This site is primarily intended to provide a place where fans of swords and sorcery films can come to find out more information about their favourite films or to see what other films there are that they may want to check out. I intend to include details such as cast lists, plot summaries along with pictures and reviews.

Secondarily, I am hoping to promote the fantasy film as a genre. I've been a fan for more years than I care to remember and with few exceptions I believe fantasy movies have never been treated with the respect they deserve. Sword and Sorcery movies have generally been looked down on by both the media and fans of other genres. Why is this? Fantasy enjoys great success in print, with new books being churned out at an impressive rate. In the field of computer games, the Baldur's Gate and Diablo series top the charts and Fantasy strategy games are popular as always.

So, if fantasy does so well elsewhere why aren't there more genre films produced? Some say fantasy doesn't translate well on to the big screen. I don't agree, there are wonderful films such as the Sinbad series (c.1958-63), Clash of the Titans (1981), Excalibur (1981) and Conan the Barbarian (1981), all of which have been taken from literary works. However, most modern fantasy stories are epics that span several volumes, and even with the success of The Lord of The Rings, it seems unlikely that future fantasy films will be allowed multiple parts in order to flesh out the story.

You'll notice from the above list, that 1981 was somewhat of a boomtime for genre. So what has happened to the fantasy film over the last 20 years? A flood of B-movies followed the success of this pinacle of swords and sorcery, whilst these films were entertaining enough in their own right, production values were much lower than they had been, acting was cheesier and quality as a whole took a nosedive. Whilst these films were cult hits amongst those who found humour in the sheer laughability, the critics weren't so favourable, it seems that having a swords and sorcery theme was a one way ticket to a one star rating.

The production of A-movie fantasy continued somewhat erratically through the 80's with the production of The Beastmaster and Dark Crystal in 1982, Krull (1983), and Conan the Destroyer (1984). The flame of fantasy kept burning in the mid 80's in the shape of Red Sonja (1985), Ladyhawke (1985), Legend (1985), Highlander (1986), Labyrinthe (1986) and Willow (1988), but there it ended. The 90's produced little in the way of Fantasy movies, Dragonheart (1995) and Kull (1997) being about it really, despite the televisual success of shows such as Hercules and Xena.

What can we expect of the rest of this decade? Well so far we've had Dungeons and Dragons (2001), The Scorpion King (2002) and Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2004). The success of the latter has lead to the production of several other large-scale epics, although Troy and Alexander offer the audience little in the way of fantasy, and even King Arthur had the magical element ripped from it in favour of a supposedly more historical storyline. So what's next, will Hollywood take a chance and give us a another big budget fantasy, or will we be looking to other lands for our favourite films? We will have to wait and see.