DEATHSTALKER (2025) - Mark Reviews Movies

Deathstalker, Shout! Studios

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 9, 2025

Deathstalker knows it's a very silly movie, which automatically makes it better than the 1983 movie with the same title—a cheapo sword-and-sorcery "epic" that was mostly an excuse to showcase naked women, unconvincing fight choreography, and even weaker special effects. Steven Kostanski wrote and directed this reboot, and it's mainly a showcase for the filmmaker's own on-a-budget obsessions—namely every variety of do-it-for-real effects and plenty of bloody, grisly gore. The opening shot here is of a warrior being brutally decapitated in close-up, so the movie is honest and upfront about its intentions, at least.

There is an undeniable charm—as odd a thing to say as that may seem to be immediately after that description—to this approach. For one thing, Kostanski has a bit of a cheeky sense of humor about his special effects, which often look cheaper than they probably were to create.

Take, for example, the scout-like creature of one of the villains here. It's basically a bat, except that its body is round, in order to hold the single eye that takes up most of its mass. No one would call it or, as another example, the frog-like things with pointy teeth that occupy the swamps of this mystical realm realistic creations. Indeed, one can almost see the hands operating those amphibious creatures, and when our hero faces off against a two-faced troll near the start of the movie, it's easy enough to imagine the puppeteers inside that bulky getup, flapping the monster's weak mouths in such a way that looks as if a mild breeze might give the beast a stutter.

The fact that most of these effects look inexpensive is part of Kostanski's aim, because he's intentionally reminding us of an era of filmmaking when people had to do whatever they could to realize some weird imagination. Kostanski even gives us a pair of skeletons fighting each other, brought to life by obvious stop-motion animation, and anyone who knows the history of visual effects will recognize that specific sight. Basically, the filmmaker is smart about being cheap, and he gets away with it because his imagination is so rich.

Some other sights are worth mentioning here. There's a throwaway visual gag, for example, as Deathstalker (Daniel Bernhardt) and his fellow travelers, a magical goblin named Doodad (played by Laurie Field and voiced by Patton Oswalt) and master thief Brisbayne (Christina Orjalo), walk through some foggy landscape. In the background, the silhouettes of two giants, locked in a life-or-death struggle, are just there, bashing away at each other without anyone mentioning or even noticing them. This world is alive in a way that some fantasy movies with much larger budgets and more advanced effects would envy.

All of this craft is in service, however, of a story that's pretty dull, being told in a way that can't decide if it's a serious fantasy epic or a tongue-in-cheek parody of that approach. The characters crack jokes on occasion, as on-the-nose as saying that a weird thing is weird or as strained as a pun Doodad makes on his own name. For the most part, they talk about this royal family or that ancient tribe, this evil wizard or that group of undead creatures, and this artifact or that magical sword. The whole process of recovering assorted things in order to continue along a routine quest doesn't live up to the promise of this world.

To wit, Deathstalker, who was once a mighty warrior until various dooms came to the realm of Abraxeon, is now a scavenger of assorted battles. After a fight between some kingdom's soldiers and the creatures with red and fleshy armor called the Dreadites, Deathstalker takes an amulet from a dying prince. He soon learns the thing is cursed, needs someone who can speak a dead language to get rid of it, and is hunted by followers of the long-thought-dead sorcerer Nekromemnon, who could be resurrected or something with it.

Does it matter? It probably shouldn't, given how funny Bernhardt's performance can be when it flips from stoic severity to sudden shock at the sight of some nasty beast, how Oswalt's vocal performance tries to make light of everything so much that poor Field can't keep up under the goblin prosthetics, and how obviously economical the effects are. The movie's world can be so wonderfully weird that one wonders if Kostanski might have served this goofy material better by simply playing it straight and allowing the design elements to be main source of humor.

The occasionally jokiness of the characters does neither them nor the plot any favors, anyway. It's a reminder of just how generic these figures and that narrative actually are. For as much imagination as Kostanski and his crew show in envisioning this world and bringing it to life, the stuff at the forefront is mostly bland—even more so in comparison to everything going on the background.

The flashes of continuing inspiration, including the assorted assassins hunting Deathstalker (One is like a terracotta warrior with a rotating head, and another has a spinning saw blade attached to a chain), definitely keep Deathstalker engaging on a certain level. As a playground, this basic story and world make for a fine match for Kostanski's imagination, but the story is so, well, basic that it too often gets in the way.

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