A confession. I don't much care for Disney's animated films, especially the more recent ones. I don't like their mawkish cuteness, I don't like their sometimes insipid songs, and I don't like the concept of projecting human characteristics onto animals. I have even less time for their live action output, which too often demands from the adult section of the audience a willingness to shut down any trace of cynicism, any concept of how the real world actually is, any memory they have of clever writing or smart, sophisticated ideas and let themselves be washed over by formulaic family pap.

But in the late seventies and early eighties something interesting happened at Uncle Walt's firm. A new regime of young Turks started to make films that were darker, more adult in tone, recognising that the very fairy tales on which many children are raised are themselves based on sometimes sinister folk stories. Artistically, this was to be one of the studio's most interesting periods, but financially it was a disaster. Disney films had a formula, one that their audience expected them to stick to, and some of the most notable of their more modern films, which were made during this period, did not. Heads rolled, and the studio went back to telling the sort of stories that have left the them looking somewhat archaic, and their attitude and output an easy target for digs by the likes of Matt Groening and company.

Of the live action films make during this period, two in particular stood out, and the passing of time has only increased their standing. One was Jack Clayton's atmospheric and sometimes scary adaptation of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, the other was Matthew Robbins' dark fantasy Dragonslayer.
 
There are two key reasons that Dragonslayer stands out as the best of the Sword and Sorcery films that proved popular in the 80s. The first is basic cinema stuff – it's an involving. entertaining and intelligent work, nicely performed, beautifully shot (the director of photography was Derek Vanlint, a man who worked almost exclusively in commercials and only shot two features until his recent directoral debut The Spreading Ground: Dragonslayer and Ridley Scott's Alien – enough said), handsomely scored by old hand Alex North, most impressively designed by Elliot Scott and directed with wit and gusto by Matthew Robbins. It also has possibly the best dragon in fantasy film history, a horned, fire-breathing creature of prehistoric design that even has a Latin name to describe its particular species: Verminthrax Pejorative. Made before the numbing effect of CGI, this is a seriously threatening creation, a creature with a demonic head, a maliciously purposeful stride and genuine grace and power in flight. The stop-motion work here is first rate, and the sense of threat it creates makes any wandering into its lair an almost unbearably tense experience.

The plot, on the surface at least, appears to be traditional genre stuff. In ancient times, the kingdom of Urland is suffering the tyranny of a Dragon, whose wrath they hold at bay by regularly offering up a young virgin girl as a sacrifice to the monster. The victim is chosen by lottery from all of the eligible girls in the area, with even the king's daughter, the beautiful Princess Elspeth, required to take part. Desperate to end this reign of terror, a group of villagers travel a great distance to hunt out the sorcerer Ulrich to ask him to defeat the dragon for them and free them from it's curse. When disaster befalls Ulrich, it is left to his young apprentice Gaylen Bradwater to take up the challenge.

At first glance here is a tale with all of the required fantasy story elements, and save for a few minor plot details just about any savvy genre fan could write the rest. But this brings me to the second, and for my money key reason for Dragonslayer's credentials as a great genre work: Robbins and his co-writer Hal Barwood not only know all this, they know that we know it, and right from the start they play games with the rules which all such films inevitably follow, but which, as the film demonstrates, they need not be suffocated by.

As a fantasy sub-genre, Sword and Sorcery is so often limited in its scope, a somewhat inevitable result of its origins and development over the years. Although a key inspiration for most modern takes on the theme is Tolkein's Lord of the Rings, which has itself received definitive film treatment in the hands of Peter Jackson, its origins stretch back far earlier to folk stories and the fairy-tales that they gave birth to. Back in 1949, Joseph Campbell, in his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces, used these stories to define what became known as The Hero's Journey, a breakdown of the basic story structure and character definitions common to all folk tales and, essentially, all stories involving any sort of quest on the part of a single character (for this, read almost every film that comes out of Hollywood today). This was later refined and simplified by Christopher Volger in his 12 Steps of a Hero's Journey, which broke all stories into 12 distinct steps and the order in which they occur. These works suggested  that all such stories tell essentially the same tale in the same way with the same characters – it is only the fine detail that changes. Campbell's work was to prove a major influence on George Lucas and the story structure of the original Star Wars, and the success of that film led in part to the somewhat predictable nature of the story structure of modern Hollywood movies, especially those of the action or adventure genres. Hell, if it worked once, and Star Wars has been making a packet ever since, it should work again. And again. And again.

But it is in the fantasy genre that this story structure remains most visibly recognisable, in part because of the folk-tale influenced wording used in the descriptions – Volger's stages include such terms as "Seizing the sword," "Return with elixir" and "Approach to the innermost cave." Add to this the character breakdowns of folk tales done by Vladimir Propp – Hero, Princess, Villain, Helper, Donor etc. – and you have stories that can almost write themselves. An inexperienced but good-hearted Hero will fall for a Princess, who will be kidnapped, imprisoned and/or threatened with death (or marriage) by the Villain. The Hero will accept the call to adventure, which may well come from the Father of the Princess, and will be aided in his task by a Donor, who will give him a key weapon, elixir or even information, and a Helper, who will assist in his quest but never overshadow his efforts. He will be repeatedly hindered by the efforts of the Villain, and sometimes even a False Hero, a seeming friend who will later betray him, but will triumph over his inexperience and ultimately complete the set task and defeat the Villain, free the Princess and join with her in a union that is blessed by the Father, often the King, who will bestow great gifts on the Hero and his new bride. With this in mind, take another look at Star Wars and you'll see all this play out pretty much to the letter – it's no accident that Lucas had Obi-Wan (Donor) give Luke (Hero) a light sabre (sword) which would aid him in his rescue of (Princess) Leia and his fight against the dark Lord Vader (Villain), aided on the way by Han Solo (Helper). Lucas knows his Campbell well.

Now review the plot summary for Dragonslayer above. This appears to be every bit as regular Campbell, Propp and Volger as Star Wars and a thousand other Hollywood films you can name. You thought The Matrix was the freshest kid on the block? Strip away the glossy surface and take a good look at the story structure and you'll find far more Joseph Campbell than William Gibson. But Campbell's work was not undertaken to belittle the narrow aspirations of storytellers, but to identify those elements that we, as those who listen to the stories, have come to expect as key components of the tales we are told. The repeated use of them in Hollywood films is part of the reason for the dismaying predictability of the vast majority of that product, but is also key to why many independent films seem so fresh an innovative – when that underlying structure is challenged or seriously toyed with, we unconsciously know that we are seeing something new, that something is not playing out as expected – on those preciously rare occasions, we, as viewers, actually have to do some work. And if you see enough films over a long enough period of time then believe me, these are moments to rejoice.

If you have not seen the film, be warned that there are a lot of spoilers ahead. If you just want to skip to the disk details, click here.

Dragonslayer is first and foremost a Hollywood film, and both recognises and embraces those very elements its potential audience will expect to see. But as the story unfolds it repeatedly challenges these expectations, and although in the end the monster is inevitably defeated and peace is restored to the land, the process of achieving this is not the standard folk-tale/Hollywood one, and few of the characters play out as defined by Vladimir Propp, despite the red herrings liberally strewn along the way by Robbins and Barwood.

Let's take our Hero, Gaylen Bradwater, Sorcerer's apprentice (as Valerian almost mockingly calls him at one stage). Certainly he has all of the surface requirements for a storybook hero – he is young, good-looking, eager and inexperienced. The best heroes are always inexperienced, as this gives them the chance to prove themselves against the odds men like us ordinary mortals who go on become something we can only dream of being. When his master is most unexpectedly killed at the start of the film (our first hint that things are not going to play as expected comes here – the wise old sorcerer throws down a challenge to an unbeliever, and fails, leaving the only man who is really equipped to take on the dragon dead before the story has got properly under way), Gaylen takes up the challenge and accompanies the villagers back to their homeland, and as soon as he arrives brings a mountain crashing down on top of the Dragon's lair, imprisoning it forever. Hoorah, the hero has defeated the monster, and all is well! Except he hasn't. Far from destroying the dragon he has actually enraged it, and the beast responds by laying waste to a nearby village. Instead of saving the locals from this prehistoric tyranny, his actions actually result in a greater loss of life and property than they were already suffering.

The requirement that a Princess to be rescued and a King to send the hero on his quest initially seem to be met by the beautiful Princess Elspeth and her ruling father, Caseodorus Rex, but the latter is established from the start as a humourless and ultimately corrupt monarch who steals the amulet that is the source of Gaylen's shaky powers and has him thrown into a dungeon for his trouble. At the end of the tale, comatose with shock, the king is paraded puppet-like by members of his own court to pose with a sword over the fallen dragon so that all in the Kingdom may look to him to thank for their salvation. The beast is dead, but the corruption of the monarchy will continue. The Princess, on the other hand, is a noble innocent, but initially needs no hero to fight for her, being protected anyway from sacrificial death because Dad has rigged the lottery so that her name will never be called. Instead of saving her, it is Gaylen that makes her aware of this, knowledge that prompts her to re-rig the lottery so that hers is the only name that can be called, and thus is it is the Hero who inadvertently sends her to her fate. In return for the knowledge, she frees Gaylen from his cell, a princess rescuing a would-be hero who nonetheless still attempts to protect her from the dragon, but his efforts are hampered and Elspeth responds by walking into the dragon's lair and willingly offering herself up, an action that results in her being killed and eaten by the dragon's young.

To find Propp's Father and Princess you have to look elsewhere, and even then things do not play to convention. The Princess role is taken by Valerian, one of the village girls who since birth has been disguised as a boy by her father in order to protect her from inclusion in the lottery, and who leads the mission (as a boy) to engage the services of the sorcerer Ulrich at the film's start. (It is interesting that while both the King and his narrative substitute use deceit to protect their daughters, the action of the former is seen as morally corrupt and the latter as the ingenious actions of a desperate father, and when Elspeth's name is selected in the re-rigged lottery it is Valerian, who herself has also been previously protected from inclusion, who leads the chant to let the decision stand.). Believing the dragon defeated, Elspeth reveals her true identity at the celebration feast that follows, and in doing so becomes a "legitimate" (for that read "heterosexual") object of desire for the Hero. He does get the chance to save her from the dragon, not by freeing her from the sacrificial post in the nick of time, but by excluding her from inclusion in future lotteries by making sure she is no longer a virgin. It is typical of the film's attitude to character that this is her idea, not his. It should be mentioned that Gaylen's underwater discovery of her true identity is a great revelatory moment, in part because through some savvy casting and some very convincing boyish mannerisms and body language on the part of Caitlin Clarke.

This challenging of convention is nicely interwoven with the more traditional elements, which are handled with real aplomb. The Donor turns out to be Valerian's father, and his gift of a lance is capable, with magical assistance, of slicing clean through an anvil. This impressive weapon is nonetheless employed by Gaylen to kill not the dragon, despite his best efforts and some very real bravery on his part, but its children, hardly the actions of a clean-cut hero and a move that really enrages the monster.

There was some criticism on the film's release over the choice of a very American lead, a familiar gripe that has logic at its source, as America's relative youth as a country makes any broad American accent something we immediately associate with modern times – debate may still rage about exactly how we spoke in Olden Days, but it certainly was not with a cheery California twang. But if you can put this aside – and you should – then Peter MacNicol makes for a most engaging lead, nicely balancing youthful enthusiasm with stumbling self-doubt, but capable of all the necessary athletics when the time comes. He ultimately fails not because of ineptitude or stupidity, but because he is in way over his head, and in his youthful enthusiasm just fails to recognise the fact. The aforementioned Caitlin Clarke does a great job as Valerian, her boyish looks and male pushiness really selling the gender switch, and it's a nice touch that when she does chose to reveal her identity, she retains many of the male character traits she has lived with for so long, and in many ways makes for a stronger hero than Gaylen. Ralph Richardson is a wonderful Ulrich, making even the delivery of single word lines such as "Yes" seem loaded with meaning (as when he agrees to meet the villagers), and his early departure from the film is an initially disappointing one, but his later return ("Did you bring anything to eat?" are his first words on re-materialisation) is wondrous narrative moment, and it is ultimately on his shoulders that the duties of a hero must fall.

Like Verminthrax Pejorative, Ulrich is old and past his prime, and that it is these two that must engage in final combat may kick against some narrative expectations, but makes perfect sense within the framework of the film's own storytelling. Both Ulrich and Verminthrax are the last of their kind, and their deaths will mark the end of an era for this particular version of our past. "If it weren't for sorcerers there would be no dragons," Ulrich tells the villagers at the start of the film. "Once the skies were dotted with them." Clearly they are on the road to extinction, a fate they may share with Ulrich's profession. When he gives the villagers the names of other sorcerers they could seek help from he is told that they are all dead. Ulrich is the last of his line, and he has already prophesied his own demise. He even expresses doubts about the usefulness of sorcerers in the world: "All this magic," he says to Gaylen, "What has it accomplished?" But it is Valerian's father who is most vocal about the changing times: "You know what I think?" he says to Gaylen, "Magic, Magicians, it's all fading from the world, dying out. That makes me happy. That means the dragon will be dying too." If magic is passing then religion is not seen as offering an effective alternative, and when a holy man leads a procession to confront the dragon with Christian faith, he, like the equally naive priest in Byron Haskins' War of the Worlds, is scorched to a cinder as a reward for his efforts.

Ultimately you may not care a hoot about Propp and Campbell, traditional story structure or character spheres of action, but it is precisely because Dragonslayer both embraces and challenges these very elements that it still feels so fresh today. That it is executed with such skill and wit makes it all the more mysterious that Robbins and Barwood have made so few films since, and none of them come close to this remarkable work. At Outsider we like to see conventions played with or challenged, and until someone makes Sword and Sorcery film with Dogme-style visuals and a Ken Loach approach to realistic dialogue and character, Dragonslayer rules the lair.

At bloody last. Ever since its disappearance from cinemas we have had to suffer horribly cropped, shabby quality TV and video prints, and finally the film here gets the treatment it has been crying out for. Framed at 2.35:1 and anamorphically enhanced, the transfer is probably a couple of notches short of perfect, but on the whole looks rather splendid, being generally sharp and well defined with great contrast and strong black levels. Colours are sometimes a tad stylised, but I suspect this was intentional, the visuals having a sometimes beautiful other-worldly feel, the use of dark hues reflecting the dark tone of the film and the earthy nature of the costumes and sets. Derek Vanlint's beautiful compositions are well served here.

There are two mixes here – 5.1 and 2.0 surround. To be frank there is not a huge difference between them. Both are front-weighted mixes with little in the way of effects or dialogue separation – only the music score seems to make any use of the rear speakers. The 5.1 mix does does have a tad more spread at the front. Both are solid enough without being particularly special. Little use is made of lower frequencies – there clearly has not been an extensive remix done here.

Not a sausage. Not even a trailer. A sadly missed opportunity, I'd say.

Dragonslayer is a fantasy film for adults – it both plays by the rules and kicks against them, it toys with expectations but still delivers the goods as an adventure tale both in expected and surprising ways. It's darker and more violent than any other fantasy film of the period (and at times genuinely grisly), and it dares to credit its audience with intelligence and then reward them for it. This is a work that can be enjoyed immensely purely for its storytelling and is sumptuous visuals, but dig a little deeper and you'll find one of the finest mythological fantasies yet committed to film. For discerning fantasy fans this is an essential purchase – its just a shame that Paramount, having finally got around to releasing it, couldn't have included some worthwhile supplementary material.