British contributions to the sword and sorcery genre are surprisingly few and far between. The Americans and Italians churned them out like butter, but the UK was a rather less active participant. It’s not too hard to see why; the genre came to prominence after John Milius struck gold (or perhaps ‘forged steel’ would be a more apt analogy) with Conan the Barbarian in 1982, and in the 80s the British film industry was at its knees and hard-pressed to produce practically anything. However, it should be noted that it was two years before Arnold Schwarzenegger first pondered the riddle of steel that British director Terry Marcel would bring to the screen a tale of swordsmen, sorcerers, giants, elves, dwarves and – er – beleaguered nuns, centred on a bitter blood feud between estranged brothers, one of whom wields his mighty sword in the name of truth and justice, whilst the other seeks to conquer the world with tyrannical cruelty.
Sounds epic, right? Well, just remember one thing – this was a British film made in 1980. Even Hammer were out of the game by this point, so there really wasn’t much money going around. The opening scene, taking place within a golden chamber whose walls look suspiciously like spray-painted tinfoil, really sets the tone for what’s to come: 90 minutes of cheap and cheerful fun, although with a surprisingly mean streak for a film which still carries a PG certificate 35 years later.
Our first steps into this medieval fantasy realm show us the villainous Voltan (Jack Palance at his most rasping) murdering his own father for refusing to bequeath the mystical secrets that would enable him to be all-powerful. Moments later his more dashing younger brother Hawk (John Terry – no, not the footballer) shows up and, whilst cradling his dying father, is granted a mighty gift with which to dispense justice – a magic sword with a big fist on the hilt. Okay. So, Hawk swears vengeance on his brother – and soon enough, via flashbacks featuring none other than Catriona Maccoll as his lost bride, we learn that their father’s death is not his sole reason to seek revenge. Meanwhile, Voltan does what any mad tyrant seeking to conquer the world would do: he… erm… kidnaps a nun and holds her for ransom. Anyway, more shit happens, and soon Hawk has assembled his own band of brothers including an elf, a dwarf and a giant (the latter of whom happens to be Carry On mainstay Bernard Bresslaw), and together they gear up to liberate the captured nun, and end Voltan’s reign of terror once and for all.
From that basic plot summary it all sounds a bit nondescript, and in many respects it is. And yet, there’s something so endearing about Hawk the Slayer which sets it apart. In common with a great many sword and sorcery movies of the era, it attempts to convey epic fantasy with laughably low production values – and yet, the material is not played overtly for laughs. The film actually boasts a pretty decent cast, and while they’re having fun with it they’re not exactly making fun of it. Having known Bresslaw exclusively for his Carry On roles beforehand, I was surprised and impressed by how well he fit the part of the rough, tough giant Gort. He and Peter O’Farrell’s dwarf Baldin bounce off each other particularly well, even if the dialogue they’re given probably sounded funnier in the writer’s head. Still, there are some genuine chuckles to be had, though they tend to be of a somewhat sadistic variety; as much as Voltan is a ruthless bastard stabbing people willy-nilly, Hawk and his mates are not averse to a bit of the old ultraviolence either. They may limit their punishment to those who’ve done something to warrant it, but they still take clear delight in dealing it out – albeit it in a bloodless fashion, this being a PG (it’d be a 12 if made today, no doubt).
It’s not all such good news performance-wise, though. Terry’s a fairly bland and unimpressive lead, Palance’s excessive hamming barely conceals his clear apathy about the whole thing (an on-set interview in a TV behind-the-scenes show included in the extras seems to indicate the Hollywood veteran was not particularly invested in the role, not that anyone could blame him), and Ray Charleson’s curiously detached performance as the elf Crow seems to belong in a different film entirely. But of course, these kind of off-target performances are vital to the charm of films typically classed as so-bad-they’re-good; Hawk the Slayer seems to come up in a great many such lists and it’s easy to see why. It’s derivative, silly, badly-structured, and doesn’t make a great deal of sense – and yet there’s no denying it’s a lot of fun to watch.
And the other key ingredient to Hawk the Slayer’s charm is its wonderfully anachronistic disco-charged keyboard soundtrack. Producer and co-writer Harry Robertson (who I’m delighted to learn from his IMDb page also co-wrote the Children’s Film Foundation films Sammy’s Super T-Shirt and Electric Eskimo, which I remember enjoying as a kid even though I’ve no doubt they were absolute crap) provided the score under his composing name Harry Robinson (clever pseudonym, eh?), and it sounds so reminiscent of Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds that at times my wife and I started spontaneously singing “the chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one, he said…” Again, it’s no less incongruous than any number of electronic soundtracks on sword and sorcery films – but given these films are set in times and worlds that never were, what’s the difference? It’s hard not to feel at least a little affection for anything with a soundtrack this toe-tapping.
Final thought in closing: perhaps the most famous reference to Hawk the Slayer appears in an episode of Spaced, when Simon Pegg’s short-lived replacement at Bill Bailey’s comic shop earns a punch in the face for scoffing, “Hawk the Slayer’s rubbish!” I doubt I’d have quite the same reaction as Bailey under the circumstances; indeed, I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with that particular choice of words. But it’s good rubbish, damn it all. One man’s trash is, after all, another man’s treasure – and one man’s Excalibur is another man’s sword with a big fist on the end.
Hawk the Slayer is out on UK Blu-ray on 6th July, from Network.