CURSE OF THE DRAGON SLAYER (review)

Review by Rich Redman

I love fantasy films, and there haven’t been enough good ones in my lifetime.

As a result, I’ve come to prefer fantasy novels and games. I’ve played World of Warcraft and Guild Wars.

Heck, I wrote Dungeons & Dragons products and managed that computer game license for several years.

That makes me a little jaded when it comes to fantasy properties, so take my opinion with more than one grain of salt.

Curse of the Dragon Slayer (aka SAGA: Curse of the Shadow) was clearly written and made by people who know fantasy. You can tell by what they copy from better films (the look of the orcs was taken right from The Lord of the Rings), books, and games.

It starts by introducing Nemyt Akaia (Danielle Chuchran), an elf bounty-hunter who kills a dragon so she can get to its rider, an orc shaman. The shaman curses her before she kills him.

Now, in case you’re wondering, yes, she is the eponymous dragon slayer, and yes, that’s the last dragon you will see in the movie.

The rest of the movie is about the Shadow, and its plans to bring the God of Death, Goth Azul, back to the world. I was never sure why. No one in the movie ever seems to stay dead, so Goth Azul can’t have many subjects.

Don’t give up on the movie during the introduction of Nemyt. It was filmed a year earlier than the rest of the movie as a promo piece to raise money for a movie or TV series. So the orc shaman’s make-up doesn’t cover his whole body. The rest of the movie is better.

After Nemyt, we meet Keltus the Wanderer (Richard McWilliams), ambassador of the Prophetess, who is investigating the Shadow. He meets a steampunk, gun-toting, dwarf who would rather die than answer any questions.

Except, of course, that the Shadow can make its servants immortal when it wants to.

And yes, firearms and explosives are the sole domain of the dwarves, who exist entirely as plot complications and agents of the Shadow.

The last of our protagonists is Kullimon the Black (Paul D. Hunt), an orc who loses control of his war band to Mulgrut (Kyle Paul), who has joined forces with the Shadow.

The three of them get together just like any D&D party and go out to stop the agents of Shadow from combining the Vessel, the blood of Goth Azul, and the ashes of some other guy at the Well of Demons. They want to raise an avatar of Goth Azul.

There’s lots of fighting and reinforcing of fantasy stereotypes, all things that fans of fantasy will recognize but that aren’t explained for anyone else.

The ending monster is cool, if a bit too easily defeated. I wish they had spent a bit more money on the rest of the movie and a bit less on a final monster that only appears for a few minutes.

I mentioned that the makers of this film know fantasy, and I won’t contradict that. What I will say is that they do not know how to assemble the various components of fantasy stories into a coherent whole. There aren’t enough efforts at world-building.

I will say that I was very happy to see an athletic woman cast as a warrior. Danielle Chuchran looks her part. It’s too bad the choreography, cinematography, and direction aren’t up to what she can do.

For the most part, the filmmakers use lighting effectively, finding good excuses to light night scenes so we can follow the action. I wish more films would do that. It’s not radio, after all.

For all my complaining, I thought this was better than any of the Dungeons & Dragons movies, and it was fun enough to (mostly) keep my interest. I hope MainStay Productions will make better movies than this.