Audience Member
The new MST3K Netflix original has been released and I decided to expose myself to some of the old episodes available for streaming on Hulu and Netflix (there is a different random selection on each platform). Whether it is Joel or Mike watching these awful movies with the bots I do not envy the torture they are put through. Their snarky comments add some entertainment value, but my ratings are based on the movie's quality itself and not the extra material broadcast from the satellite of love. The guys mention that this is a sequel to an equally bad first film starring muscle bound Miles O'Keeffe. And it is, one called Ator, the Fighting Eagle. Both these films were in response to the Conan films. It is obvious that the film was put together quickly with no script. Silly continuity at times and cheesy swords-and-sandals fantasy plot.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
02/01/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Between the lackluster plot and long recap of the first Ator film, Blade Master/Cave Dwellers doesn't offer much outside it's campy action and cheesy characters. The action is fun at times, and the sets are fairly interesting to see. Otherwise, it's great MST3K fodder.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/02/23
Full Review
Audience Member
In the second instalment of the Italian sword and sorcery series, Ato now must save the world from a doomsday device being activated with the help of his useless sidekicks. It was incredibly cringe worthy and cheap.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
02/01/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Blade Master is cheaply made, poorly acted, absurdly written, and lousily directed. Trying to make a quick buck from the Conan hype brought about by Arnold Shwarzaneger, Blade Masters only redeeming quality is the decent use of costumes (though make-up went ahead and ruined the visual aspect of the film).
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
01/27/23
Full Review
Audience Member
I never saw Ator The Invincible, but I knew all about it and how it was considered a cheap mockbuster of Conan the Barbarian. So Ator 2: The Blade Master sounded like it was worth checking out in hopes of some cheap sword and sorcery fun.
Unfortunately, Ator 2: The Blade Master is too low budget and senseless to be even cheesy low budget B-movie fun.
The colour palette in Ator 2: The Blade Master is decent some of the time, but for the most of it the camera quality looks to foggy and renders everything on screen rather grey. Failing to take advantage of its scenery, Ator 2: The Blade Master ends up just being a visually repetitive film which boasts little outside extensive periods of boredom induced waiting. The problem is that director Joe D'Amato has no idea what makes a sword and sorcery film good. As we learned from Deathstalker, the requirements for a sword and sorcery film good to be successful is a good quantity of both action and nudity. Ator 2: The Blade Master boasts neither of these, and instead attempts to boast a story.
Ator 2: The Blade Master makes the fatal error of taking itself way too seriously and tries to be a legitimate story about its titular figure Ator. As well as completely failing to do this and filling the slow 82 minute running time with senseless characters and poor storytelling, Ator 2: The Blade Master reuses the same scenery again and again to the point of killing the viewers' intelligence. Instead of using excessive cardboard sets, Ator 2: The Blade Master makes the decision to film on location with use of sets in the rare case. Unfortunately it does not film on enough locations and so the majority of Ator 2: The Blade Master is filmed in a cave and a forest and pretty much nothing else. Most of the start of the film is shot in the cave and has pretty much nothing but a bunch of annoying cavemen characters committing random and sensless actions until Ator comes along. Even though the film puts a lot of hype behind the titular character Ator, he receives too little screen time.
But to emphasise the real issue, Ator 2: The Blade Master lacks sufficient action or nudity to succeed as an entry into the genre.
The most important aspect of a sword and sorcery film is always the same thing, it's the first word in the genre. Ator 2: The Blade Master has next to no sword fights whatsoever, and what there is proves to be z-grade action which looks way to improvised and is more fake than Nicole Kidman's face. The lack of action is depressing, and it is so bad that it isn't even entertaining from a perspective where it is so bad that it's good. Ator 2: The Blade Master.
Usually a lack of nudity is overshadowed by the quantity of action in a sword and sorcery film, but as there is no nudity in Ator 2: The Blade Master the young male audiences who watch films like this are not likely to find the necessary appeal that they are searching for. There is no naked females in Ator 2: The Blade Master and almost as little action, so it fails to acquire either of the two necessary elements.
Ator 2: The Blade Master has potential because it has a lot of good scenery, but the good locations are rarely used and the cinematography is way too amateur to keep up with things. The editing is cheap too, and doesn't match Miles O'Keefe's fast sword fighting style, nor does it capture his best angles when he fights. The sound effects are no better with the same cheap stock sound effects being used again and again and again until the end of a dreary period of 85 minutes which just makes the film get worse and worse at it fails to progress.
And the musical score is just so damn repetitive in Ator 2: The Blade Master and it wouldn't shut up. It was annoying as hell, and I rarely find a musical score so bad that it irritates me for being in the film. The only other time was with the 1981 western travesty The Legend of The Lone Ranger, and yet Ator 2: The Blade Master manages to create a second time. It sounded as if there was an engine running the whole time that Ator 2: The Blade Master was playing out, and it just made the film worse on the ears than it already was on the eyes. It sounds like a synthesiser contracted AIDS and is dying a slow and painful death.
And the cast do not prove to do much better, so the only actor worth referencing is Miles O'Keefe.
The Golden Raspberry Award nominated Miles O'Keefe is the only actor in Ator 2: The Blade Master who does a decent job which is really sad when you think about it. He is an emotionless hulk of an actor, a buff former football player put in the role of a buff swordfighter in a skimpy outfit. He supplies the most nudity you will find in Ator 2: The Blade Master, but frankly he is the greatest quality the film has to boast. Yes, that is the case. While everybody else is overacting, Miles O'Keefe simply throws the necessary punches and cuts his sword with ease while attempting to deliver his lines sounding like a wise man. And his facial expression which suggests he could be constantly constipated is fairly humourous asset in Ator 2: The Blade Master. While the film tries too hard to characterise Ator as a hero, Miles O'Keefe doesn't and delivers just slightly below the minimum necessary to succeed, which by the standards of acting in Ator 2: The Blade Master is very high quality. He manages to use his swords well, so he is the only asset in Ator 2: The Blade Master that is the source of any real success.
So Ator 2: The Blade Master is one of the worst examples of the sword and sorcery genre because it lacks the swords, the sorcery and the nudity while boasting nothing but a somehow too long period of 85 minutes and no entertainment value whatsoever, save from Miles O'Keefe's muscles and constantly constipated facial expressions.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
01/27/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Hastily made sequel (judging by the editing and continuity errors) to cash in on the success of CONAN THE DESTROYER. Here, our hero Ator begins another perilous journey to battle a villain who has captured his former teacher. I'm not a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 but they really did a good job of carving up The Blade Master.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/24/23
Full Review
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