In a world filled with swords and sorcery, the heroic Thane (Blake Bahner) embarks on an epic journey to save a beautiful princess (Heidi Paine) from the evil wizard Lord Khoura. During his travels, Thane must also battle sadistic slave traders, deadly dinosaurs and unscrupulous highwaymen as he struggles to possess the all-powerful demon sword of Aktar. Fred Olen Ray directs this comic spoof on fantasy adventure films.
Director/screenwriter/makeup artist Fred Olen Ray hocked virtually everything he owned to make The Alien Dead (1978). Never mind that, as a graduate of the Brown University School of Engineering, Ray could have named his own salary in practically any job in his field: Celluloid was in his blood, and there it would remain from 1978 to the present. Often shooting four or more films per year, Ray occasionally turns up something that transcends the exploitation film genre and his miserly budgets; if you look at them objectively, films like Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988) and Beverly Hills Vamp (1989) are heaps better than most of the dreck clogging up the video stores’ R-rated shelves. If nothing else, few other bottom-barrel filmmakers outside of Fred Olen Ray can boast an acting talent pool that has included the likes of Lawrence Tierney, Buster Crabbe, John Philip Law, Jan Michael Vincent, P.J. Soles, Britt Ekland, Martine Beswick, Julie Newmar, David Carradine, and Martin Landau… read more