The Dungeonmaster

1984 "He is the overlord of strange beasts and stolen souls…"
4.5| 1h13m| PG-13| en| More Info
Released: 24 August 1984 Released
Producted By: Empire Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

Paul, a computer whiz who spends more time with his machine than with his girlfriend, finds that he has been chosen as a worthy opponent for Mestema, an evil wizard who has spent centuries searching for a challenging foe. After having his computer changed into a wristband weapon, Paul does battle with a variety of monsters before finally coming face to face with the ultimate adversary.

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Director

Steven Ford, Charles Band, Ted Nicolaou

Production Companies

Empire Pictures

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The Dungeonmaster Audience Reviews

Mjeteconer Just perfect...
Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good
Lightdeossk Captivating movie !
Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
Leofwine_draca What the hell? Seems to me this movie only ran for an hour! Ah well, at least the experience wasn't too painful in that respect. Well I would say that this is a film aimed at kids except for the fact it opens with a scene of a woman stripping naked and being captured by mutants! Nothing is too weird for a film that comes from Charles Band's Empire Pictures, a studio renowned for making rubbishy movies before it went bust (and was of course replaced by Full Moon instead). Apparently this film is based on the once-popular Dungeons & Dragons game although you wouldn't realise from watching it.Basically, this is a film which exemplifies the '80s: the special effects are plentiful but cheesy and tacky, the monster suits look rubbery, the moronic humour is unwanted, and the acting is generally wooden. Most of this takes place in the dark, to either a) be atmospheric or b) to hide the edges of the sets. I would bet on the latter. The film's hero is played by the unremarkable Jeffrey Byron who doesn't convince for a second, and his character is even worse. To show how dated this film is, he has a talking computer which helps him out via a wrist-pad (!) and special computerised glasses which can withdraw money from a bank machine. It's pretty poor.The action begins almost straight away, with Byron being transported over to a fire-lit netherworld where his girlfriend hangs in chains for the rest of the film. The big bad wizard (Richard Moll from SURVIVOR) tries really had to be scary but his efforts go in vain: instead he just looks ridiculous and rather camp. From then on Byron must battle seven dangers in a bid to rescue the girl. These seven segments are so short that they can't really even be called "segments" as they have no story - they just show Byron battling various enemies. I find it hard to believe that seven directors were brought in to direct each of these few minute sequences! My favourite segment is the "Stone Canyon Giant" one in which Byron finds himself up against a huge statue which suddenly comes to life to kill him. Yep, it rips off JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS again but here they fight with lasers. Pretty bad but at least the stop-motion animation is cool, even if only on screen for a couple of moments. The second segment is entitled "Demons of the Dead" and as you would guess, it's a horror-themed one. Byron here fights a hideous gargoyle creature (pretty good effect from John Carl Buechler, who also directed) and some disappearing zombies. After a brief interlude with some animated dragons which seem to have come from a Disney film (!), there's a plot less heavy metal scene there just for the hell of it (directed by Charles Band, go figure). After a fight in an "Ice Gallery" where Byron and his character's girlfriend fight reanimated ice statues of historical killers (an idea later echoed in WAXWORK), the longest segment arrives in the form of "Slasher". I probably liked this one the best, as it actually has partly-developed characters in it and some okay action. It's still below average though.Another interlude shows a demon head in a flame special effect - cool stuff. Then the film stoops even lower as Byron lobs rocks at a demon in a cave (the "Cave Beast" apparently) and things are rounded off with an inevitable MAD MAX 2 rip-off scene involve chasing dune buggies. The only interest of these scene is that cult dwarf actor Felix Silla (from BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY) appears in it for a minute. There's not really much else to say about this film, only that I wish it had continued in the same vein as the opening.
itjstagame Wow, so I just read all the reviews... It seems a lot of people were expecting Dungeons & Dragons to be involved somehow, how could you get confused by this? I admit I didn't expect an awesome computer superhero, but still how can someone like Dungeons & Dragons but not wish they could 'link up' with a computer in there glasses that can seem to magically control anything electronic? And another reviewer mentions Mythbusters, umm, which do you think came first and where do you think he got it from?Anyway, I really enjoyed myself, I thought it'd be a campy 80s wizard movie and it opened with a computer whiz that can control anything using his computer and seems to be always connected to it. I admit the description on IMDb is a bit misleading, he's not spending too much time with his computer, he's basically one with his computer. I mean if Lois was jealous and told Superman to give up his powers because she was insecure about where he was flying to and what he was doing with his x- ray vision, would that be fare? The only part I didn't like was the dinner scene where we first meet his girlfriend and hear her complaints, but in the end she realizes she has an awesome man and Cal is just a tool.I wish we had learned more about the experiment that lets him 'link up' and what that really involves and why Cal is so powerful, and maybe where Mestima really comes from, but otherwise I loved all the different sequences, the main character and especially Mestima. How can that be over acting, he was very convincing and everything I wanted him to be.I'm so glad I found this movie.
itsbaylis To describe how laughably bad this movie is. It's dreadful.I mean, how good can a movie go when the plot involves a man who is so much in the thrall of his computer, his girlfriend is jealous of it. I mean, with a start like that it's not going to be The Godfather, is it? In fact, this movie isn't even The GodSON (that one with Dom DeLuise). It in fact doesn't seem to have a coherent plot at all, and just leaps from sketch to sketch showing off the "amazing skills" of the stop motion animators involved, or more often to show off the boom mike, which keeps dropping into view. It's got 2 stars rather than one purely because some humour can be gleaned from the ridiculously over the top performance of the man playing Satan (Brian Blessed looks calm and composed in comparison) and the repeated inclusion of that boom mike.
gtanghookup The summary of the movie is not all there... did the writer watch the movie? Actually, the movie is mostly about a computer programmer/enthusiast who gets sucked into another world where 'The Dungeonmaster' has him and his girlfriend interact in different scenarios/riddles. They must figure out how to escape from each scenario... in most cases the riddle's solution involves zapping things with his arm-computer.This movie has 7 different directors, each of which direct one of the 7 scenarios the main characters are placed in. This film is awesomely horrible; I loved it and would recommend it to any other fans of crappy movies.Another interesting tid-bit is that the main character says "I reject your reality and substitute my own" while confronting The Dungeonmaster. I had never heard this used anywhere but Mythbusters before I saw this movie.