Skullduggery (or its many alternative titles) seeks to cash in on the early 1980s backlash. A group of college students get together to play a D&D board game led by an older gentleman (who turns out to be the devil).One of these players - Adam - comes from a long line of cursed men (starting with a king who betrayed the devil). While Adam is helping out at a community college talent show, he remembers his ancestral curse and starts killing people.Adam seems to think that some of his victims are villains fron the D&D game, but other times its seems that Adam is under a demonic spell, or mentally ill or something else.Sometimes Adam seems to have command of several different magical powers, while other times he seems like a helpess puppet.He frequency changes into different costumes, can tranform theatre props into real weapons and women seem to instantly want to have sex (sometimes very kinky sex) with him.The devil - pretending to be two different men (a older D&D gamer and a rich man named, Dr. Evil) - seems confused about what he wants Adam to do.He wants Adam to kill people, he wants Adam to join some sort of Satantic cult, and he also wants Adam to kill most of cult members...for...some reason....The film lets us watch a large chunk of the talent show (a weird show... lacking in talent) and the party hosted by Dr. Evil (an even weirder event that seems to suggest the devil likes to hang with geeks, nerds, stoners, and wanna-be young intellectuals.I suspect that the director and writer thought that they were making a clever, avent garde film with a topical, supernatural twist.Mostly, the film is hard to follow, with lots of weird characters and scenes that don't really seem to make sense.When the film pauses to make a point, its either too University pretentious to be taken seriously, or the film tries to make a joke that ain't really funny.One of the D&D players makes so many lame sexual innuendo jokes, he comes off as more shallow then a certain character from the Family Guy series.The local hospital has a doctor who has sex with nurses, while dressed in a Gorilla costume. Why? A nurse leaves work to press Adams pants. She then tries to seduce him by pretending to be his mother. Why?The film pauses backstage during the talent show to show us two effemiate gay characters who exist as a "arent them gay people funny" joke.Later on, at the party, two gay characters act as door bouncers who (for some reason) try to rape a woman in a threeway. Adam kills all three with a harpon gun. Granted, Adam becomes an effective killer (it helps when the police are mostly inept, and people leave dangerous weapons lying around or hanging up on walls).What else is good in the film?The music is actually pretty good (albeit often out of place). Skullduggery will probably be enjoyed by people who want to "riff" it. The Spoony Experiment has done so, and more efforts will follow.

To all those on the comment boards who were sad that MST3k never got a chance to riff this movie, take heart -- the MST3k guys are back with RiffTrax, at RiffTrax.com, that riffs B movies *and* blockbusters. But they still do the horrible flicks. What you need to do is create an account at RiffTrax.com (very easy to do, no CC needed), then go to: http://ideas.rifftrax.com, search for "Skullduggery (1983)" in the search box without quotes; 2 hits should come up; VOTE EITHER ONE UP! Preferably the one that has the most votes! I need to see this movie riffed by the best riffers of all-time. I really do. Badly. So head on over to ideas.rifftrax.com and LET'S MAKE THIS HAPPEN.

One of the strangest movie ever made, probably, an unbelievable mixture of horror and fantasy, with really cheap special effects, bad acting and a terrible scenario. The curse of a medieval warlock is cast upon generations of men and a young roleplayer of today is forced to become a sort of serial killer, unable to comprehend what is real and what is not. A few of the deaths are creative, at least, but nothing can save this movie from the depths of the charts, as it is too full of crap to be taken seriously, even simply as a late addiction to the slasher flu that took the horror scene like a tide in the first half of the Eighties

Oh, Skullduggery, you horrible little cow patty of a film. Your actors are stiff and couldn't read the dialogue for an Ovaltine commercial with a sense of conviction, your plot is incomprehensible and filled to the brim with pompous symbolism no one buts its filmmakers could explain, and in the end, you just plain stink. But gosh darn it if I don't feel proud to have you in my collection of films. You are, without a doubt, the crown jewel in my cornucopia of crap. I threaten my friends with you and they cringe in fear. What power! And honestly, even though you still provide tons of laughs and potential riffing, one aspect of you keeps me coming back for more: your theme song! Oh, how brilliant is your theme song? I burned it onto a CD, for crying out loud! Does that not express my loyalty to you? I have no idea who was crazy enough to write the lyrics and put it to one of the worst tunes to come out of the '80s, but if I ever meet them, I will be sure to shake their hand (or tentacle) and say, "Thank you. Thank you."Can you read what's in my mind? SKULLDUGGERY! SKULLDUGGERY! Tearing up my mind! Heavy breath, passion in your eyes SKULLDUGGERY! SKULLDUGGERY! I just found a clue, it's all gone! YEAH! I can see what's in your head SKULLDUGGERY! SKULLDUGGERY! Feeling just ahead (??) Killer's smile, now I understand SKULLDUGGERY! SKULLDUGGERY! Shattered hopes and dreams all fall down! YEAH!Oh, good times, good times. 4/4 stars for sheer crapdom