As D+D/fantasy movies from my childhood go, this doesn’t hold up anywhere near as well as ‘Clash Of The Titans’. The special effects are pitiful even by the standards of the day, and the story is utterly simplistic.
But I can’t help but retain a certain fondness for it…and it did in some small way help inspire my subsequent (and lasting) love for fantasy/roleplaying. Who knows, without this and movies like it I might never have gleefully selected the relatively new ‘Monster Manual’ as a prized birthday gift: great cover, and perfect for repeated front-to-back readings on rainy days. It’s wise to study the ways of one’s enemies, after all.
Anyone under 30 but older than, say, 8 and anyone with no interest in D+D should ignore this.
Nostalgia fans and hard-core fans of the genre will probably enjoy it in a wistful way, perhaps even smiling slightly at the relative simplicity and innocence of the story and of the time, in reality, that it evokes.
Grade: D