the dungeonmaster

Arrow’s much-anticipated Enter the Video Store: Empire of Screams box set was conceived as an homage to Empire International Pictures - the relatively short-lived but extremely prolific distribution company that pumped out roughly fifty low-budget features over a six-year span in the 1980s. A few of their films are regarded as genuine genre classics (Re-Animator, most notably… but also Trancers, Ghoulies and From Beyond, to name a few others)… but they’re mostly known for stocking shelves with the sort of colorful, B-movie genre fodder that video store junkies feasted on back in the day.

Which, fittingly, is precisely how my friends and I first stumbled across The Dungeonmaster… grabbing it sight unseen off the shelf, based entirely on the video box art. In spite of its rather half-assed attempt to cash in on the recent success of Tron and the popularity of Dungeons & Dragons, the film actually offers a rather novel concept. Computer programmer Paul Bradford (Jeffrey Byron) is the creator of a quasi-sentient PC system called X-CaliBR8 (nicknamed “Cal” for short), which he’s linked to via a neural interface… and which he uses to clear up paper jams at work, change traffic lights while jogging, and withdraw money from the ATM instead of just using his bank card. One night Paul and his aerobics instructor girlfriend Gwen (Leslie Wing) are abruptly transported to a hellish realm by the evil sorcerer Mestema (Richard Moll, best known for playing Bull on Night Court). Mestema sees Paul’s cutting-edge tech as a form of advanced magic and wants to test it in seven trials… each one directed by a different filmmaker, making this an anthology film of sorts, spanning a wide range of genres and settings.

Cool, right? Well… given that the end credits are rolling after… let’s be charitable and say 70 minutes, you can probably deduce that the majority of the trials are, shall we say, less-than-epic. Given that The Dungeonmaster was one of Empire’s very first releases, one gets the sense that it was likely conceived as a proof-of-concept in terms of the production values and visual effects (some of which are rather good for the era) as much as anything. Many of the directors showcased here - Peter Manoogian (Eliminators, Arena), Ted Nicolaou (TerrorVision), John Carl Buechler (Cellar Dweller, Troll) - would go on to play an integral role in the company’s creative output over the coming years. 

The best of the bunch is probably “Slasher” (actually written by Byron), in which Paul must race against the clock to prevent Gwen from becoming a serial killer’s latest victim… mostly due to the novelty of its urban thriller approach, but also because it’s the only entry that shows any sense of pace or dramatic shape. Coming in a close second, however, is “Heavy Metal,” which is basically a glorified W.A.S.P. music video in which the hair metal/shock rock outfit performs their song Tormentor… Paul being left to navigate the big-haired, devil horn-flashing crowd en route to the stage to prevent Gwen from being sacrificed at the hands of lead singer Blackie Lawless (mugging like an absolute lunatic). I mean, there’s probably a reason Lawless was the most prominently featured character on the VHS box - I can’t be the only person disappointed that he wasn’t the actual villain (also worth noting - this entry is one of the few times Cal actually does anything beyond simply firing laser beams from Paul’s wrist like a glorified Star Trek phaser).

“Ice Gallery” shows promise, as Paul and Gwen are deposited in an ice cavern containing some of human history’s most notorious villains (Jack the Ripper, Genghis Khan… though also a random werewolf, and Albert Einstein, for some reason)… but it ends before it even really has a chance to get going. “Stone Canyon Giant” is barely even a story (though showcases David Allen’s impressive stop-motion technique with the titular antagonist), while “Desert Pursuit” is a relatively serviceable Mad Max knock-off. Bringing up the rear are “Cave Beast,” in which Paul matches wits with some troll-like creature (there’s a subversive twist of sorts at the end, but don’t get too excited) and “Demons of the Dead,” which is only worth mentioning for the makeup work and the film’s most iconic line - “I reject your reality and I substitute my own!” (Trump would later rephrase it as “Fake News”)     

The Dungeonmaster isn’t exactly a film designed to be discovered in 2023 - you sort of need to have that 80s video store nostalgia encoded in the bloodstream already. But it’s a vivid curio, if nothing else - steeped undeniably in the personality of its era. Jeffrey Byron is exactly the sort of vanilla-paste-on-plain-toast leading man you tended to get in low-budget efforts such as these, but Richard Moll’s hammy, smirking villainy is a delight. The climax pits the two of them mano a mano and it’s all rather awkward and goofy, but you certainly can’t accuse the movie of overstaying its welcome. The film isn't particularly good, but there's nothing else quite like it - which, in many ways, was the decade's most desirable legacy.  ​

For the record, the Arrow set also includes the prerelease cut titled “Ragewar,” which runs five minutes longer… though most of the additional footage comes in the form of a largely nonsensical prologue/dream sequence that nonetheless features full-frontal female nudity (looks like we got the short end of the stick as kids). At least that explains why the first shot of the theatrical version is Paul jerking awake dramatically, which never made much sense.