Dragonslayer 4K 1981

Before serving Vigo, ruler of Carpathia and terror of Moldavia, Peter McNichol had been quite the convincing hero, riding on a dragon's back and ineptly but bravely fending off a vicious guardian with a spear. 'Dragon-winner, people.

I've noticed that for the most part, if anyone remembers the Robbins strip these days, it's mostly because of the titular dragon, Vermitrax. Now that's a dragon really. Predatory, menacing, and well-executed in terms of special effects (the film is all right with that, as well as with musical accompaniment, as evidenced by two Oscar nominations), it is one of the main decorations of the film - flying, biting and burning women - a beauty, not a dragon.

Even the local people pale a little in comparison to him - but not because of a badly written script or uncouth actors - the point is that the pace of the film's narration is somewhat monotonous - you do not feel much sympathy for the characters when you know that everything will end well, and those who die do not manage to cause any particular sympathy. So it turns out that 'Dragon Beater' is, by and large, a film which should be seen primarily for the epic spirit of typical fantasy battles a la 'dragon burns down a village' or 'knight against dragon'.

McNichol's character initially seems like a typical wimp who only shows up at the end (well, he has that look, so what), but throughout the film Gaelan is a pretty adventurous and very brave young man, which is good. His wife is nothing special, but she looks nice in my opinion, and it's a pity she's not a very well known actress. Well, they bustle about, figure out what's what and fight with Vermithrax in a good old medieval setting, which here turns out, in principle, rather gloomy, as if to counterbalance the fairy tale mysteriousness. There's nothing particularly violent or dirty here in principle - it's not 'Flesh + Blood' - but nowadays, I think the film could have been branded R at least for the final shot with the half-rotten dragon carcass.

It's a quiet and measured film, which I think is a minus in this case. I didn't get to get excited for the characters or get scared for a second, or doubt for a second that everything would go wrong, even though there's quite a living and all-destroying dragon flying around. But so itself 'Dragon Beater' has long since relegated to the category of good old retro fairy tales, and although not the flagship of this niche, but quite itself.