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Highly Overrated But Still Good

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

So there are these two guys, and they live in a land with constant fog. One guys littler, has a laser bow, and looks a lot like Hugh Jackman. The bigger guy likes animals. They take on a naked chick who wears a gold mask and has an army of dog men who rip humans in half. She enlists the help of a guy who looks like a walking statue and promises to help her in exchange for sex ... he has the best exit ever committed to film. Fulci's contribution to the Conan rip-off industry (with a huge "Quest for Fire" influence thrown into the mix) is a Goddamned classic. I love this film irrationally. Yeah, it makes no sense and seems to have gone overboard with the dry ice, but it's got naked chicks, dog men and explicit gore ... so there.

Fulci does it again! Good Kills, Fun, Woman being torn apart, Beheaded Hero! Good movie. Acting is OK. Dubbing OK, not great. Good music. Good camera work. The story slows in the middle. Maybe a few too many fight scenes. Good kills. A woman is torn apart. The hero is beheaded. In what movie will the hero be beheaded. What director/film maker will take this risk. Fulci does it. I'm not a fan of all Fulci movies. But I've seen some greats. Like Don't Torture a Duckling, and New York Ripper. Great quote "My enemies call me ---" "What do your friends call you?" "I don't have any friends". Good fun movie. The cartoon effects sucked. But all the kills and other effects work well.

If there's any movie Lucio Fulci made that inspires equal love and hatred, it must be this, the director's lone fore into the Sword and Sorcery subgenre. The general opinion of its detractors seems to be that "Conquest" marked the beginning of Fulci's descent into both commercial and artistic mediocrity, and while the former may be true, I'm not understanding the latter. In light of what Fulci's work aspires to be, "Conquest" can in many ways be seen as a culmination of his style, and if your best criticisms of the movie are that it's "plotless and cheap," I wonder why you're watching a Fulci movie in the first place.Sure, the plot is a rudimentary blob that in the end amounts mostly to characters wandering back and forth as an excuse to get them into perilous situations involving traps and monsters, but Fulci's visual sensibilities are positively ON FIRE here, so much so that the limitations of the story become pretty much inconsequential. They take a back seat to the otherwordly mythic fantasy environment that Fulci is able to create with the most frugal materials. It is the foreboding fog-shrouded swamps, ancient stone temples, grotesque creatures and lurid-colored alien skies that will linger in the mind as the work of an artist who clearly has an eye for distinctive visuals. You could only accuse this of being a movie derivative of "Conan the Barbarian" if you completely ignored this aspect of it, because I can't think of another film that looks anything like this.Other aspects of "Conquest" work to its advantage in subtle ways. The spare, monosyllabic dialogue helps to create the sense of a primitive and brutish world and the minimalist pulses of Claudio Simonetti's electronic score mesh well with the stunning visuals. Bizarre details - the villainess' gold mask and fascination with snakes, the enchanted bow that glows blue, the dolphin rescue - border on the surrealistic. The effect achieved, at least to this viewer, is hypnotic. I find myself wondering how so many filmmakers today, when they are given all the resources in the world and can't give us one interesting thing to look at, can be treated so leniently by critics who would jump on the bahnwagon to slam Fulci without a second thought.

A young man, Ilias(Andrea Occhipinti) ace with his bow and arrows(..both of wood and lasers), is sent by his people to execute an evil sorceress, Ochron(Sabrina Siani, under a mask, her breasts on display, only a g-string "shield" covering her vagina, often seen with a snake slithering all over her body) who is a viable threat to the rest of the human race. Ilias is quite brave, but notwithstanding green, despite his abilities as a marksman, he'll need help, receiving assistance from Mace(Jorge Rivero), a skilled warrior who understands Ochron's land and how to survive on it. Mace mentions how he cares little for his fellow man, having adopted a special relationship with the animals of all kinds, seemingly able to communicate with flying creatures(..birds and a bat, both which guide him to a kidnapped Ilias). Yet, he will eventually bond with Ilias as they escape numerous encounters with Ochron's furry, ferocious dog-men, dangerous pine needles which shoot from "angered bush"(!), "spider-web men"(..they look like humans cocooned in web, their eye sight visualized in a green tint), a magical "assassin" named Zora(Conrado San Martín, also under a mask, who is able to move from one place to the next, his body simply vanishing, also, at one point, taking the shape of Mace in order to surprise a sickly Ilias who was incapacitated, eventually losing a battle with the one whose form he "borrowed"), cavernous monsters(..barely visible, with long nails and glowing eyes), and dangerous bats. The humans are of a "tribal" variety..skin often colored with dirt, mud, and other materials, hair mangled and filthy, bodies covered with skins(..or not covered at all), feasting from flesh in the same way as the beasts they killed for their meal.Lucio Fulci creates an atmosphere that certifies that CONQUEST is pure fantasy. The creatures in his film are what you might read about in fantasy fiction..they are quite violent, often subservient to their queen's wishes, leaving nothing alive in their quest to secure Ilias at Ochron's command. Mace is always asking Ilias to return home due to his understanding of just how sinister and hostile Ochron is. Ochron has convinced the creatures that follow her lead(..they seem to all speak in English)that she has power over the sun. One major problem is that Fulci often stages action set pieces at night, Ilias and, particularly, Mace combating Ochron's forces, with a lot of the violence bathed in murkiness. There's a sequence in a darkened cavern, where monsters(..after successfully capturing Ilias)battle Mace and you can hardly see anything..also, Mace is warding off a swarm of bats. There are some really inspired moments such as Mace fending off swamp zombies and a diseased Ilias(..who was stabbed in the leg by a poisonous needle)suffering bulging puss oozing sores(..following a little later, Fulci displays ants throughout Ilias' body, crawling around his wounds!). The "Mace versus Mace" encounter is certainly surreal as is Ocron's orgiastic display with a snake as she envisions nightmares of Ilias blasting her with one of his laser arrows. Most of the weapons used are fashioned from rock or wood. Lots of wounds gushing blood. The real star of the film is Alejandro Ulloa's cinematography. There are some remarkable shots through the use of the sun. The most unexpected scene has dolphins rescuing Mace from a most certain drowning. The ending, Mace's revenge against Ochron, using his comrade's bow, her "unveiling"(..we have a chance to see the grotesque face under the mask), and what she eventually turns into as a result, is simply perplexing. Recommended pretty much exclusively to fans of the genre. CONQUEST's success will be based on how you approach the material. I thought the film was delirious, unpredictable, very strange, but entertaining with another pulsating, stimulating electronic score by Claudo Simmoneti.