Ator IV: The Hobgoblin
Ator IV: The Hobgoblin
| 29 August 1990 (USA)
Ator IV: The Hobgoblin Trailers

Once upon a time a god gave a mighty sword to the king of Aquiles to bring justice to his people. Now he wants it back - but the king rather gives his life than the sword. Goddess Dehamira, who spoke for him, is being taken all her privileges and banned in a circle of fire, until a human arrives who's strong enough to free her. When prince Ator becomes 18, he gets the sword from the mean sorcerer gnome Grindl, to free Dehamira and his people. On his journey he has to fight against dragons and other fantastic figures.

Reviews
Michael_Elliott

Quest for the Mighty Sword (1990) 1/2 (out of 4)Ator is murdered so later in life his son, also named Ator (Eric Allan Kramer), goes for revenge when he learns that his mother was forced into prostitution. He also learns of a magical sword that belongs to his family and he wants it returned.QUEST FOR THE MIGHTY SWORD was the fourth film in the series and the third to be directed by Joe D'Amato. The infamous Italian director helmed the first two in the series, skipped the third film and returned with this one. It's funny because the first film was so horrid that I found myself having a good time with it. The second film was so awful yet it was bad enough to be entertaining. This film here is just downright awful without any camp or entertainment value.I'm really not sure where to begin but this here is certainly the bottom of the barrel as far as entertainment goes. The Italian horror market had already dried up and I'm really not sure why a film like this would be made since the genre was long dead and it's doubtful there was much demand for it. The film has the typical awful acting that you would expect, a stupid story and there's really not a single good thing you can say about it.Fans of D'Amato who are nuts like me and want to see everything the man directed might want to check it out but it's a pretty bad film. With that said, Laura Gemser does appear briefly in the film.

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fakerca

Well, I thought I had seen bad movies before............but this one is the worst by far. No plot, overweight and drag-queen-like "hero", cheap plastic monsters and effects, new york accents on all of the characters............. can you really get any worse? Even the background music is ridiculous.......often sounding Japanese, then techno, then just non-descript and drowning out the dialogue. Actually, the music drowning out the awful dialogue is probably the best thing to say about this movie. And just when you think the movie hits bottom, it never fails to disappoint you in reaching yet further into poor cheap effects. I am truly at a loss for words.

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randommesspaul

I had spent six months looking for this movie. This was for many reasons.. partly because it's director was the executive producer of 'Troll 2', and the movie was made at around the same time, and party because it was rumoured to have used one of the goblin costumes from 'Troll 2'. This I had to see.The Quest for the mighty sword is a very interesting movie. Starring a barbarian called Ator, it is a 'Sword and Sorcery' movie with so many reasons that it should never have happened at all. TQFTMS is a culmination of almost a decade of bad movies. It is in fact the fourth movie in the 'Ator' quadrilogy. This series of movies is one that is amazing to have survived so long. The first one promotes incest, and Ator fights a giant spider. In the second he fights a giant sock puppet snake, and has a mute ninja partner called 'Thong'. By the time we get to the third, Ator has dyed his hair, grown a ponytail and gotten all arty, with scantly clad women dancing about, and very little spoken in the entire film. That'll be a new director for you. But the fourth movie, this is where the bad movie magic lives. Back with the original director (so soon? He'd only just left) but with a whole new actor for Ator, TQFTMS pulls out all the stops despite being the third lower budget sequel of an already low budget movie.TQFTMS is the sort of movie that should win awards. It should win every kind of movie award you have never heard of. If I had a say in the Oscars, TQFTMS would be winning the following …**Best mis-leading title in a movie* It's called 'The Quest for the mighty sword'. But Ator Jr. finds the mighty sword, within the first half hour of the movie, under a rock IN THE CAVE THAT HE LIVES IN! Some 'Quest' that was. As for the rest of the plot, he wanders about randomly until he bumps into an ex-goddess that once tried to save his dad. After shacking up with the demigod, he wanders about randomly until he bumps into his long lost cursed mum. After fixing her, he wanders about randomly until he bumps into a god-king that kidnapped his demigod lover at some random point in the movie. After that, he wanders about randomly until he is declared complete winner of the movie. Then he just wanders about randomly, but happily ever after.**Best 'Hot-pants on a Hero'* Not entirely sure what Ator was thinking with that one. But I know what I think…. "He must work out" **Best use of the same actor to play both father and son* So what, he's playing his seventeen year old son now? That's some acting range. It actually takes a bit of effort to work out that he is now a different character. Perhaps too much effort for a movie of this calibre.**Best use of costume borrowed from directors other movies* For the actual use of a goblin costume from troll 2.**Best use of the same costume for every goblin in a movie* For use of a goblin costume … er, from troll 2.**Best use of girlie laugh for a monster* And the Goblin from troll two scores a hatrick! **Best incestuous use of costume ideas from movies with the same character.* Isn't that the iron warrior costume from the 3rd movie? did that director let you do that after what you said about his movie? **Best use of the 'Hero dies in the first five minutes' plot twist* I never thought I'd see that twist in a movie. Brave story choices like that kind of makes you feel alienated towards Hollywood though.**Best use of atmosphere destroying light hearted music to represent an evil character* Oh he can't believe it, four out of four, the goblin is Ecstatic! **Best use of XXL T-shirt to create a Siamese two headed robot* This is the stupidest robot ever. For something that was described to Ator, as practically invincible, he outsmarts it pretty easily, the old 'duck below it's field of view and sneak up from behind' trick, I bet it had never seen that one before.**Best use of monster costumes from entirely different movies* For the use of the Japanese Godzilla costume. They did change it significantly though, by covering it in snot.But TQFTMS gets an honourable mention for the following This is a sword and sorcery flick. I'm thinking barbarians, kings, queens, castles, and perhaps the odd legendary monster. But to have the bar scene, full of aliens, neon lighting and pub-brawls … the only thing that was missing was the blaster guns. Well done that movie! **Best use of the 'sleeping beauty' cliché in a movie.* Well, it had ripped off every other type of movie. I suppose the cartoon genre was the next obvious choice.As you know, however, I unfortunately have no control over the Oscars (yet) and so TQFTMS will have to remain a little heard of, underdog to the big budget giants.In Conclusion This is a movie that seems to be scraping the barrel for plot ideas. Our hero bumbles about, discovering one coincidental, yet random, event after another... and then it ends. With an absolute zero budget, Joe D'Amato thought far bigger than any sane man would, and used every corner cutting device to try and create and all action blockbuster. He failed miserably.

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sirnas

This movie has some very goofy parts. Mainly when the troll, which was the same exact one that was used in "Troll 2" gets split in half by the mighty sword. This should not be a surprise since the director is the same for both films. The sets are also a hoot. Even though the film was made in 1990, it feels like you've been magically whisked away to an old episode of "Star Trek". The props and costumes also give off the aura that they are truly made of cardboard. I'm not even going to go into detail on how non-mighty the super sword looked.

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