Nostalgia

Why do bad movies do well? Pre-teen boys.

Be they action, sci-fi, or fantasy.

And so in an attempt to relive those days, I watched a bad movie from my past last night.

No, not Robotjox, but the 1980 classic Hawk, The Slayer.

This movie was so cool when I saw it on the then independent TV station as a kid. Looking at it today, the thing to remember if you want to make a quality movie is to no write, produce, and compose the score for your movie.

(Pondering how bad Star Wars could have been if George Lucas thought he could write music too...)

There are a few quality actors in it, but oh, the rest...

The Elf is played like a monotonic Vulcan. The giant is probably all of 6'4" while the dwarf is about 5' even. The guy that plays Hawk is about good at standing and looking pretty (and he's actually a recurring actor on "Lost"). The one actor I like is the village man with the repeating crossbow (with a handy pistol grip) who went on to be the first Soul Hunter on "Babylon 5". And then there's Jack Palance.

But all that could be overlooked if the soundtrack weren't so bad. Oh, so incredibly awful. All full of laser-like sounds... in a Fantasy movie. The effects for the "magic distraction" by the witch are just about as bad.

And then at the end, there's the blatant lines that say, "If you love this movie, don't worry, we've got another one planned." Fortunately it was never made... yet.

I will hold on to my fond memories, and how this movie made me feel in the past. The lightning fast Elf. The mindstone fitted sword. The gathering of the heroes. What I saw last night must have been someone's horrible fan film remake.