Dragonslayer

This one’s refreshingly straightforward with just enough nuttiness for a thoroughly enjoyable watch.  What’s it called?  Dragonslayer.  What’s it about?  A group of medieval villagers recruit a wizard to murder a motherfuckin’ dragon.  Bam.  Right to the point.

What’s kinda interesting is the story around the task at hand.  For instance the dragon is holding the town hostage.  Unless she (you bet your boots it’s a strong independent woman dragon) gets her human female virgin sacrifice once every five years she’ll burn the place down.  Oh and the dragon’s name is Vermithrax Pejorative.  Wow, cool.  Although I had to look it up, I don’t remember anyone actually saying it in the movie but whatever.

Another odd tidbit is there’s this one local virgin named Valerian (Caitlin Clarke (Blown Away)) who pretends to be a boy to get out of the death lottery.  She knows her days are still numbered though, plus she’s had enough of this bullshit, so she spearheads the plan for help.  Problem is the sorcerer (Ralph Richardson (Tales from the Crypt (1972))) gets killed before he sets out on the journey (sorta complicated to explain) leaving his apprentice, Galen (Peter MacNicol (Heat (1986))), to take the job.

At first Galen seems personality-less but he grew on me.  What’s different about this character is despite his youth and inexperience he’s actually very brave.  He never backs down from a fight and doesn’t think twice about hunting down the dragon.  Ok, he displays some mild arrogance here and there.  But at the same time he’s devoid of macho man bluster that was incredibly popular at the time.  In appearance he’s basically the opposite of Conan the Barbarian, short and lanky with soft features.  I think that’s ultimately what makes him appealing though.  He’s a seemingly average dude that’s definitely in over his head but he wants to help these people and admirably sees his task through.  Well, he’s also in love with Valerian but his heroism doesn’t come off as showboating either.

While the story could’ve been adjusted a bit (the finale is unfortunately anticlimactic) and there are several superfluous characters the main draw is that dragon and the showdown with Galen.  Leading up to this we only catch brief glimpses of the creature’s claws, tail, back of the head, fire breath and her swooping by in the sky quickly.  It’s the usual mix of building suspense, keeping you hungry for more, smart filmmaking and trying to keep the budget down.

When Galen’s ready to duke it out mano a draco he gets ahold of a super sharp spear from the local blacksmith and a shield made of dragon scales woven by Valerian.  The shield idea is particularly clever because if a monster can breath fire then wouldn’t its outer skin be somewhat flameproof to help protect itself?

Anyway, there’s some silly business outside the beast’s lair with Galen having to first fend off the film’s human antagonist (John Hallam (The Wicker Man)).  This asshole is absolutely unnecessary.  Not only does he want Galen to fail in his mission but he wants to actively kill him just because.  There’s no real reason.

So once we’re through with that dipshit we go deep inside the ominously lit rocky cave where Galen encounters dragon babies.  They’re nasty demons that look like grotesque mutated bats the size of a large dog.  They’re gnawing on a virgin sacrifice with one biting her foot clean off (did I mention this is rated PG?).  This sequence reminds me a little of the rodents of unusual size part of The Princess Bride.  The movie may have come out after Dragonslayer but the book was released well before.

After all that fooling around Galen finally makes his way into a colossal cavern with a lake…that’s on fire!  Vermithrax sneaks up out of the water from behind and we get our big reveal and holy fucking shit this thing is fuckin’ awesome looking!  It was such a dramatic build up to this confrontation and it delivers in spades.  A bunch of filmmakers (nerds) have said this is their favorite dragon on film and you know what?  I agree.  It has the perfect shape with a sharp snout, beady eyes, a serpent neck, horns, spikes, pointed wings, razor talons, etc.  Alright fine, that sounds like every dragon ever.  I’m not doing this thing justice.  Look up pictures.

And the ensuing bout is badass as hell.  Galen uses the shield to protect himself against massive streams of fire and tries his best to get stabs in whenever he can.  They figured out how to not make the fight feel completely one sided like the dragon should obliterate him in a second.  Galen works with what he’s got and gives the bitch a run for her money.

Now of course this achievement is largely due to the phenomenal effects.  The good folks at ILM put forth an amazing bonanza of practical gags.  They use every trick in the book including new ones for the time like go motion, an offshoot of stop motion that attempts to incorporate motion blur making the movement seem more realistic.  They were also using this technique in The Empire Strikes Back and ET.  And at least in Dragonslayer it does look better than stop motion.

One minus is Vermithrax doesn’t look so hot while flying which appears jerky, stiff and sorta blurry.  Part of the reason why the finale falls flat is an overreliance on having the dragon fly.  And I totally get it on paper that it sounds tremendous but it doesn’t look nearly as nice as when she’s slithering around in her cave.

This is your typical boys adventure film that was made immensely popular by folks like Lucas and Spielberg from the 70’s to the 90’s.  And that makes sense since collaborator Matthew Robbins wrote this (with his buddy Hal Barwood) and directed.  He also wrote The Sugarland Express, did some additional writing on Close Encounters of the Third Kind and even the THX short.  His biggest claim to fame directing wise is probably *batteries not included which was produced by Spielberg.

While it’s got its fair share of issues the positives are real strong.  Aside from the kick ass effects the production design (Elliott Scott (Indian Jones, Roger Rabbit)) and score (Alex North who apparently recycled his unused music from 2001) are also top notch.  The characters aren’t the strongest but they’re likeable and the story throws in a few curious details to keep your interest.  It’s worth checking out for that lady dragon alone.