One of the most unintentionally hilarious films I've ever seen, Barbarian is the quality crap film to watch! Anyone who said they don't make fantasy films like they used to must watch this movie, because Barbarian is living proof that in the arse-end of some God forsaken country in Eastern Europe, they do indeed make them like they used to. In fact certain scenes have been stolen from movies from the 80s, most noticably the Deathstalker series. Funny thing is that the stolen scenes, from 20 year old low budget movies, are of significantly higher quality than the new footage!

Take a look at the movie poster above. It almost looks like a decent film doesn't it? That's marketing for you, obviously more money was spent on promoting the film than actually making it. Must admit that the "Last great warrior king" line has me a bit confused. The Barbarian of the title isn't a king, isn't particular great and I doubt he's the last. Maybe a better subtitle would be "The latest bearly passable warrior peasant".

On the positive side, the music is actually pretty good, and not as I was expecting the standard synth crap. "Wooby", the hero's bodyguard is one of the most hilarious creatures ever to grace the screen, looking like a midget who's been forced to wear the ill-fitting skin of a freshly killed Ewok, and sounding like a less coherent version of Snarf from Thundercats.

I've decided to give this film a 4, it's great for a while, especially if you've got mates around with a crate of beer and a love of shredding bad movies. Unfortunately it follows the Deathstalker model too closely and soon the film degenerates into a tournament, which is an excuse for some ultra low budget scenes of people swinging homemade weapons at each other. The dialogue really sounds as if someone is reading it from a script as they go, but the director seems to have strived to maintain interest by frequent and gratuitous partial nudity at regular intervals to offset this. Ultimately I stayed awake longer through Barbarian than I did through Troy, despite it being made with a tiny fraction of the budget!