Movies - The Beastmaster

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	Movies - The Beastmaster

The Beastmaster is a 1982 fantasy film directed by Don Coscarelli that starred Marc Singer, Tanya Roberts, John Amos and Rip Torn. It is often dubbed a B-movie and cult film. It is also a Canadian television series that aired from 1999 to 2002. It was loosely based on characters created by Andre Norton in her seminal science fiction novel The Beast Master.

The movie

The plot tells the story of Dar, the son of a king, who is hunted from birth by demonlike Norn-analogues and raised by a humble family. After Dar reaches adulthood, his adopted father is murdered by the barbarian "Juns", and Dar realizes that he can commune with animals. Following this discovery, Dar begins his quest for revenge. He is aided on his quest by two ferrets, an eagle, and a black tiger.

On the way, Dar encounters a bizarre tribe of winged beings, who seem to feed on fear. Their main physical prey are humans, but only humans who are in some way afraid. Before Dar's eyes and those of his tiger, one of these faceless, noiseless, bone-white entities seizes and consumes a man who is evidently terrified to insanity. Yet even then, Dar shows no fear. As if in reply, the winged beings permit him to leave them.

Later, Dar spies on a pair of attractive but ill-treated slave girls, whom he sees bathing. He immediately desires the love of one of them, called Kiri, whom he courts by deceiving her into believing that he has saved her from the black tiger, who was in fact under his orders. Dar abruptly claims a kiss from Kiri, startling her. Yet it is clear that Kiri sees something in Dar that attracts her, for she gives him the gift of some jewelry.

He leaves Kiri, but soon rediscovers her. A hunter and his apprentice joining Dar on his quest inform Dar that Kiri is by birth no slave, but a cousin to the royal family --- and consequently to Dar himself. The hunter's apprentice is revealed as Dar's younger brother, though neither acknowledge it. It is the young prince who gives Dar the title "Beastmaster".

Dar, with his brother and his brother's mentor, rescue first Kiri, then the king, from the clutches of the priest/sorcerer Maax. Maax, as it turns out, is the one who sent the demon-witches to kill the king's firstborn son, having first branded him with the sign of their temple.

In rescuing King Zed, Dar and his company discover several challenges, pre-eminent among them the monstrous "Death Guards", who are basically men having been subjected to numerous tortures that drive them insane. One newly made such creature is accidentally released by Dar's ferrets, whom the Beastmaster had ordered to steal some prison keys. Ironically, it is this error that cover's the escape.

King Zed stirs the townsmen into a rebellion, intending to destroy Maax, but rejects Dar's help, calling the man he knows not as his son a "freak". Dar, in reply, leaves the gathering and waits with his animals.

The attack fails, and Maax arranges a massive blood and fire sacrifice wherein he desires to burn all the rebels alive. Dar is able to stop him, but does not manage to rescue his sire the king. Maax, in a moment of wrath, declares for all to hear that Dar is Zed's son, then slays the king before Dar's astonished eyes. In the struggle that follows, both Maax and the male ferret fall spectacularly into the fire-pit.

That very night, the Jun horde who slew Dar's foster-father mounts an assault on the city. Dar organizes the defences, and personally vanquishes the barbarian chieftain amid a veritable fence of conflagurations. The other Juns, even depleted, outnumber Dar's forces and move in for revenge.

Even as it seems that the battle is lost, spontaneously out of the ground appear the strange tribe of flesh-eaters whom Dar impressed with his dominant courage. They engulfe the Juns one after another, with the speed of striking snakes; then when their attack (or feast) is complete, turn to stare intensely at Dar. One of them nods, as if to acknowledge something to the Beastmaster, then all of them disappear as one.

This produces some suggestion that the winged entities fit into the category of a "noble savage".

In the morning, the humans deal with their dead and wounded. The young prince, Dar's brother, is alive and healing inspite of his wounds, so the succession of the throne is assured. Dar refuses to take the throne, preferring to travel with his remaining animals. Kiri, to whom Dar has become something of a hero, follows him to a point where they engage in a very intimate kiss. Presumably, they thereafter travel together, with the addition of the female ferret's newborn children. When the children were conceived is left up to the viewer's imagination; perhaps the mother ferret was pregnant when her mate died in battle.

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