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[IL COMMISSARIO]

KRULL 1983- aka THE DRAGONS OF KRULL

Ken Marshall, Lysette Anthony, Freddie Jones, Liam Neeson, Francesca Annis

Evil beings traveling in a gigantic rock fortress enslave planets to conquer. A young queen on her wedding night is kidnapped by The Beast, the leader of the race of creatures called Slayers. The young soon-to-be king must embark on a journey to find an ancient and magical weapon that will enable him to rescue his queen and free his world from the evil grip of The Beast.

Another superb British fantasy spectacular that was ignored during its original release. A 30 million bomb released the same weekend as RETURN OF THE JEDI, KRULL was branded a STAR WARS clone. Some critics claimed the film couldn't make up its mind what it wanted to be. I don't see that any of that matters as KRULL is a wonderful escapist entertainment.

Ken Marshall (Colwyn) is fine as the hero. I believe he was a stage performer before and after this film only occasionally dabbling in features. He looks the part and handles the role capably.

As for the predominantly Brit cast Lysette Anthony (who went on to do many erotic movies and Playboy), continues to hate the film, at least up to the DVD release as she continues her degrading comments on the commentary track. In her Playboy issue, she talks of how she detests the film because people thought she was just like her character in the movie, weak and fragile. I think her assessment is a bit harsh.

Freddie Jones as always is lots of fun to watch as the Old One, Ynir..."Well not as old as all that." Franchesca Annis is memorable as the Widow of the Web, a cursed woman doomed to live out her days in a massive cave housing a gigantic white widow spider. Both Annis and Jones would feature in another Brit-US fantasy the following year, David Lynch's DUNE.

The myriad cast of others are memorable in their own right. Ergo the Magnificent, the clumsy magician who always ends up turning himself into an animal instead of his intended target, Torquil (Alun Armstrong), the leader of the gang that Colwyn, Kegan (Neeson), the thug with nearly 30 wives whose always looking out for a new addition and Rell, the Cyclops are some of the characters in the film.

The creatures are very interesting and some of them seem more suited in an exploitation movie like the Slayers. When one of them is stabbed, there heads pop open and reptilian monsters pop out and burrow into the ground. It's not revealed what happens after this but who cares? It looks cool just the same. The Slayers also have a spear weapon that fires a single laser spear similar to a laser pistol in STAR WARS. In fact, the film melds the futuristic with the medieval. The Cyclops seems to be near invulnerable and is extremely strong and the effects utilizing him are well done. The giant spider in the cave is a beautifully crafted piece of stop motion magic and the scene itself is quite suspenseful. The Beast is a giant lizard like monster that speaks and possesses magical powers. There are also magical horses called Fire Mares that can travel great distances leaving trails of flame in their wake.

The bombastic and thrilling score from James Horner is his favorite and one of the best film scores ever. The complete 2 disc score is a collectors item now. Nearly two hours of music, Horner exhausted himself working on this massive, opulent work of art. Every piece is memorable. Considering the rushed schedule to complete the score, some cues are remotely similar to Horner's work on another great score he did for the previous years excellent STAR TREK 2.

Initially, the film was to be called THE DRAGONS OF KRULL but since Disney's bloody and violent DRAGONSLAYER bombed while this film was in production, the script was altered to remove any references to dragons whatsoever. It didn't really matter because the film bombed anyway. The competition was big considering RETURN OF THE JEDI and SUPERMAN 3 were released at the same time among others. One of my all time favorites, I saw this in a predominantly empty theater back in 1983. Still, KRULL holds up well as an intriguing timewaster and a great saturday afternoon movie to watch with your kids or by yourself. 

[Inspector Tanzi]

I saw this at the cinema when i was a kid, can't remember that much about it apart from that throwing weapon, something happening in a swamp, a big tower/castle?? and a cyclops who could see the future but could only see his own death (or something like that)

[Jonny]

I saw this for the first and only time at the cinema when I was kid too.

Bernard Bresslaw played the cyclops who I remember from the Carry on films and most memorably as the giant in 'Hawk the Slayer' another film I saw as a kid at the cinema and remember really loving, I bet it looks shit these days...

[Paul]

I never got to see KRULL in the cinema - we rented it on video though. Like Tanzi, I remember very little about it.

[death_proof_reg]

I remember there's like 20 guys on this quest, and like 1 dies every scene.

[IL COMMISSARIO]

It's still a great movie and some of the effects hold up today. Not that it matters.

[Richard C]

I used to love watching this when I was a kid (didn't see it in the cinema though) but I can only remember bits of it - there was a crap wizard who kept getting his magic wrong (or was that Dungeon and Dragons....), somebody would die whenever they came across a new environment, the cyclops, they try and catch some horse and that guy from New Tricks on BBC...

[IL COMMISSARIO]

The bad magician was the Ergo the Magnificent character (remove the 'r' and you have his personality in a nutshell). His magic works for the better at the end when he transforms into a tiger to save a little boy from the Slayer monsters.

Love this movie. I was lucky enough to obtain one of those limited 2 disc complete scores for this movie from Super Collector before they went out of business. Had the earlier Southern Cross Records CD but it was missing more than half the music.