Honey, I Shrunk The Budget...

 

 (imdb)

WIZARDS OF THE LOST KINGDOM-1985-This weird kind of kid oriented fantasy starts off with a narrator telling us about the age of wizards with scenes from other movies. Then in the kingdom of King Tylor, a wizard's son Simon (Vidal Peterson) is given a magic ring by his father just before their kingdom is attacked by the traitorous sorcerer Shurka (Thom Christopher) and his troops under the guidance of the evil queen, who kills the king and the wizard. Simon escapes with Wookie like companion Gulfax. Shurka imprisons the princess who's sweet on Simon and captures all the children. When Simon is trapped by some bad guys enter Kor (Bo Swenson), a sort of wino warrior/wanderer. Kor decides to help Simon despite the fact that he is being hunted by a cyclops who wants the warrior to marry his sister! At one point Simon comes under a spell of black magic and it's scenes from another movie (DEATHSTALKER; not unusual since this movie was produced by Roger Corman's Concorde which often incorporated clips from other movies). Later they meet a mermaid and Simon defeats Shurka.

 It's a very dumb story with terrible SFX written by Ed Naha who later penned TROLL and DOLLS for Richard Band and the big budgeted high profile HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS. He'd also written for many magazines including Starlog, Fangoria and Playboy. WIZARDS is one of a handful of movies filmed in Argentina by Concorde. Director Hector Olivera also made BARBARIAN QUEEN for Corman.

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The Mighty Ferrigno

HERCULES-1983-After a very cartoonish opening explaining the beginnings of the universe and Pandora's jar (?), some gods (dressed up like a Christmas pageant with Zeus looking like Santa) living on the moon create some kind of super being to combat evil on Earth in the form of the King of Thebes new born son named Hercules. An evil prince has mom and dad killed but a maid saves baby Herc (with Zeus “lending a hand”). Hera (Rossana Podesta) doesn't seem to care much for the baby and sends some strange snake monsters to slay the infant but he kills them instead! His saving and rescue by a childless couple has echoes of Superman and Moses! The bambino grows up to be the legendary strongman (Lou Ferrigno, a year after his TV series THE INCREDIBLE HULK had ended). He kills a bear that killed his father and tosses it into space. The King of Minos (William Berger) and Deadalus (Eva Robins) scheme with Hera to destroy him. Herc fights a metallic bird monster and throws a log into space too. After winning a tournament and cleaning some stables he falls in love with Cass (Ingrid Anderson)) the betrothed daughter of another king (Brad Harris). He gets some help from Circe (Mirella D'Angelo) but Cass is kidnapped by an evil princess (Sybil Danning) who plans to use her as a sacrifice. With a rainbow bridge, a journey to hell and a chariot ride through space.

 

This filmed in Italy Cannon production has laughable acting and SFX. Writer/director Luigi Cozzi (STARCRASH, PAGANINI HORROR) is credited as Lewis Coates.

 

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Snore

SLEEPING BEAUTY-2014-Some genius at The Asylum decided to recreate the famous romantic fairy tale into a zombie gore film (Things like this are all the rage now). Unfortunately the makers failed on almost every count. The script and acting are terrible. The story is very drawn out and predictable but there are several zombie fights and a dragon like creature appears. It looks like something that will probably play on the SyFy channel with some of the gorier scenes cut out (maybe it already has!).

SLEEPING BEAUTY was directed by actor Casper Van Dien (who plays the king) and stars Finn Jones (GAME OF THRONES), Olivia d'Abo as the hammy evil sorceress and the director's daughter Grace as Princess Dawn, the sleeping title character. It was filmed in Bulgaria. Michael York narrates it.

Another film with the same name but having nothing to due with the famous fairy tale was released the same year.

It Would Have Been Better If They'd Met Abbott & Costello!

QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE-1958-It's said that this notorious campy space nonsense started out as a serious science fiction story (the story was by Ben Hecht and the script was written by Charles Beaumont who wrote many classic TWILIGHT ZONE episodes) but I guess when they hired Ben Schwab who produced many of the later BOWERY BOYS entries to produce it and Edward Bernds who directed 3 Stooges shorts to helm it, things got out of control.

Three nutty astronauts (straight laced Eric Fleming, womanizer Patrick Waltz and comic relief Dave Willock) go on a "milk run" to deliver a famous scientist Prof. Konrad (NOT OF THIS EARTH's Paul Birch) to his space satellite. Before they can get here however a mysterious beam destroys the base and sends the ship crash landing on Venus (with Earth gravity and oxygen). It turns out Venus is inhabited by nothing but women lead by the evil masked Queen Ilyana (Laurie Mitchell) who's scarred face makes her hate all men. She also wants to destroy the Earth.

Top billed Zsa Zsa Gabor (some Venusians it seems have Hungarian accents) is Talleah, a scientist and head of a movement to over throw Ilyana ("I hate zat queen!"). The dumb men need women love story seems to be intentional but I think it got out of hand. For an Allied Artists movie it does have Technicolor and Cinemascope which kind of hide the cheesy effects.

Marilyn Buferd (from THE UNEARTHLY) has a small role as a traitor who is vaporized. Joi Lansing and Ralph Gamble have un-credited roles too. Fleming was starring on TV in RAWHIDE at the time. Gabor (still alive at the time of this writing) had a small role in Orson Welles' TOUCH OF EVIL the same year.

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