CONQUEST

Directed by Lucio Fulci
Written by Giovanni Di Clemente
Produced by Giovanni Di Clemente
Cinematography by Alejandro Alonso Garcia
Music by Claudio Simonetti
Cast: Jorge Rivero, Andrea Occhipinti, Conrado San Martin, Violeta Cela, Jose Gras Palau, Maria Scola & Sabrina Sellers

1983/93 mins/Color/2.0 Dolby Surround
1.85:1 anamorphic/English/Italy/NTSC Region 1

Review from the Blue Underground DVD

Far, far way in a magical land, a young and rather innocent warrior named Ilias (Andrea Occhipinti) is given a magical and sun-powered bow which can fire laser arrows. He must become a man, so he is send on a quest across the land ruled by an evil, gold masked, snake loving, brain sucking, topless and heavenly shaped sorceress.... Ocron (Sabrina Sellers). She has the power of controlling the sun and has send the land of Cronos into darkness. Soon enough, Ilias is joined by a rogue and muscled He-Man like warrior, Mace (Jorge Rivera). Together against all odds, they will try to take down the evil empire.

Like the zombie movies of the late 70s and the post nuke films of the early 80s, the Italians went nuts into copying another very popular subgenre of the 80s, the sword and sorcery flick made popular in the States with CONAN THE BARBARIAN. Produced with Italian, Spanish, and Mexican financiers, infamous director Lucio Fulci directed one of the worst of the bunch. Still CONQUEST is filled with nudity, gore and cheezy fx. It also features some of the stupidest looking characters... including some of Chewbacca's cousins!

Sorry but this is a terribly looking film. I know it was intentional but the film has a very foogy, murky, almost out of focus look that makes it painfull to watch. Maybe Fulci and his cinematographer, Alejandro Alonso Garcia, wanted to give it an out-of-this-world feel but it sure annoyed me more then anything. Simonetti's electronic musical score is way below anything he composed in the past.

Even though this film got somekind of release in North America at the time, it was mostly on the cropped Media's VHS edition of that fans experienced this atrocity. Blue Underground have now answered the "prayers" of Fulci's fans and released this on DVD. The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio and it is enchanced for 16x9 television. Taking in consideration that they surely worked with the best possible film elements available, the transfer is actually nice. Remember, the film was intented to look that way so its not their fault. Still there is no artifacts or compression problems but this ain't the best looking movie to start with. The remastered 2.0 Dolby Surround track does a very good job of creating an interesting audiophonic experience with Simonetti's score is taking much of the space. As for the extras, we get the US trailer, European trailer, a bio on Fulci and still gallery with posters, lobby cards, promo booklet and video box. The menus are static, there is no inlay card but a four pages Blue Underground catalogue along with the chapter stops on the back of the cover sleeve. The film is separated in 20 chapters and comes in a transparent keepcase.

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Review by Kim Dubuisson. All Right Reserved. 2004. ©

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