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Wizards of the Lost Kingdom

What we have here is a downright brilliant piece of early 80’s incompetence that will render even the biggest connoisseur of trash- cinema completely speechless! “Wizards of the Lost Kingdom” is a very cheap and cheesy fantasy/Sword-and-Sorcery adventure that doesn’t have an actual plot but does eagerly & shamelessly borrows elements from other films. Writer Ed Naha and Hector Olivera (who?) watched enough similar type of movies to know that they needed a handful of essential characters, but probably figured that all the rest would follow automatically. In order to make a fantasy-adventure you need: one super- evil villain (preferably with a black cape), one young hero in training, one lone warrior, one amiable type of furry pet, one wise midget living in the woods (optional) and a whole colorful collection of hideous demons, enslaved dwarfs, and winged gargoyles to serve as filler. The story is phenomenal and so original, with Simon the young son of a wizard having to flee from his beloved kingdom after the evil magician Shurka takes over the power and killed the king. Simon wants to go back and save the people, but therefore he needs his powerful ring which he lost during his escape. Simon befriends lone warrior Kor (the usually cool dude Bo Svenson who clearly needed the pay check), who assists Simon during the long and devastating journey full of ordeals, dangerous encounters and magical showdowns. Admittedly it doesn’t even sound too bad thus far, but that’s merely just because I excluded all the deliciously inept little details. Simon has a best friend named Gulfax, for example. Gulfax is an albino version of Chewbacca and evokes incontrollable chuckles whenever he opens his poodle-snout to yelp something incomprehensible. The obstacles during journey back home are hilariously irrelevant to the “plot” and simply serve as padding footage to cover up the lack of actual content. Simon has nightmarish visions inside the tent of a suspicious forest nymph, Kor settles an old score with the pig-faced nemesis whose sister he refused to marry and there’s the supposedly horrible ‘suicide cave’ where you can only sing your way out of. But the absolute most unequally brilliant sequence – not just of this film alone but in the history of cinema – involves the resurrection of four zombie warriors. Simon awakes the legendary courageous warriors, hoping they will assist them in their battle, but the rotting corpses only take a few steps, complain about how tired they are and return back to their graves. That’s it! So much for the zombie sub plot! Best sequence ever! I could go on listing unintentionally hilarious little details for several more paragraphs, but you get the idea. “Wizards of the Lost Kingdom” is a tremendously messed-up “so-bad-it’s-good” film. Word of advice: do not watch this joyful piece of junk alone. Invite friends, preferably the dope-headed types with a wicked sense of humor, and watch it in group. It will be a night to remember…