Another in the battalion of early ‘80s low-budget fantasy adventures clogged up with easily recognisable Equity members , bland but rugged heroes and special effects that may have satisfied young boys at the time but have become frail and silly with age. The plot is a pleasantly junked up variation on the Joseph Campbell-Star Wars quest formula, where rash hero Ken Marshall (where for art he?) is tutored by wise old-hand Freddie Jones (sounds familiar) who helps him retrieve a special weapon (oh, call the lawyers), the Glaive, capable of destroying the Beast (who really should have a silly name).
What this will require, as anyone who has taken in any of these dozy, rusty, but watchable fabulations of the era — Hawk The Slayer, Dragonslayer, Beastmaster, Poundstretcher — is a procession through some muddy Welsh locations, recruiting various oddbods to the cause, which must according to a local by-law include ex-Carry On lug Bernard Bresslaw as a giant (here known as Rell the Cyclops in case you didn’t notice the single great eyeball in his forehead).
There are some imaginative concoctions in Stanford Sherman’s script, including Francesca Annis as an ancient witch trapped in the heart of a web and the presence of a doppelganger in the crew, but the film falters horribly in its final confrontation with the Beast which the effects team will prove ill-equipped to deal with. All too derivative, but mildly distracting, Peter Yates doesn’t lend it much of a polish. Down the road Ridley Scott was carving the ornate, gothic world of Legend, but whether friend or foe of such potty, overbearing fantasy as this, it remains a markedly better attempt than Yor: The Hunter From The Future.