I love portmanteau movies. From Tales from the Crypt to Asylum, The House that Dripped Blood and The Monster Club, a good part of our DVD collection is devoted to these films (mostly of the Amicus variety). 1984′ The Dungeonmaster attempts to be both a narrative and portmanteau all at the same time — to sometimes uneven results.Also known as Ragewar: The Challenges of Excalibrate and Digital Knights, this Charles Band- produced effort (Puppet Master, Subspecies, Re-Animator) made up of seven different segments, all connected by the battle between Paul Bradford (Jeffrey Byron, Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn ) and Mestema (Richard Moll, who played Bull from TV's Night Court, as well as The Sword and the Sorceror, House, Wicked Stepmother and more). Again, it's a film that struggles to find a tone — it wants to be Tron as much as it wants to be a filmed version of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign.Like any portmanteau, there are some good and bad parts in equal measure. Richard Moll is awesome in this, just chewing scenery and blasting out some insane dialogue. The zombie scene is good, as is the giant. But your life won't change watching this film. If you're looking for something to put on as a soundtrack to a party or some great visuals, it's certainly good for that.Read more at bandsaboutmovies.com/2017/07/14/the-dungeonmaster-1984

Aahh... One from back in the days when Charles Band still made *cough* great *cough* movies... I saw this one countless times as a kid, and believe it or not, it was just too much fun re-watching it last week. I admit, it's not a very good movie. In fact, you can hardly call it a real movie. It's more like a collection of shorts, much like an anthology movie. But the main characters remain the same throughout all segments and there is an on-going story present.If you like your 80's cheese fantastically melted, then you're going to have more than a mouthful with THE DUNGEONMASTER. Jeff Byron plays computer-geek Paul (with a computer called "Cal" installed in his... glasses, no less) with a beautiful girlfriend. Absolutely for no reason at all, he and the girl suddenly get zapped to another dimension where Mestema reigns. Mestema (Richard Moll with evil make-up, very appropriately acting the part), is some devil-demon-dude who is just bored out of his wits, and decides to have some fun by subjecting Paul to seven challenges. This is where the fun begins!THE DUNGEONMASTER simply is an excuse to display as much 80's special effects wizardry and cram as much horror/sci-fi/fantasy you can in one movie. All segments are utterly pointless. The whole movie is, for that matter - I think the point is: If Paul loses one of the challenges, Mestema gets the girl. Or something. But what matters is: THE DUNGEONMASTER is just too much fun. Especially if you still carry the child within, as they say, and allow yourself to be amazed and entertained by this old school SFX extravaganza.We've got a claymation giant made out of stone. Trolls. Zombies. A little devil puppet-dude. A werewolf. Blackie Lawless and his band W.A.S.P. performing. A serial killer. Post-Apocalyptic mutant-bikers. Animated dragons. And much, much more... I ask you: How can you not have fun with this film? Also, go take a look at the full crew involved in the making of this film. We are talking the pre-Full Moon dream team here: Charles Band, Richard Band, David Allen, John Carl Buecher, Patrick Manoogian, Ted Nicolaou,...I admit, when people should give this a first time watch in this day and age, they'll probably call it a bad movie. But if you grew up on silly nonsense like this, there really is no substitute.So yeah, I should call this a guilty pleasure, but I honestly love this flick. So don't hold my rating against me.

One of the first films to set itself up like a virtual video game? Maybe so, but it's an extremely lackadaisical and unfocused experiment by Empire films that's only played out for the special effects and is lazily broken up in structure-less and poorly linked levels. As a new director (from Charles Brand to Ted Nicolau and John Carl Buechler) controls a particular segment. The problem here is that there's no real substance to them, so they're non-effective and mainly unexciting. It's too casual.Paul Bradford (wholesomely played by Jeffery Byron) is a computer maestro who his girlfriend (a likable Leslie Wing) believes he spends too much time with his computer Cal. Later that night he gets challenged by a bored, centuries old evil wizard Mestema (a ridiculously hammy Richard Moll) to take part in some scenarios in the order to save his girlfriend.Most of the challenges range from mediocre (encountering some zombies and taking on some historical wax figures of monsters and killers in an iced cave), lame (the metal band W.A.S.P torturing its viewers) to plain boring (battling dwarfs and a gigantic statue), as if someone had accidentally set the mode to easy. That's very easy. No suspense, style or weight. Everything feels cramped, the dialogues are insipid and the thing moves 'too' fast. It only lasts for about 70 minutes. My pick of the lot would have been the serial killer inclusion, where it has Paul trying to get to his girlfriend before the killer strikes again. At least it winds up few moments of tension and interest, even with such a token concept.In the end it's secondary to the clumsy, but dingy visual effects (we get an unimaginative light show of lasers and animation that make swoosh sounds) and hokey make-up FX. We're zapped by a bunch of annoying sounds and the playful score is pretty much a misfire.It's corny and dumb junk, but at least harmlessly watchable. Watch out for the bad puns.

Well this movie has been a favorites of mine for years. It was one of the first Empire films to make it to my collection. I think this is one of the better movies Charlie did in the 80 era. The original title was Ragewar – The challenges of Excalibrate. This film had a few problems in post production, due to what I think was lack of funds. The editing shows that it was rushed a bit, the seven challenges that Excalibrate, played by Jeffery Byron has to face in order to save his girlfriend is out of sequence a cording to the start and End credits. In results of this post production mess up some of the transitions to the different challenges seems rushed and the part "Cave Beast" directed by Peter Manoogian give me the felling that something is missing and got left on the cutting room floor. Then I got my Lightning video Laserdisc edition of Dungeonmaster, I was surprised to see that the opening dream sequence was cut from it. I own a UK. Entertainment in Video. VHS tape, I purchased about 8 years ago. Here is the relative long Dream sequence included. "As shown in the end credits." I remember thinking back then, that it was odd for Charlie to include an opening sequence in Cinema Scope. Fans would know this is unusual for him in the old Empire days. However, I must say that this opening in Cinema Scope do the film credit and give it a sort of prospective look. Everybody has a favorites part of a movie. Mine in this one is the "Heavy Metal" sequence. Directed by Mr. Band him self. Here is just such a cool performance by W.A.S.P (1980 Rock Group). All in all This is a highly entertaining film and should be viewed frequently by anybody who has a love for those old sci-fi / horror films.