Bullet Points: Conquest

You can add 1983’s Conquest to the growing list of movies I watched solely based on the cover art…

• Boy II Man: Conquest begins with young Ilias (Andrea Occhipinti, Bolero) preparing for a quest that is sure to make a man out of him… if he survives of course. Ilias has been tasked with a journey that will take him right into the heart of evil… an evil he must conquer… with some help from his magical bow and arrow. Cue the opening theme and credits and lets get this journey underway…
• Appetite for Destruction: The evil that Ilia must conquer is a woman named Ocron (Sabrina Sellers aka Sabrina Siani). Ocron wears a gold mask that is almost C-3PO like and not much else. Ocron also has an unusual appetite… she likes to crack open the severed heads and feast on their brains. She also likes to writhe on her bed with a big python between her legs. And it is during her writhing that she gets a premonition of the wanderer (aka Ilias) who is looking for her!

• Thank You For NOT Being a Friend: As Ilias’ journey begins he happens upon a young woman who is completely oblivious to the fact that a snake is slithering behind her, ready to strike…. with one of his trusty arrows Ilias neutralizes the serpent, but the young lady runs off without even a thank you. But before Ilias can dwell too much on the rudeness, from out of the tall grass comes Ocron’s forces… Ilias fights them off at first, but their numbers advantage is just too much as they swarm young Ilias… but a muscular and mysterious stranger shows up and starts whooping ass. Once Ocron’s army has fled, Ilias learns that the man is called Mace by his enemies. When Ilias asks what his friends call him, Mace responds nothing because he has no friends. Mace also clarifies that he wasn’t trying to save Ilias, he was trying to save the magical bow and arrow. Mace was played by Jorge Rivero, who I am most familiar with due to Mystery Science Theater 3000 and their Werewolf episode.
• Poison Arrow: Mace says he’ll travel with Ilias if Ilias shows him how to use the magical bow and arrow and so the two non-friends begin a series of adventures. First they are nearly burned alive by their own campfire thanks to Ocron’s minions, then they celebrate escaping certain doom with a feast and some female companionship (Ilias gets to touch the boobs of the young lady he saved from the snake) but it all goes to shit the next day when Ocron’s army shows up, slaughters all the women, knock Mace out and take Ilias captive. Mace ends up saving Ilias once again and he’s not done… when Ilias takes a poison arrow to the leg and starts oozing out of various parts of his body, who finds the one plant that can counteract the poison… Mace! We should all have non-friends like Mace in our lives.

• The Heavy Artillery: When Ocron’s minions fail at their assigned task, Ocron is understandably pissed and she calls upon Zora for help and pledges herself to him… Zora vows to make Ilias suffer a thousand deaths, which is bad news for Ilias… but Zora is not accounting for Mace, which could be bad news for him!

Conquest was one of the more bizarre entries that I have experienced in the sword & sorcery genre. The over all look of the movie is like nothing I had seen before. The story structure wasn’t exactly the norm either… the movie starts off with Ilias as the main hero, but once Mace shows up he slowly but surely takes that top spot from Ilias as the movie goes on… so that was a little different. However there were some familiar aspects synonymous with the genre like the copious amounts of female nudity and the not so special effects many of the lower budget sword and sorcery films were guilty of.

Here’s a familiar aspect of my reviews, some Bonus Bullet Points…

• If You Ever: …wanted to see Jorge Rivero help a sick bird, then Conquest is the movie for you.
• Directed By: Conquest is an example of Director Lucio Fulci branching out from the horror genre he is most known for. Another example would be the post-apocalyptic flick, The New Gladiators.
• Memorable Scene: Early on in the movie Ocron’s right hand beast is out looking for some “food” for Ocron… which leads to a poor woman becoming a human wishbone.
• Happy to Report: …that Jorge Rivero’s hair did not change from scene to scene as it did in Werewolf. Also, Andrea Occhipinti did not get gored in the balls like he did in Bolero.