinister and hostile Ochron is. Ochron has convinced the creatures that follow her lead(..they seem to all speak in English)that she has power over the sun. One major problem is that Fulci often stages action set pieces at night, Ilias and, particularly, Mace combating Ochron's forces, with a lot of the violence bathed in murkiness. There's a sequence in a darkened cavern, where monsters(..after successfully capturing Ilias)battle Mace and you can hardly see anything..also, Mace is warding off a swarm of bats. There are some really inspired moments such as Mace fending off swamp zombies and a diseased Ilias(..who was stabbed in the leg by a poisonous needle)suffering bulging puss oozing sores(..following a little later, Fulci displays ants throughout Ilias' body, crawling around his wounds!). The "Mace versus Mace" encounter is certainly surreal as is Ocron's orgiastic display with a snake as she envisions nightmares of Ilias blasting her with one of his laser arrows. Most of the weapons used are fashioned from rock or wood. Lots of wounds gushing blood. The real star of the film is Alejandro Ulloa's cinematography. There are some remarkable shots through the use of the sun. The most unexpected scene has dolphins rescuing Mace from a most certain drowning. The ending, Mace's revenge against Ochron, using his comrade's bow, her "unveiling"(..we have a chance to see the grotesque face under the mask), and what she eventually turns into as a result, is simply perplexing. Recommended pretty much exclusively to fans of the genre. CONQUEST's success will be based on how you approach the material. I thought the film was delirious, unpredictable, very strange, but entertaining with another pulsating, stimulating electronic score by Claudo Simmoneti.

"Conquest" represents Italian director Lucio Fulci's quick cash-in on the Sword & Sorcery film; an adventure movie sub genre that got hugely popular in the early 80's thanks to such films as "Conan – the Barbarian" and "The Beastmaster". The action in this type of films usually exists of rough macho fights and swashbuckling, but considering it's Lucio Fulci we're talking about here, you may also prepare yourself to see quite a lot of close-up gore and chopped off heads. The young and courageous adventurer Ilias leaves his safe home to go on a quest through the evil lands reigned by self-acclaimed Goddess Ocron, who pretends to own and operate the sun. Ilias' magical bow quickly attracts the attention of all Ocron's mythical servants. We've got wolf men, demons, big walking cobwebs and – of course – zombies! It wouldn't be a Fulci flick if zombies weren't involved, would it? Helped by the charismatic and experienced warrior Mace, Ilias tries to reach Ocron's hideout in order to destroy her for good. "Conquest" isn't nearly as good as any of Fulci's contemporary horror movies, but still an immensely entertaining and exhilarating little film. The screenplay – written by all together FOUR people (!) – often gets incredibly silly, like during the underwater dolphin rescue mission! The costumes and scenery are quite nifty, but the picture quality is poor and many sequences are over-lit. You can also easily look past the lousy dialogues and bad acting performances as long as you focus on the trashy gore (smashed open skulls!) and sleaze.

Once when I was 15 after watching Conan The Barbarian I drank a bottle of jager, took 5 hits of acid, and spent a weekend in the woods. My only company was Giorgio Moroder's Greatest Hits CD I had in my Sony Discman, a fog machine, and my thoughts. I think the cast and crew of Conquest had a similar pre-production. An ass naked female priestess in a gold mask whose powers supposedly cause the sun to rise and fall has enslaved the people of the land (who appear to be 14 nomadic herders) with her army of coke snorting Wolf Men. Now let me make this clear. These are not were-wolves as they never transform from wolf to man. They are Wolf-Men. Men with bulky fur bodies and wolf monster faces whose masks possess just enough articulation of the jaw to spout such classic lines as, "I'll kill you, I'll kill your people" before tearing a fine maiden apart like a wishbone after Thanksgiving dinner. Enter young Hugh Jackman who is sent on one of those missions where the old sage tells the hero all this stuff he must do to fulfill his destiny but leaves it vague enough that you get the feeling he has no idea what he's talking about. The mission involves thwarting the priestess' reign of terror with a laser bow. Let me just say right now any movie that involves a laser bow is alright with me. Along the way Hugh Jackman encounters Armand Assante. Armand Assante is the world weary warrior to Hugh Jackman's inexperienced hero to be. They become a team after Armand Assante uses some pro-wrestling maneuvers and nun-chuks made from femur bones to dispatch some wolf-men attacking Hugh Jackman. Armand Assante philosophizes to Hugh Jackman that he is a friend to all animals and will never harm one. Wolf-Men are not part of this philosophy. He then kills a hunter and takes his meal for his own justifying the eating of the animal and killing of the man by stating it was already dead and the hunter was a murderer of his friends the animals. I think you can be acquitted in some mid-western states with this same defense. Along their journey Hugh Jackman and Armand Assante battle dopplegangers of themselves sent by the priestess, survive festering poisoned wounds, encounter zombies, and are rescued from death by dolphins. Just when Hugh Jackman seems to have gotten the swing of things he's decapitated (I knew that old bastard had no idea what he was talking about) leaving Armand Assante to take up the laser bow in a finale that showcases FX the like I have not seen since. Blue laser arrows decimate the wolf-men horde and destroy the gold mask of the priestess revealing she has the face of Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th Part 4. I would still do her. She then turns into a wolf proving she really was a bitch. My earlier discourse on Wolf-Men and Were-Wolves still holds up as she was in fact a She-Wolf. She runs away defeated leaving the people of the land, all 14 of them, freed. Armand Assante walks off into the sunrise as it freeze frames which I take as being a message that no woman has the power to make the sun rise or fall. At this point when the Italian Synth score kicks in for one last time I am confronted with the only problem I had with the movie and why I gave it 9 instead of 10 stars. The first credit reads "any similarities to persons living or dead is purely coincidental" which implies the makers of the film made the whole thing up. I felt a sense of betrayal after being presented with what I thought was a glimpse into our ancient history.

Acclaimed Italian horror filmmaker Lucio Fulci's stunningly bizarre contribution to the hugely popular 80's sword and sorcery genre has to be the single most strange, startling and shockingly crazy movie he ever made. In an unspecified time in a magical and mystical world the wicked sorceress Ocran (the breath-takingly beautiful and bountiful Sabrina Sellers, her face hidden behind a mask and naked except for a g-spring) and her lethal army of ferocious humanoid dog-men who resemble Chewbacca's evil brothers hold a savage reign of terror over the land. It's up to wise older warrior Mace and his naive, but eager younger protégé Illias to stop Ocran with a special bow which fires arrows made of pure bright blue light. During their colorful and eventful trek our heroic twosome encounter a tribe of friendly mud people, hostile swamp zombies, equally vicious cobweb-covered cave creeps, and a pair of helpful dolphins (!).

Alejandro Alonso Garcia's dewy, hazy, gauzy cinematography with its dreamy soft-focus, vibrant, richly saturated colors and excessive use of fog, mist and smoke adds immensely to the overall surreal atmosphere and pervasive sense of totally tripped-out druggy peculiarity. Claudio Simonetti's spacey, ripping, hard-rocking incessant score injects an exciting element of rip-snorting vigor to the weird proceedings. Naturally, since this is a Fulci flick we also get plenty of in-your-face gory and nasty graphic violence: Skulls are cracked open, heads are bashed in, several folks get decapitated and one luckless lass winds up being torn in half by the dastardly dog-men. The deliberate pace, vague plotting, pithy dialogue and larger-than-life broad strokes of black and white archetype characters all blend together into one singularly screwy and spellbinding mix, thereby making this interesting and boldly imaginative one-of-a-kind oddity a remarkable experimental variant on your standard fantasy action/adventure romp.

Shlock-merchant Leo Fulci takes a change of pace by making a trashy, barely coherent sword and sorcery fantasy movie instead of his usual trashy, barely coherent horror.

A wimpy Orlando Bloom type called Ilias, from some society vaguely resembling Ancient Greece travels across the ocean to caveman territory on some vaguely defined quest to battle evil, where he joins up with a animal loving hunter to battle the wolf-man and mutant minions of a vampiric topless evil sorceress. Wackiness ensues. The sorceress, is oppressing the local cavemen and wants the magic bow for herself. She sends various minions, each weirder than the last, after our heroes who win through in the end, striking a blow for oppressed cavemen everywhere. This movie contains a steady stream of WTF? elements and moments.

For some reason the entire movie is shot in soft focus and the picture is further blurred by the constant presence of mist on screen. This may have been an attempt to create atmosphere or to hide how fake everything looks. Either way, it failed. There is no atmosphere, unless it is one of scuzziness and mild bewilderment and there is no hiding how lame everything looks. The wolf-man minions look like a poor man's wookie. For some reason the director fell in love with shots of them leaping through the air in slow motion, Six Million Dollar Man style, toward our heroes when they attack. There are probably about a dozen of these shots throughout the movie and it gets goofier every time. The other minions of the topless sorceress, other than the generic leather clad humans, are some lumpy white mutants who appear to be covered in cobwebs. Needless to say they are slow and unthreatening and when they speak sound like gay Hispanic, lisping Daleks. The fights are stilted and unconvincing and the special effects are woeful. Oh yeah, the music is cheap synthesiser stuff that the makers of Doctor Who would have been embarrassed to have used.

Ilias, our nominal hero is bland and forgettable. He also looks a complete wuss, especially with his midriff revealing leather outfit and big hair, and is clearly a moron. Sure, he's a dynamite shot with his magical bow but he only takes about three or four arrows with him in his mission to battle this entire continent of evil. Needless to say he runs out of arrows within a few minutes and has to be saved by more traditional sword and sorcery hero, Mace. When he meets Ilias he establishes himself as the taciturn loner type, claiming he has no friends but no sooner can you say latent homoerotic subtext they are bosom buddies, traipsing the misty hills together. Mace promises to take Ilias with him in return for bow related favours. Ilias asks where he is going. "Wherever my legs take me," is his reply. Good enough for Ilias. Mace is also animal lover and outrageous hypocrite. He proclaims his great love of and affinity toward animals, citing the usual stuff about how he prefers them to humans because humans can be soooo mean. He says he would never hunt and kill an animal to feed himself but he will steal meat off other people who have hunted down animals. He is also not above randomly killing innocent passers by for no good reason. Not long after they meet, he is testing out Ilias' bow and the movie cuts to some random caveman, minding his own business, walking along and Mace shoots him dead. There is no indication this poor soul did anything to deserve this and even Ilias, who supposedly hails from a more moral and civilised society doesn't even raise an eyebrow.

The films villainess is quite unusual. For the entire movie she is completely naked except from a g-string and a golden mask that encompasses her entire head. It's like Fulci included her to make the movies obligatory T&A quotient but decided she was bit too much of a butterface at the last minute. She spends a lot of time seemingly being pleasured by her pet snakes and dreaming about being shot by a faceless bow wielding man who is dressed like Ilias. Wow, such symbolism! Later on in the movie she wimps out when she can't beat Ilias and Mace and promises to make herself the sex-slave of some ancient warrior dude if he kills them for her. Hardly the world's most scary villain and not really a step forward for women's rights. I think he sic's the cobweb creatures on our heroes and impersonates Mace in a situation where there is no no-one else around but Mace to fool. Was he really worthy trading your self respect for, Ocron?

There are quite a few other WTF? moments. Most of them come toward the end of the movie. Ilias wusses out, I forget why, possibly his permed hairdo got mussed, but realizes the error of his ways and returns to aid Mace in fighting the forces of evil. All of a sudden, for no reason, his bow can suddenly fire out multiple target seeking bolts of energy. The bolts can also shoot through solid rock when necessary. Needless to say his makes short work of the hordes of bad guys who have captured Mace.

The climax is also rather nonsensical. Mace decimates Ocron's remaining forces using the bows targeted laser attack capability. He then is able to shoot Ocron from a kilometre away using its shoot through rock capacity. She starts dying. Her mask is ripped of revealing a hideous Muppet head. She staggers around screaming and turns into a dog and wanders off with another dog. Mace smiles. Roll credits.

Strangely enough as far as these dodgy low budget sword and sorcery movies this one is reasonably lucid and focused. Any one who has seen Wizards of the Lost Kingdom can tell you how nonsensical and meandering these movies can truly be.

I like Fulci films, i really do and not in some boring ironic way either but i recognise that they appear hopelessly inept and garbled to lots of people.

Conquest is where Fulci tries his hand at the epic fantasy genre and doesn't really succeed. Structurally, it's like most Fulci films you've seen. Some stuff happens, some more stuff happens and occasionally one scene might be tangentially related to another. Really it's like Conan with no sets, no script, no real actors (yes, Arnold Scharzenfartz is hardly an actor either), no budget, stupid looking dog soldiers and a bunch of gore.

This one was a hard one to get through and i could've lived without the inch of vaseline smeared on the camera to give it that Hair Metal music video look.

I have noticed that "Conquest" is one of those divisive films that the viewer will either love or hate. Before watching, it is important to remember that this film was not done on a big budget, nor is it meant to be seen as anything more than a fantasy film. It is not realistic, as so many of Fulci's other films are.

Fulci achieved an ambiance of cosmic proportions with "Conquest." The fog and the monsters and the creatures are fantastic, I think. Is it cheesy? A little, maybe. But it's not unlike a dream you wake up from and think, 'what the hell was that?' He treats us to more than you'd expect amounts of gore in "Conquest," more than any fantasy film I've ever seen. People getting ripped apart, bludgeoned, etc.

Another thing I really like about "Conquest" is the music and the setting. I think they work so well together. I wonder where he filmed it, and how he achieved the overall darkness. It's like he only filmed on hazy days.

Anyway, I recommend this to Fulci fans. Other people won't get it or appreciate it. It's too ahead of it's time.

8 out of 10, kids.

As can be gathered from previous comments, this movie is weird beyond belief. I could not really detect a plot, but my guess is it has something to do with naked she-barbarians with masks and bearskin strings. The film seems to be shot through some kind of filter, giving the effect of a constant fog hanging in front of the camera. The splatter is not as abundant as in Fulci's better-known zombie-films, but there's still the occasional bloodletting.

Worthwhile, but only of you're into cinematic curiosities.

Despite being released on DVD by Blue Underground some five years ago, I have never come across this Italian "sword and sorcery" item on late-night Italian TV and, now that I have seen it for myself, I know exactly why. Not because of its director's typical predilection for extreme gore (of which there is some examples to be sure) or the fact that the handful of women in it parade topless all the time (it is set in the Dark Ages after all)…it is, quite simply, very poor stuff indeed. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it may very well be the worst of its kind that I have yet seen and, believe me, I have seen plenty (especially in the last few years i.e. following my excursion to the 2004 Venice Film Festival)! Reading about how the film's failure at the time of initial release is believed to have led to its director's subsequent (and regrettable) career nosedive into mindless low-budget gore, I can see their point: I may prefer Fulci's earlier "giallo" period (1968-77) to his more popular stuff horror (1979-82) myself but, even on the latter, his commitment was arguably unquestionable. On the other hand, CONQUEST seems not to have inspired Fulci in the least – seeing how he decided to drape the proceedings with an annoyingly perpetual mist, sprinkle it with incongruent characters (cannibals vs. werewolves, anyone?), irrelevant gore (we are treated to a gratuitous, nasty cannibal dinner just before witnessing the flesh-eating revelers having their brains literally beaten out by their hairy antagonists!) and even some highly unappetizing intimacy between the masked, brain-slurping villainess (don't ask) and her slimy reptilian pet!! For what it is worth, we have two heroes for the price of one here: a young magic bow-carrying boy on some manhood-affirming odyssey (Andrea Occhipinti) and his rambling muscle-bound companion (Jorge Rivero i.e. Frenchy from Howard Hawks' RIO LOBO [1970]!) who, despite being called Mace (short for Maciste, perhaps?), seems to be there simply to drop in on his cavewoman from time to time and get his younger protégé out of trouble (particularly during an exceedingly unpleasant attack of the 'boils'). Unfortunately, even the usual saving grace of such lowbrow material comes up short here as ex-Goblin Claudio Simonetti's electronic score seems awfully inappropriate at times. Fulci even contrives to give the film a laughably hurried coda with the surviving beefy hero going aimlessly out into the wilderness (after defeating one and all with the aid of the all-important magic bow…so much for his own supposed physical strength!) onto his next – and thankfully unfilmed – adventure!

Lucio Fulcio has made many movies some bad, some better. This is in the former category. This is an Italian exploitation movie of the sword and sorcery genre. This movie can be described as combination between Red Sonja and Quest for Fire (with the Fulci flavor added for taste - lots of blood, graphic death scenes, topless women, etc). The story revolves around a traveler from a distant land (Ilias), who happens to carry a bow (Yes, you heard right a bow). He meets up with the local loner-type (Mace - who happens to have prehistoric nunchaku). There is also a "sorceress" (Ocron) who rules over the land with an iron fist, because she can make the sun rise and fall. The two "heroes" (Mace and Ilias) walk around the land doing not much of anything, while Ocron (who has a vision that she will be killed by a mysterious traveler) is trying to kill them. Our heroes don't actually take the fight to Ocron until the last 20 minutes of the movie. Not only this, but Ocron (the mighty sorceress), doesn't seem to have much magical power. Her power seems to be organizational based, as in she manages her minions (some of them are metal mask wearing humans, others are wolf-men). About the only "mystical" thing she does is lay around with pythons and boas and she seems to snort some "substance" (DEA ALERT). Ocron is a shapely, topless woman who wears a gold mask. Now I ask you, why would an attractive woman wear a gold mask ?? You know why. This movie is rather boring and pointless. Not only that, but I think they must have broken all the fog machines in Italy (nearly the entire movie if filled with fog). If you wanted to see a better Fulci movie stick to Zombie or the Beyond.

I usually talk a bit about the plot in the first part of my review but in this film there's really not much to talk of. Just a mish-mash of other FAR better sword & sorcery epics. Lack of cohesiveness runs rampant as does banality. Even the main villaness refusing to wear clothing other then a loincloth is pretty boring as she pretty much has a chest of a young boy.Mildly amusing in it's ineptitude at best and severely retarded at it's worst. Lucio Fulci was scrapping the bottom of the barrel here and it shows.

My Grade: D-

DVD Extras: Posters & Stills galleries; Lucio Fulci Bio; and US & International Theatrical trailers

Eye Candy: Sabrina Siani is topless throughout (some may consider that appealing, I did not); various extras are topless as well

Lucio Fulci is a divisive figure: either you worship every movie the man ever made or lent his name to — ignoring continuity errors, bad dubbing, dealing with multiple cuts and names of his films, all while explaining away ridiculous moments like a man patiently waiting for spiders to slowly eat his fake face — and mention how much his surrealist approach points to him as more auteur than simple director. Or you think he's a hack, making the same movie again and again — woman hating paeans to gore, decimated eyeballs, slow motion zombies, gore, glacial plots and oh yes, more gore. I'm not going to change your mind, but I will say that I tend to be more in the "Fulci lives!" t- shirt wearing army that owns multiple versions of his films and can (and will) talk your ear off about how awesome The Beyond is.

This article isn't about any of that.

Beyond mediations on the witches that really run the world and zombies treating humanity as a never-ending buffet, my love of Italian horror — nay, Italian exploitation film — rests on its ability to shamelessly rip off other films. According to the liner notes of the 2010 DVD reissue of Zombie 2, Italian copyright law allows any film to be marketed as a sequel to another work. Therefore, any major trend in horror or sci-fi will be answered by an insane amount of spaghetti remakes. Most of these films would be a splinter into the eye of a normal person (Olga Karlatos, eat your heart out). But these celluloid copycats are my bread and butter. I blame a childhood of waiting for more Star Wars and being "rewarded" with Star Crash (part of the greatest double drive-in bill I've ever seen with Battle Beyond the Stars), a movie that I endlessly daydreamed about when I really should have been paying attention in grade school.

To wit: 1982's Conan the Barbarian was a huge hit worldwide to the tune of nearly $69 million dollars, leading to a horde of Italian imitators: Joe D'Amoto's Ator, the Fighting Eagle; Umberto Lenzi's Iron Master; Antonio Margheriti's Yor, the Hunter from the Future (you just knew I was going to bring up Yor and his fine meats, right?) and so many more, as well as American cousins such as Albert Pyun's The Sword and the Sorcerer (starring Lee Horsely of TV's Matt Houston) and Phantasm creator Don Coscarelli's The Beastmaster. That's but a sprinkle of the veritable ocean of barbarian rip-offs out there that you could dip your toe into. But we're here to talk Fulci's take on the whole sword and loincloth subgenre.

Conquest comes at a crossroads in Fulci's life. After six years of working with screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti — a collaboration that led to the golden (err, red is a better color to use here) era of his films, like Zombie 2, City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, New York Ripper, Manhattan Baby and House by the Cemetery, a murder's row of, well, movies about murder — Fulci unexpectedly went off on his own to create this film. For some reason, it was believed that this would be a big budget production and Sacchetti felt betrayed (their relationship would worsen with lawsuits and recriminations forever dividing them). The failure of Conquest would hasten not only the decline of Fulci's career, which would see him lending his name to films that he hadn't even worked on (the jury is out, but it seems for all intents and purposes he was a bloody version of Dali, wily nily signing his name onto any project that'd float him some cash) and facing worsening health.

Perhaps Fulci was battling the criticism that his films were becoming repetitive. Maybe he saw the film as his chance at the big time, as one of the reasons why this was funded was to push Mexican matinée idol Jorge Rivero to be a bigger star. Perhaps he wanted to try something different.

Read more at bandsaboutmovies.com/2017/08/17/conquest-1983/

So there are these two guys, and they live in a land with constant fog. One guys littler, has a laser bow, and looks a lot like Hugh Jackman. The bigger guy likes animals. They take on a naked chick who wears a gold mask and has an army of dog men who rip humans in half. She enlists the help of a guy who looks like a walking statue and promises to help her in exchange for sex ... he has the best exit ever committed to film. Fulci's contribution to the Conan rip-off industry (with a huge "Quest for Fire" influence thrown into the mix) is a Goddamned classic. I love this film irrationally. Yeah, it makes no sense and seems to have gone overboard with the dry ice, but it's got naked chicks, dog men and explicit gore ... so there.

Fulci does it again! Good Kills, Fun, Woman being torn apart, Beheaded Hero! Good movie. Acting is OK. Dubbing OK, not great. Good music. Good camera work. The story slows in the middle. Maybe a few too many fight scenes. Good kills. A woman is torn apart. The hero is beheaded. In what movie will the hero be beheaded. What director/film maker will take this risk. Fulci does it. I'm not a fan of all Fulci movies. But I've seen some greats. Like Don't Torture a Duckling, and New York Ripper. Great quote "My enemies call me ---" "What do your friends call you?" "I don't have any friends". Good fun movie. The cartoon effects sucked. But all the kills and other effects work well.

A studly young man named Ilias (Andrea Occhipinti) embarks on a quest to vanquish evil. He's soon joined in his travels by Mace (Jorge Rivero), a Conan type lone wolf who saves Ilias' ass at one point basically because he admires his weapon, a magical bow. Together they fight the minions of evil witch Ocron (Sabrina Siani), some of them looking like bargain basement versions of Chewbacca, among other creatures.

There's barely a coherent story here, but people who just adore the trashiest and cheesiest of low budget fantasy features aren't going to mind very much. Celebrated Italian director Lucio Fulci puts his indelible stamp on this genre, completely saturating it with surrealism and atmosphere. Viewers will love all the details, especially the fact that Siani, although masked, plays her role almost completely nude, and sometimes has a snake slither over her body. Claudio Simonettis' score is simply perfect for this sort of entertainment. The soft focus photography by D.P. Alejandro Ulloa won't be to everybody's taste, but everything is filmed on some attractively exotic locations (Sardinia, Italy). The performances are appropriate to the occasion, with Rivero and Occhipinti as moderately engaging heroes, and sexy Ms. Siani, and Conrado San Martin as her equally diabolical associate Zora, functioning as amusing villains. The special effects are enjoyably laughable in their incredible tackiness. There's some wonderfully mean spirited gore here, supplied by Franco Rufini.

There's a lot of buildup here to a finale that is over a little too quickly, but "Conquest" does deliver the sleazy goods for those that like their fantasy as R rated (or unrated, as the case is here) as possible.

Fulci fans will recognize the mark between Maces' eyes.

Seven out of 10.

Here's an interesting failure: goremeister Lucio Fulci's take on a fantasy film is packed full of excessive and disgusting violence guaranteed to bring up the lunch. Otherwise, it's a poorly-shot, poorly dubbed and poorly edited epic which relays the most simplistic of stories and tells it like it's something phenomenal and important. Sadly Fulci's decision to shoot some of the film through a gauze - in order to give it an appropriately other-worldly look - means that it's difficult to see what exactly is going on for a lot of the time. This spoils what is otherwise a fun film to watch. It's not in the least bit original, however; Fulci's two main influences seem to be CONAN THE BARBARIAN (inevitably) and the little-scene prehistoric gore flick MASTER OF THE WORLD from which all the head-cracking and brain-scooping is inspired.

The show-stopping opening sees an innocent woman being captured by beast-men (who look like Chewbacca rather than anything resembling convincing) and then dismembered. Her severed head is taken to the evil chief, a woman known as Ocron who looks quite the part, naked, covered in gold paint and wearing a weird kind of mask. Ocron proceeds to bang a hole in the head and devour the brains inside - it's clear that Fulci puts his trademark gruesomeness into this film from the very beginning. From then on, we're introduced to the two leads, one a long-haired lout who is in touch with nature, the other a foppish kid who's handy with a bow and arrow. More baddies are spiked and clubbed than you can shake a stick at, often spilling blood as they do so. Any hits with blunt instruments also result in gouts of blood splashing everywhere.

For his fantasy landscape, Fulci tints the sky red and shoots in an eerie, desolate moor land – the isolated setting is one of the film's best aspects and to the film's credit, a lot of the atmosphere comes from the backgrounds. This does generate some atmosphere, and it's just a shame that the world Fulci and his fellow producers created is hidden behind a white mist (or looks to be) for much of the film. Some crisp cinematography would have done wonders for this film and lifted it no end. Still, there are a lot of basic thrills to enjoy here; plenty of battles between good and evil and even some cheesy computer effects thrown in, which is pretty much par for the course for any low budget fantasy or sci fi flick of the 1980s. Fulci even finds time to throw in a cool zombie interlude which sees a load of marsh-strewn corpses wake up to attack our do-gooders and then get staked (perhaps they got confused with vampires).

Other highlights see a poisoned man erupt with festering boils which then proceed to spill gooey slime everywhere - it's absolutely disgusting! The acting from the likes of muscle-bound Jorge Rivero (DAY OF THE ASSASSINS) and Andrea Occhipini (A BLADE IN THE DARK) is pretty hopeless, but Sabriana Siani (who made a career out of Italian fantasy flicks with this, THRONE OF FIRE, ATOR THE FIGHTING EAGLE and many others) is a pleasingly unconventional villainess. The blood is always flowing thickly and freely which make this bizarre outing worthwhile. It's not a good film perhaps, but certainly an entertainingly bad one just because it's so different.