Super Movies 2-Parter! The one with Andre the Giant in a creature suit

 

Title: Conan the Destroyer

What Year?: 1984

Classification: Weird Sequel

Rating: That’s Good! (4/4)

 

With this review, I’m finally pulling the count for this feature to 20, and it’s time for the other half of a two-part review. Last time, I covered the awkward oddity that was Conan the Barbarian. Now, we have the sequel, which was previously the subject of a soundtrack review. To me, it’s not just the one I like better, but what a Conan movie should have been all along, whether or not that was really a good idea. Here is Conan the Destroyer, the one that put Andre the Giant in a suit by the guy who made E.T. and the Alien.

Our story begins with a montage of riders against a red sky, sent to intercept Conan and his companion, a lesser thief named Malak. After Conan decimates the warriors, a ruler named Queen Taramis arrives with an offer (39-year-old spoiler): To raise Conan’s lost love Valeria, if he can retrieve an artifact called the Horn of Dagoth. His quest proves to be more of an escort mission, accompanying the maiden Princess Jehnna and her guardian Bombaata. To unlock the horn, the princess must first retrieve a magic gem from a sorcerer’s island palace, then use it to unlock an ancient treasure house where the Horn is kept. But the Queen’s real plan is to revive a chthonic deity, with Jehnna as the sacrifice, and of course, Conan and his rogues are set up to take the fall. It’s up to Conan to save Jehnna and send Dagoth back to the netherworld, or the god will bring death to the world!

Conan the Destroyer was the 1984 sequel to Conan the Barbarian, again produced by the Dino De Laurentiis Company. Roy Thomas, a writer for the Marvel Conan comics, received credit for the story. Arnold Schwarzenegger returned as Conan, with Mako reprising his role as the wizard Akiro and Olivia D’Abo in her debut as Jehnna. The supporting cast included Sarah Douglas as Taramis, Tracey Walter as Malak, Grace Jones of A View To Kill as Zula, and Wilt Chamberlain in his only starring role as Bombaata. Basil Poledouris returned with an original score including a new theme. The effects crew included the late Carlo Rambaldi, who created a practical-effects suit for Dagoth. Andre the Giant made an uncredited appearance as the creature. The film was released with a PG rating, after controversial cuts for violence and possibly nudity. It received mixed reviews, with critics divided on further comparisons with the first movie. Its profitability remains uncertain; by the most detailed accounts, it received a US box office of up to $31 million against an $18M budget, and may have earned more in other markets. In 1990, Thomas and Gerry Conway published a comic The Horn of Azoth that Thomas maintained was closer to his original story proposal. The movie has remained available on TV and home video. All known video releases are based on the theatrical cut of the film.

For my experiences, this movie, or at least the end of it, was my introduction not just to the franchise but to 1980s epic fantasy in general. What stands out is that I have repeatedly seen it used as an axiomatic example of failure. People say it was inferior to the original. People say it was a box office bomb, an assessment even I casually accepted. I’ve even seen people trash talk the effects, including the Dagoth suit. (One more further recollection I have is posting Mr. Rambaldi’s obituary on social media.) To me, this has come to feel like talking about two different movies. As I acknowledged in the previous review, the original movie had its good points, including elements of Howard’s themes that usually get lost in more routine fair. But this movie has more than enough to stand both on its own merits and as a valid take on the source material.

Moving to the movie itself, it can be acknowledged from the start that the movie is at face value very much in what would conventionally be called “so bad it’s good” territory. The acting is uneven at best. The dialogue hovers between passable and intentionally comical. The straightforward plot still presents several impressive holes, including the undeveloped backstory of a faction that apparently had the central maguffin all along. But these problems correspond to objective strengths. The cast are suited to their roles, with Douglas (see The PeopleThat Time Forgot) and Jones being the strongest performers. The lines that make people laugh, especially from Conan and Malak, are generally intended to be funny. (I’m still not sure what to make of Chamberlain’s absolutely deadpan pledge to defend the princess’s virtue, which I suppose might have been written before the casting was settled.) Most significantly, the story is fast-paced enough that none of it invites overly detailed scrutiny, a difference from the previous film that is far more pronounced than the already substantial difference in running time can account for.

Meanwhile, the part I find stands out after this much time is the effects work. Even for the early to mid-1980s, this looks middling budget and perhaps a bit on the willfully “retro” side. The obvious high point is the Dagoth suit, which I count as easily among the very best of its kind. It’s slow, and the fact that the guy inside was neither an experienced suit man nor a distinguished actor is quite clear. However, the thing is certainly well-used, interacting with the cast and environment on a level that neither CGI nor old-school stop-motion could easily achieve, and the lumbering movements give a real sense both of weight and the disorientation of a being in an unfamiliar environment. On top of that, the  gruesome design and prophesied powers are more Lovecraftian than most actual adaptations of Howard’s most distinguished colleague. But what really sticks and gradually digs in are the palace sequences in the middle act, accomplished mostly with animation, matte paintings and additional optical effects. The part that “works” is the striking level of stylization, which reaches the transcendent level of a different artform rather than outdated technology. It culminates in the surreal hall-of-mirrors fight, augmented by an inspired burst from the score, which I have been very close to giving the “one scene” nod. I pass over it now solely because it is of a piece with events before and after, not something that can be considered easily in isolation.

Now for the “one scene” itself, I decided I had to go a little further into the Dagoth sequence. At the start of the finale, Jehnna is entrusted to place the Horn in the forehead of an idol that embodies the god. The movements of the princess are unsettling in themselves; she seems either hypnotized, drugged, or simply resigned to her fate. Then there is the placement of the Horn, which leads to an uncharacteristically vague scale despite the fact that we have seen the Horn in human hands. The idol seems larger than life-sized, or the horn would fill most of its quite human face, yet the horn still seems disproportionately large. A priest from the cult of Dagoth intones that the sacrifice must take place as soon as the god shows signs of life if it is to be controlled, and the ironic part is that for all we will see, he could be right. Sure enough, the statue begins to move, still all practical, while the priest still takes plenty of time to strike a pose. As the plan goes awry, we get one more glimpse of the idol, already transforming yet all the more hideous for its lingering semblance of humanity. It’s a debatable moment, unquestionable in its overall effectiveness, and in that, it perfectly embodies the film.

In closing, I find myself lingering not on the rating or the present movie but on this feature. It’s now my longest-running feature, which got its first review around Thanksgiving last year. I haven’t done nearly as much with it as I have with my other features, but it has been very meaningful to me. If it comes to that, it’s what brought me to some of the very best movies I’ve reviewed (conspicuously Hancock, Creepshow and They Live). Looking forward, I’m not quite ready to say I’m retiring this feature. I do feel I’ve reached a kind of completeness, enough that any further installments probably won’t come for a while yet. For now, I am once again moving on for another day, and glad to end on a high note.