Conquest (Lucio Fulci)

There's no denying that Italian genre filmmaker Lucio Fulci's career had begun to decline slightly by the time his sword-and-sorcery fantasy Conquest was produced in 1983: the gory glory days of such horror hits as Zombie (1979), City of the Living Dead (1980), and The Beyond (1981) were a couple years behind him, and his career had subsequently shifted into more generic genre outings like 1982's Manhattan Baby and (the admittedly fascinating) New York Ripper. Still, the year that gave the world Conquest was – with respect to the quality of Fulci's films – light years ahead of such later 80s misfires as Zombi 3 (1988) and House of Clocks (1989), and fans of Fulci's early-80s peak period should find much to savor in this bizarre effort. Just as many of the aforementioned horror films were created in response to the success of Dawn of the Dead, Conquest was made to capitalize on the popularity of such mythical action fare as Conan the Barbarian, with muscular warriors on odysseys filled with beautiful women and strange adversaries in a primitive landscape. I would attempt a more detailed summary of Conquest's plot (something to do with a young man leaving home, acquiring a magical bow, and battling monsters with his newfound drifter friend), but such an endeavor would likely prove futile: this is one of the most startlingly incoherent films in Fulci's entire oeuvre, meandering aimlessly through a series of action setpieces and otherworldly settings with little or no regard for narrative clarity or momentum. Yet this only adds to Conquest's peculiarly dreamlike tone, and there is a uniquely (if, one suspects, largely unintentionally) surreal quality to the proceedings, making the film a more interesting affair than the failure Fulci's fans generally consider it to be. And, of course, there are the typically Fulci-esque quantities of gore: the director never limited his cinematic bloodletting to just his horror efforts (as the splatter of his crime drama Contraband can also attest), and this fantasy is also filled with decapitations, crushed brains, bloody wounds, et al, so the gorehound contingency of Fulci's fanbase is unlikely to be disappointed.

One word of caution, however: this is, regrettably, the worst-looking transfer in the normally impeccable Blue Underground label's history, though the soft-focus gauze filter overload of the original photography would appear to be the principal problem here. This surreal sword-and-sorcery fantasy from Italian gore auteur Lucio Fulci is almost as blood-spattered as his infamous horror films.

Travis Crawford