Some Thoughts on "Curse of the Dragon Slayer"

"No guys, for real, this homebrew setting and
campaign is 100% original!"

Curse of the Dragon Slayer (2013)

Directed by: John Lyde
Produced by: Arrowstorm Studios
Written by: Jason Faller, Kynan Griffin
Budget: As expected for this sort of thing, I couldn't find any concrete budget information.

Starring: Richard McWilliams, Danielle Chuchran, Paul D. Hunt1

Lord of the Rings was a landmark movie in the realm of epic fantasy. Before Peter Jackson's shadow rose in the East the fantasy movie market really only existed in the 80s, with only a handful of entries in the genre achieving anything like widespread release. Some of those still endure, but the majority of those were easily dismissed as entries in a niche market that no one took seriously.

Nowadays you can't open a streaming service without mousing over a dozen low-budget fantasy titles featuring a party of adventurers of various demi-human races who have to save the world from an evil force by killing hordes of faceless bad guys and widowing who-knows-how-many faceless bad guy wives.

Curse of the Dragon Slayer is one of those movies, freely available to stream for anyone with an Amazon Prime subscription. I was browsing their selection when I saw the title and the poster, and you can bet that I judged this book by its cover. You've got a Fantasy Race Triangle, a 2-star dragon design, and obligatory orange-and-blue color scheme. I didn't have to scroll below this one before knowing what I was watching next.

When a mysterious Shadow cult rises and attempts to awaken an ancient evil, it's up to Female Elf Barbarian, Male Human Paladin, and Male Orc Fighter to defeat an army of CR 1 Shadow Cultists in order to prevent the rise of the god of death, Goth-Azul. Along the way we see one dragon, a few passable special effects, and plenty of B-grade fantasy schlock.

Now let's talk about this poster and analyze just how much it lies to us.

First off, the original title of this movie was not Curse of the Dragon Slayer...in fact, this movie has seven total titles...in English. If I included the foreign-language titles that number would climb to a full dozen. Here's a list of the English ones:

• SAGA - Curse of the Shadow (Original)
• Rise of the Shadow Warrior (UK English DVD box)
• SAGA: The Shadow Cabal (Netherlands)
• Curse of the Dragon Slayer (USA alternative)
• Dragon Lore: Curse of the Shadow (USA alternative)
• SAGA: Curse of the Shadow (USA English)
• SAGA: The Shadow Cabal (World-wide alternative)

Behold, the chief and greatest of calamities!
Also, literally the first shot after the opening narration.

Why am I counting the title on the poster above as a lie? Well, it ties in with the three dragons portrayed, which is three times more than we see in the actual movie. The only dragon we actually see appears literally 90 seconds into the movie, and is promptly killed with a crossbow thirty seconds later.

Bard's got nothing on Nemyt

What follows is a surprisingly fine fight scene between an elf in spiky blue contact lenses and an orc that seems to have gotten lost on his way over from Mordor. The elf, Nemyt, beheads the orc but gets marked by a black symbol on her wrist.

After this we meet the Prophetess's Paladin, Keltus who, after visiting a dwarf friend of his and realizing he's also been infected by the Shadow, kills him with an explosive in a strange, misplaced attempt at slapstick humor. The dwarf design is actually pretty good, if a little jittery-looking. The movement is a little twitchy, but the prosthetic work is actually shockingly convincing.

It was during this scene that I realized just how derivative the movie might get. While up until this point everything shouted Lord of the Rings, the dwarf character is much closer to Warhammer or Warcraft in design, with goggles, a little tinkering workshop, musket, and love of blasting powder.

Finally, we meet Kullimon the Orc, who leads a band of warriors and raiders. He' delivering the Vessel (needed for Goth-Azul's resurrection) to...someone, and then it turns out his second-in-command is a shadow-guy and he runs off, leaving his horde under the Shadow's command.

After Keltus and Nemyt meet in the Dungeon of Plot Convenience they stumble across Kullimon in the Forest of Contrivances, and we have our adventurer's party. They travel along with their various subplots raising their ugly heads (Nemyt's mad, Keltus is faithful kinda, and Kullimon is proud) and eventually they vanquish the shadow cultists and return the world of SAGA to its semi-peaceful state.

The Nat 20s
If you turn your brain off and watch it as a D&D movie it's surprisingly passable. The fight choreography isn't terrible, even past the point where other movies stop putting in any effort. The amount of shaky camera and jump cuts is minimal, and it looks like they actually practiced hitting each other with their prop swords, as opposed to pulling their slashes. The first fight in the movie is still probably the best, but not by much.

Considering it's microbudget epic fantasy I was surprised at the overall quality. It's absolutely nothing special, but it had just enough high points to keep my interest over its running time. Part of this is the rarity of original epic fantasy content making it to the screen, and even though it's derivative I think there's enough room for more. Curse of the Dragon Slayer gave me an acceptable hit of epic fantasy that should keep me sated for a little while longer.

Acting is...mostly alright. Keltus puts on a fine show when the writing allows the character to emote, but in a lot of his scenes I was picking up some pretty strong Hayden Christensen-as-Anakin vibes. Nemyt is acceptable whenever she isn't growling like an animal, but those scenes aren't terribly common. The orc actors are having a great time, and Kullimon is obviously having a great time with the lines they gave him. This last one is a highlight, and any scene where Kullimon gets to actually do things elevates that part of the movie.

There are certain scenes that are actually pretty well done. In particular, there is a scene where Kullimon gets on a boat and stabs some mermaids. This scene is brilliant, and the best orc versus mermaid scene we'll likely ever receive. We also get some of the better "Communing with his deity" scenes I've watched in recent memory, where shooting location is utilized very well (salt flats, south-west badlands, etc).

Finally there's some small stuff that's kind of fun to see. One of the fight scenes features a troll of some sort that is portrayed by a man in a stilted costume that, although it's kind of goofy, actually has a physical presence in the world. Each of the orcs in Kullimon's horde is an extra in an orc costume, and the CGI is only ever used when necessary.

The Critical Fumbles
The CGI in several places is really...straight-to-DVD quality. Not only is it the quality of the textures/renders themselves, but it's the inconsistency in the designs. The dwarf characters, as said, are done with some surprising prosthetic work, which makes the decision to CGI their gunshots a strange one. Any time a dwarf fired a gun it looked like an early 2000s video game graphic. Finally, the design for Goth-Azul is just lazy, and doesn't help ward off any criticisms about derivative content; this god of death definitely took some cues from Blizzard's Diablo in appearance.

The derivative design doesn't stop at the dwarves or demons. The first appearance (and pretty much every one after) of an orc looked like the production designer raided WETA's workshop after Jackson finished the Hobbit trilogy. I kept expecting the orc players (using this word was an accident, but I'm keeping it because this movie is so obviously inspired by a D&D campaign) to shout "Man-flesh!" every time they were on screen. This doesn't apply to Kullimon, however, as his makeup instead looked like it was created by someone who read a description of Jim Carrey's Grinch makeup.

Do you have time to hear about Tarsa, our newest lord and savior?
Also, that's some pretty good looking chain, for real.

Story-wise this movie doesn't offer anything new, and at times it feels like they were rushing through a checklist of fantasy cliches in order to "complete" the plot. This extends to the subplots as well, though it applies especially to Keltus in particular. Throughout the movie we hear that his goddess, the Prophetess, doesn't care that Nemyt might die, as long as it leads to the Shadow's defeat. Keltus doesn't ever really have a scene where he worries about this until near the end, when he's beaten by the Shadow's right-hand-man in a sword fight and prays for deliverance...which is promptly rejected. We're led to think that Keltus might die, but then he appears a few scenes later with his paladin-tattoo replaced by the symbol of a different god (an "elder god," though there's no explanation of the difference between an Elder and a not-Elder god). There are a lot of moments like this in the movie, but this is the one that stuck out at me, because it makes the SAGA gods feel like they're little more than accessories. Most of these scenes could have been improved by including a single line of dialogue which explains it away, but all we have is a single appearance of a (secretly a goddess) beggar woman early on.

Amazon obviously used the wrong poster for this movie, based on the title and the fact that Curse of the Dragon Slayer is a different movie. The three characters are correct, but as said before the movie only has one dragon, which dies soon in. There are images of this movie's DVD case floating around the internet, and the blurb on the back is an outright lie. On the production company's website the name given is "The Shadow Cabal."

And finally, this might just be me, but there were certain establishing shots that used real-world geographic locations (the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley) which pulled me out of the movie. I know my thought process would have been something along the lines of, "Guys, people will obviously recognize this."

The GM Section
The production company responsible for this movie, Arrowstorm Entertainment, has a list of other movies they've produced here. Some of them, including Orc Wars and Survivor (starring...Kevin Sorbo? What?)  look like campy, awful, B-movie fun. Others look like fantasy schlock. Most of them look like they've been Kickstarted, which...hey, that's something.

I was curious why there were so many SAGA titles, and it turns out this is a movie set in a fantasy world used for a massively-multiplayer online real-time strategy game called...SAGA, where you play a fantasy nation and raise armies to conquer your neighbors. As a world-building enthusiast there wasn't anything new enough about the world to draw my attention to the game itself.

Should You Watch It?
Much like my opinion on Livin' by the Gun, this is one for mega genre fans, or people looking to watch a laughable movie with some friends. If you've ever played a D&D campaign or have any passing familiarity with the medium you might get something out of this.

Unlike Livin' by the Gun, this movie feels like it had some professional and financial weight behind it. While I almost admired Livin' by the Gun's team for its attempt, Curse of the Dragon Slayer comes far closer to fulfilling not only its genre obligations, but its obligations to the audience to provide entertainment of some sort.

Rating:
3/5 if you've already bought your Mordor*Con ticket
1/5 if the term "d20" means nothing to you

Writing Exercise: Forced March

Words: 415

Just done to get some words down:

Two hundred or so others walked with Eloski in a ragged column, manned at strategic points by Hatchetmen atop their lumbering crashers. The previous day had seen three attempted breaks run down by the huge beasts, and a number of them still had red stains on their horns from when they'd caught up with their prey.

For nearly a month the Vederesti had forced them south at a rushed pace. After the disaster at Bazimon's Crossing it was all they could do to keep from angering their captors. Much like the rest of them Eloski had started out with his chin up in defiance, but  the harsh treatment at the hands of the Hatchetmen combined with the late-summer heat had worn him into submission. For the past few days all he'd cared about was making sure he didn't lose meal privileges.

Thunderous thuds announced a crasher approaching, and Eloski stepped aside to let the animal and its rider past. The large grey beast fixed him with one baleful eye as it rode past, and the man atop looked down at him in much the same way Eloski would regard a disobedient dog. The bright plumage attached to the Hatchet's helm marked him as some sort of commander.

"Do not make me repeat myself." It took Eloski a moment to realize the Hatchet officer had spoken to him. He looked up and shook his head at the man in a sudden sign of rebellion which earned him a *whack* across the shoulders from the man's short crop. "Your commander's name for an extra ration," the Hatchet said, and the crasher tossed its oblong head in shared irritation.

Eloski shrugged. He'd torn off his Officer patches at the end of the battle all those days ago, and now they were probably somewhere a hundred miles north, trampled into the dirt by the others. As far as anyone was concerned he was just a footman.

"Useless," the Hatchet said as he dug his spurs into the crasher's side. The grey thing snorted and tossed its head as it moved forward towards the next rank of huddled Dalldren marching south.

Eloski wasn't worried. These were his men, hand-picked for their loyalty and fierceness. Even as the distant city towers grew closer and he realized they had passed into the Front, he held onto some measure of certainty that none of the others would talk. Dalldren loyalty ran deeper than the world's roots, and were twice as hard to unearth.