Conquest
Lucio Fulci
Blue
Underground R1 DVD
R4
Edition is also Available
Lucio Fulci is
considered by many to be a great horror film maker, while most of his best
known films date from the 70s and 80s their violence, strong gore and strange
occult themes still make them a great success with devotees of the strange. Although
enjoying a prolific career throughout the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, it wasn’t until
his international success with Zombie
in 1979 that he would reach the height of success. Zombie was the first of a series of horror triumphs over the next
three years - City of the Living Dead
in 1980, The Beyond and House by the Cemetery in 1981, and The New York Ripper in 1982.
Determined not be to pigeonholed and to tap into the growing cult success of
Sword and Sorcery films, Fulci produced
Conquest. Conquest was quite an expensive production with a lot of special effects,
costumes and exotic locations, sad to say it was a major disaster.
It is very difficult to explain what this
film is all about. It begins abruptly with a strange confusing scene full of colours and lights where a rather sexy young warrior named Ilias is presented with a magical bow. He goes on his
mythic journey and when attacked, is defended by a Mace, a wanderer of the
wasteland whose claim to fame is that no man is his friend. While they together wander the countryside
protecting themselves from all manner of strange creatures, a local evil sorceress
named Ocron is having dreams regarding her own death
at the hands of a faceless warrior (literally). When she hears of a man with a
strange and powerful magical bow she decides she must have him killed and take
the bow for herself. She sends all manner of creatures to retrieve Ilias and his weapon and this is the way the story unfolds.
Every weird creature you can think off, the undead, what look like werewolves,
zombie dead who live near the ocean and so on. They battle and battle until the
obvious climax.
This is a very silly Sword and Sorcery
film. The acting is appalling, the creatures are pretty unbelievable and the
film looks like it was made with a constant smear of Vaseline over the lens.
The women are constantly near naked and horny and Ocra
seems to spend a lot of time rolling around with a snake. The soundtrack is
totally over the top, a driving electronic rock soundscape
which overpowers every scene. This is one weird experience. There are snippets of
the old horror Fulci here and there but nothing especially
impressive. After you get used to the rhythm of the strange madness of Conquest
it does grow on you. After about an hour you leave the plot behind and just
enjoy the ride…in the end I liked it, but I am not quite sure why !
Blue Underground presents an impressive widescreen
print transfer, sure there is still quite a bit of grain here and there and the
picture is very soft, it is better than anything ever released before so is a
major achievement. Conquest has very clear Dolby Surround 2.0 sound, perhaps
too clear considering the bizarre soundtrack !
Special features include two theatrical
trailers (