Coscarelli's Beastmaster

In the days of my dvd obsession, I was always open to blind-buying the Anchor Bay disc of this movie because I enjoyed Don Coscarelli's work after watching Phantasm and Bubba Ho-Tep, but this title always evaded me. It fell out-of-print, so I was screwed.

Thanks to Amazon Prime, I was able to catch this movie over dozen years after my initial interest, and I figured it would probably underwhelm me at this point in my life. I'm happy to say I was wrong. This movie was a lot of fun.

Back in 1982, Conan the Barbarian was taking all the glory for the swords and sorcery scene. Arnold was buff as fuck, he had his floozies, and he cut people apart with a sword. What more could you ask for? A few months later, Beastmaster came out, and maybe it was overlooked because it wasn't the first. It has a lot of parallels in regards to story and visuals, but it also has one thing that Conan didn't have: a PG rating.

PG, huh? Keep in mind that this was before PG-13 existed, but even so, this movie would be a hard PG-13 by today's standards, likely jumping straight to an R because of at least three sets of titties. Tanya Roberts plays the protagonist's love interest, and the first time we see her, she's bathing topless in a lake where our hero plots to have his animals steal her clothes so she can run around trying to find them, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start with the plot first...


Rip Torn is our antagonist in a role not unlike that of James Earl Jones from Conan, plotting to kill the king's unborn son so the prophecy that this kid will destroy him doesn't come true. The son is magically transferred into a cow so it can be led elsewhere, gutted, and an old hag can kill the kid. A traveler witnesses this and stops her, raising the boy as his own. This kid has an affinity with animals and is able to communicate with them, thus being called the beastmaster. Years later, Rip Torn leads an attack on the now grown beastmaster's village, leaving them all for dead. That's when the beastmaster embarks on a journey to get his revenge.

Along the way, he gathers a party of animals and humans, fights a few monsters along the way, and infiltrates the lair of his nemesis to duke it out with him in what plays out in a fantasy epic nature that's plenty entertaining.


This was quite an ambitious project for Coscarelli after his low budget moody atmosphere piece Phantasm. There's a lot of animal coordination going on, heavy set design, makeup, costumes, stunts, and visual effects. He wanted to make a fantasy epic and he did it. It's got a lot of genre tropes and it works. It also has some good horror vibes too, even at a PG rating.

When it comes to pushing boundaries, this movie gets away with a lot for its rating. It has blood and violence, dead bodies impaled on spikes, boobs, child sacrifices, and even incest. Good job, Coscarelli!

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