Hawk the Slayer is one of the most beloved swords-and-sorcery movies of all time, a staple of old-school nerd culture. While it fails to be entirely original, taking many aspects from classical legend and earlier works, notably Tolkein, it has certainly adhered to the memory far beyond it’s cheesy 80’s style and various flaws. Honestly, I’ve always had a problem with the title, as I never imagine the greatest heroes to be most remembered for slaying (with the obvious exception of Ms. Summers), even if that is their primary skill. Much better to be Hawk the Swell Guy or Hawk the Upstanding Citizen, but beggars can’t be choosers.
The titular Hawk (John Terry) returns home to discover his (much) older brother Voltan (veteran Jack Palance, not to be confused with Brian Blessed’s loud-mouthed Hawkman Vultan from the same year’s Flash Gordon) has mortally wounded their father. Of course, his father clings to life just long enough to bequeath a magic sword to his younger son, complete with an elven mindstone, a mysterious rock that allows Hawk to summon the sword to his hand with a mere thought. Swearing vengeance on Voltan, not only for their father’s death, but the earlier murder of his fiance, Hawk sets up a classic paradigm of fiction – a brother forced to kill his kin thanks to a vendetta over some kind of power. After the credits, Voltan has been running rampage throughout the land, massacring every living thing he can find, kidnapping nuns and generally breaching the peace. A rare survivor, Ranulf (William Morgan Sheppard), seeks the help of Hawk in defeating Voltan, only to be captured by bandits and saved in the knick of time by our hero and his poorly-disguised American accent. They team up to save the captured abbess, travelling through a forest of fake spider-webs and miscellaneous screams to find Hawk’s old companions – the moderately tall giant Gort (Bernard Bresslaw, possibly named in reference to Klaatu’s sentinel robot in The Day The Earth Stood Still), the elven bowman Crow (Ray Charleson, who uses the power of jump-cutting to fire arrows faster than the naked eye), and the whip- and wise-cracking dwarf Baldin (Peter O’Farrell), just stopping short of adding a few hobbits for good measure. Naturally, it is a blind seer-woman (Patricia Quinn) who provides the impetus for action, essentially telling the protagonists where to go next when they quickly run out of ideas. Our gallant band head off to procure the ransom for the abbess’ freedom, and by “procure” I, of course, mean “steal the gold from slavers”.
Having taken the gold and murdered the slaver, Hawk and co. continue onwards, while Voltan and his son Drogo spend their time barely avoiding murdering one another. In an ill-advised attempt to prove himself, Drogo ends up being killed by Hawk in defence of the abbey, further enraging Voltan and setting up the climactic battle to make a last stand to free the abbess and defend the abbey. One of the nun’s betrays Hawk’s men to Voltan in return for the safety of the nunnery, despite the protests of the Kantian abbess, drugging the warriors and opening the barred door to Voltan’s forces. Hawk and the others are tied up and prepared for torture, when an escape attempt goes awry and Baldin is stabbed in the stomach. A convenient onset of facial-pain and narcolepsy means that Voltan leaves the heroes alone with time to escape, and they are promptly rescues by the blind seer, now wielding an anachronistic gun that shoots silly-string. Despite going free, Baldin dies of his wounds shortly afterwards, to the great sorrow of all, especially Gort. With the further help of the seer and her arsenal of fluorescent bouncy balls, Hawk et al. storm the abbey and attack Voltan’s forces. I think. It’s a bit difficult to see when there seems to be a snow-machine obscuring the battle from vision. Ranulf and Crow are unceremoniously killed off mid-battle (we don’t even see Crow die). Having taken care of the soldiers guarding the abbess, Hawk returns for the final showdown with Voltan in the main hall. His usual trick of surreptitiously lobbing a knife at his opponent failing, Voltan engages Hawk only to be bested and finally slain, cursing his brother with his final breath. Voltan’s dead body is stolen by the same forever-unexplained demonic entity that had been helping to soothe his burnt face throughout, and Hawk and Gort head south on the tip of the old seer woman to partake in a sequel-that-never-was.
The characters range from entertaining to irritating, and nary a bit-player goes by without much chewing of the scenery. The hunchback slaver in particular spends his entire time on screen slurping beer and screeching like a mad-man. The rather pudgy and hunched Jack Palance is physically unconvincing as the Big Bad, but his acting, while stilted at times, is sinister enough to make him seem like a threat. As for the rest of the cast, the main players all fill their roles very well, endearing themselves to the audience, though Crow’s introverted character seems less like an elf and more like a Vulcan. There are alot of nice little character moments, particularly between Gort and Baldin, as they share food and antagonise one another to the point of mutual fondness.
One of the things this film is known for is its score, an odd mix of orchestral and synthesised sounds that goes very far towards the absurd, only to cross the event horizon and loop back around to become something perfectly fitted to the film. There are countless scenes of Hawk riding his horse in no particular direction to an onslaught of pumping music which, while rather ridiculous, are weirdly awesome. Many of the pieces put me strangely in mind of Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds, and it’s one of the iconic aspects that makes this film stand out, and remain so fondly-remembered to this day. It’s far from perfect, but it’s enjoyable enough to stand today, if one can overlook some of the matte painting scenery and out-dated special effects. Probably one of the biggest reasons it has endured is the incredibly obvious sequel-bait ending, which was supposedly to lead to a follow-up called Hawk the Hunter, but which has never materialised.