Did Joe D'Amato ever make a good film? I'm being completely serious. I'm not trying to be funny or witty. From what I've heard of D'Amato, he is responsible for a slew of terrible horror and exploitation films including Antropophagus (1980), Zombie 5: Killing Birds (1988), and Troll 3 (1993). One of his most "famous" projects was the Ator franchise, a series of sword and sorcery films that ripped off Conan the Barbarian. I have had the displeasure of viewing the second Ator film, originally titled Ator l'invincibile 2, but released in English speaking countries as Cave Dwellers. After the opening sequence which clumsily tries to recap the first Ator film, Ator l'invincibile (1982), the audience is thrown into a bizarre setting which apparently can't decide if it is prehistoric or medieval in nature. Of course, after the audience tries to gain their bearings, they are immediately confused once again by a bizarre, cryptic plot that wouldn't make sense to people who had seen the first film. From what I can tell, the film is about a mighty warrior named Ator who needs to stop a villain named Zor from using a kind of nuclear super-weapon. At some point, this requires Ator to construct a hand-glider from scratch and drop bombs on a giant fortress. Cave Dwellers is so amateurish that it's a wonder that D'Amato was able to get work after it. There are continuity errors, bad fight scenes, abysmal cinematography, plot holes, and numerous times when you can see modern day buildings and clothing by accident in the background. There may be two more films in the Ator franchise after Cave Dwellers...but I have no intention of ever seeing them.
2/10
I first heard about Joe D'Amato from the Cinema Snob. I haven't seen this one yet but its cool that MST3K did one of his films and the Cinema Snob has reviewed some!
ReplyDeleteI know, right? Knowing that he's watched MORE of his films makes me respect Brad even more!
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