- Right up front: I may have consumed too many shmedibles.
- My fingers will not fing properly.
- I am also most likely dying of Boney Moronus.
- So this is gonna be all over the place.
- Oh, shit.
- That’s not promising.
- Not the font, not the color choice, not the name.
- Especially not the name.
- TAX SHELTER INC. PRESENTS!
- The Beastmaster was as big a part of my childhood as was Judaism.
- Wait, what?
- Rip Torn was in this piece of shit?
- Poor Rip.
- That man couldn’t get out of his own way.
- He was boisterous.
- No idea what’s happening here.
- Rip Torn’s an evil wizard, I think.
- He’s also playing an evil wizard.
- The King showed up, maybe?
- There have been no beasts as of yet.
- So, obviously, none have been mastered.
- A beastmaster without beasts is just some guy in a loincloth.
- I don’t remember any of this bullshit, and I saw Beastmaster around ten thousand times as a child.
- HBO only had, like, six movies; this was one of them.
- Beastmaster can be compared to Highlander in that both had great titles, no budgets, and every iteration after the original was garbage.
- It cannot be compared to Highlander in that Beastmaster did not contain any Queen songs.
- Which is a shame.
- Freddie could’ve sunk his giant teeth into the theme of mastering beasts.
- He called that “Tuesday.”
- Oh, hey, there’s the Beastmaster.
- Only took 15 minutes to introduce the title character.
- That’s the kind of quality filmmaking we’ve come to expect from Leisure Investment Company pictures.
- Now the bad guys are riding into town and murdering everyone.
- Gosh, they actually filmed this in America?
- I would’ve wagered heavily that this was shot in a country with a thinner regulatory atmosphere, and a friendlier attitude towards animal cruelty.
- But, no: the MGM lot and a nearby national park.
- Conan the Barbarian was a hit, and so there were a flood of flicks featuring big dumb slabs of meat running around with swords.
- Y’had your prophecies, y’had your comedic sidekicks, y’had your big-boobied warrior princess.
- The big-boobied warrior princess usually only had to be topless in one scene, though, while the male lead always had his shirt off.
- Jesus, the Beastmaster just walked into quicksand.
- You stupid idiot.
- That’s Fantasy Hero 101, man.
- Shit, forget that: that’s Human 101.
- Watch where you’re going.
- Anyway, he got saved by some ferrets and now the ferrets are his friends.
- The Beastmaster is that guy.
- The guy with the ferrets.
- You can practically smell his apartment, can’t you?
- He also has a panther.
- The panther is being played by a tiger.
- Follow me on this one.
- The script, I suppose, said that the Beastmaster acquires a panther.
- But the producers couldn’t source a panther.
- The panther guy was plumb out.
- Old Mother Hubbard went to her cupboard, and there were no panthers at all.
- (MINOR DIGRESSION: Why the fuck is a word spelled “cupboard” pronounced “cubberd?” English needs to get its shit together.)
- But, the panther guy said, I got a tiger.
- I dunno, said the producers; script says we need a panther.
- What if, the panther guy said, you go through the script and change the word “panther” to “tiger?”
- Counterpoint, said the producers; Why don’t we be fuckin’ rock stars and we paint that fucking tiger black?
- The producers had been doing cocaine, you see.
- I should have mentioned that.
- Of course, so was the panther guy.
- And the tiger.
- And Old Mother Hubbard.
- It was 1982, and Old Mother Hubbard was trading beejs for yayo.
- Stay on topic.
- The topic is Beastmaster, dude: No one cares.
- Tanya Roberts is naked now.
- Paying attention.
- …
- BOOBIES!
- Poor woman.
- Put them floppers back in your dress, Tanya Roberts.
- Let your performance stand on its own merit.
- …
- Oh, no, wait: you can’t act at all.
- Let’s see the garbanzos.
- So, anyway, I was talking about the tiger.
- For some reason (cocaine), the tiger is dyed (mostly) black.
- Tony needs another coat or two.
- But I guess a tiger’s done with hair and makeup when it says it is.
- WHY NOT JUST LET IT BE A TIGER?
- Yes, in the mind of an 8-year-old, “black panther” is cooler than “plain ol’ tiger,” but didn’t anyone look at the test shots and say “We do not have the technical ability to pull this off?”
- Or at least, “Let’s not give the wretched-looking creature any close-ups.”
- Look at this bullshit:
- Reagan had a better dye-job, man.
- There’s chunks missing, man.
- Rip Torn just hurled a kid off a ziggurat.
- That’s what kind of movie this is, in case you’re wondering.
- Kid probably deserved it, though.
- I’m always gonna take Rip Torn’s side in that kind of case.
- I mean, he was so good on Larry Sanders.
- And he’s not murdering the kid, he’s sacrificing him.
- Who am I to interfere with Rip Torn’s religious freedom?
- There are also bat-people who are trying to kill the Beastmaster.
- Not Batman.
- Bat-people.
- Leathery wings, furry fangfaces, the whole nine yards.
- I guess maybe Rip Torn controls the bat-people?
- One would assume the guy yeeting babies into pyres would also control the bat-people.
- Marc Singer is in tip-top shape, I must say.
- Dude lifts.
- Many people don’t have any Marc Singer stories at all, but I have one.
- We were on the same plane once.
- LA to Newark.
- 4.5 hour flight.
- Marc Singer brought no carry-on luggage of any kind.
- Just a well-thumbed copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets.
- Which there are only 154 of.
- Slim volume, is what I’m saying.
- Not enough to read for 4.5 hours.
- But Marc Singer was sure he would get lost in the Bard’s poetry, maybe somewhere over Arizona.
- That’s a power move, Enthusiasts.
- I’m still thinking about that shit 20 years later.
- Marc Singer blew my mind, I guess.
- Oh, for fuck’s sake, I was right.
- Remember when we discussed the tiger-painting?
- I was just guessing about the details.
- But I was right.
- LADY.
- FUCKING.
- CLAIROL.
- Joe Exotic’s tigers were treated with more dignity, and he fed those animals Hot Pockets.
- At least get some professional hair dye, and not the drugstore shit.
- Lady fucking Clairol.
- Were they out of Grecian Formula #9?
- Have some respect!
- It’s a goddamned tiger!
- Now the Beastmaster and Tanya Roberts and a kid they have somehow acquired are being chased by an extra from an Iron Maiden video.
- That poor guy thought he was gonna be a star.
- Grew up in Cincinnati, and not the good part.
- Did plays in high school.
- Always got the lead role.
- His drama teacher believed in him.
- Packed up the Vega and drove west one day in 1976.
- Got himself a little apartment off La Cienega.
- Girlfriend named Shirley.
- Shirley was in show biz, too, and mildly epileptic.
- They were making love one lazy California afternoon when his agent called.
- Well, not officially his agent; he was hip-pocketed.
- Got a part you’d be great for, the agent said.
- You’re a masked gimp, capable only of rage, and you wear a leather diaper and chase a pair of ferrets.
- And then Shirley started shaking and drooling.
- Hollywood dreams really can come true.
- As other critics have mentioned, the Beastmaster is only shown to be able to master three beasts.
- Four, technically.
- There are two ferrets, but I feel comfortable counting them as one unit.
- More rage-gimps?
- Rage-gimps hit the point of diminishing returns almost immediately.
- One is so very scary.
- But a half-dozen running at you is just comical.
- Maybe it’s the leather diapers.
- But like I was saying: only three beasts get mastered.
- And yet John Amos introduces him to his tribe as the Beastmaster.
- No one questions this.
- “Can you tell an echidna what to do?”
- “The fuck’s an echidna?”
- “A monotreme. Mammal that lays eggs. Lives in Australia. Could you tell it what to do?”
- “I would suppose. It’s a beast, right? If it’s a beast, then I could master it.”
- “Caiman?”
- “A what?”
- “Caiman. It’s like a skinny crocodile.”
- “Why don’t you just say a crocodile, then?”
- “I don’t own any crocodiles.”
- “You own caiman?”
- “Ten acre’s worth! I make a lot of weird, weird business deals!”
- And so on.
- Conan would utterly house the Beastmaster.
- Beastmaster would send his ferrets at Conan, and Conan would bite their heads off while groaning Teutonically, then lop the Beastmaster in half at the waist with his 40-pound sword.
- IN WHICH I AWARD WOKE POINTS TO A SLEAZY GENRE PICTURE FROM 1982: After the first completely gratuitous boobie-flashing scene, Tanya Roberts has remained as clothed as everyone else for the rest of the flick.
- She’s actually less naked than John Amos.
- What’s worse: Corona virus or that picture?
- I vote for the picture.
- Some people are naturally immune to corona virus.
- No one is not deeply and wrongly affected by that photo, however.
- That shit’ll stay with you like herpes.
- Five or six years from now, you’ll be living your life and BAM that shit’ll repeat on you.
- What the fuck?
- They killed one of the ferrets?
- One of the ferrets HEROICALLY SACRIFICED ITSELF to save Beastmaster?
- Fuck that shit, man.
- Don’t kill the ferret, you B-movie motherfuckers.
- Important question: Was NBC’s hit action series Manimal based on Beastmaster?
- Even more important question: Was that first question really that important?
- Beastmaster could control the actions of animals, and see through their eyes, but Manimal could transform into a lower creature.
- I mean, he could only transform into two animals: a hawk and a panther.
- Other times, the camera would cut away from Manimal and then back to, say, a horse.
- And the other characters would address the horse as Manimal, so you’d know.
- Wait, so now the Beastmaster is friends with the bat-people?
- Does he also master beastmen?
- Y’know where Beastmaster would have done really well?
- The Island of Dr. Moreau.
- Perfect job for this guy!
- I bet he’d get along well with Fairuza Balk, too.
- They’d have an “opposites attract” deal going on.
- He’s the surfer dude, she’s the genetically-modified goth kitty.
- My God, look how much of John Amos you can see:
- Who asked for the Full Amos?
- O, Beastmaster, I’m your servant.
Those smedibles will sneak up on ya, man.
Please do Timerider, Flash Gordon, or Megaforce. With the edibles.
First time I really caught onto Rip Torn was in the David Bowie flick “The Man Who Fell to Earth.” Most always superior to the material.
If it was a question to begin with, you did NOT consume to many. Anytime I was lucky enough to catch this beaming across the airwaves as a kid, there wasn’t a chance in hell I was going anywhere. Them guys turned into killing machines by having that glowy-worm jammed into their ear canal really struck something at my kid-core that is still resonating to this day. Great movie making there.