Sunday, March 28, 2010

Stock Footage Hell: Wizards of the Demon Sword

A couple notes real quick: I'm skipping Trancers 6 for now and I'm retitling this segment.  One will be addressed in the future and the other will not.

Wizards of the Demon Sword is basically a knock-off of the Deathstalker series made by Fred Olen Ray.  For those who don't know, Deathstalker is a knock-off of Ator, which itself is a knock-off of Conan, Beastmaster and Krull.  Good company, huh?

The reason why it's being mentioned here.  It makes a very dubious use of stock footage from a pretty infamous, public domain film: Planet of the Dinosaurs.  Oh and it does so three different times!

1. Our hero and heroine are wandering around until they see some 'dragons.'  Those consist of a shot from Planet involving some non-threatening Stegosauruses eating grass.  Really?!?

2. Our hero is giving a big, pompous speech about how he slays dragons and such.  Naturally, they cut to stock footage of the T-Rex exiting its cave from Planet.  Why not?

3. For pretty much no reason, they cut to a shot of one of the Camposauruses standing around.  Our hero throws a knife and kills it off-camera.  Do they bother to show you the knife hitting the thing or any other shot?  Nope.

This does beg the question though: did the movie shoot take place in what is clearly Arizona/New Mexico because it was cheaper or to match their stock footage (which, in fairness, it does)?  Either answer is bad, but one is definitely worse!

Up next, the Trancers 6 semi-review promised.  It is going to be worth the wait? Stay tuned...

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