Powers of light
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Powers of light |
| Original title | Sorceress |
| Country of production |
United States , Mexico |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1982 |
| length | 79 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Jack Hill (as Brian Stuart) |
| script |
Jim Wynorski , Jack Hill |
| production | Jack Hill |
| camera | Alex Phillips Jr. |
| cut |
Larry Bock , Barry Zetlin |
| occupation | |
| |
Powers of light (Original title: Sorceress ; alternative title: The forces of light , Sorceress - The forces of light ) is an American - Mexican fantasy film directed by Jack Hill from 1982. It was Jack Hill's last film. He later withdrew his name and is featured as "Brian Stuart" in the opening and closing credits.
action
The magician Traigon wants to sacrifice his firstborn in order to gain the favor of the god Caligara. However, the mother has other plans and flees. When Traigon finds them and kills their protectors, he has to discover that they are twins. The mother does not tell him which of the two girls is the firstborn. However, sacrificing the wrong child would have the opposite consequences. The warrior Krona defeats Traigon, who however has three lives and will return in 20 years. Krona takes the children and hides them with a farming family. They are raised as sons and raised to be warriors.
20 years later, Traigon is brought back to life and goes in search of the two twins known as the "two who are like one". The Gaul Erlick and Pando take care of the two and meet the barbarian Baldar in town. But Traigon manages to get hold of the firstborn Mara. Baldar is also captured. Both are rendered mindless and married to further increase the effect of the ritual.
Erlik, Pando and Mira, however, rush to the rescue and in a great battle they can defeat Traigon and his henchmen. To do this, they call out the magical word “vital”, which conjures up the powers of light. Traigon is eventually killed a second time. In the end, Balder takes both women as partners.
background
The idea for the film came to Roger Corman when he saw the success of Conan the Barbarian (1982). So he got the idea to get into the genre of the barbarian film himself. So he asked Jim Wynorski to write a script, which he wrote within seven days.
The film was preceded by a multi-film deal between Roger Corman and the Latin American film production company Corporación Nacional Cinematográfica (CONACINE), which contributed to the cost of the 4.5 million US dollar production. The British Shirtale Film Corporation also contributed to the financing, but the name was not mentioned in the opening credits. Director Jack Hill, who had drawn attention to himself years earlier with some blaxploitation classics, had not made a film since The Bronx Cats (1975). He hoped for a breakthrough into the mainstream business by directing, especially since Corman's special-effect company was involved in well-known productions such as Die Ratterschlange (1981). He also wrote parts of the script, which was later attributed solely to Jim Wynorski .
However, various problems arose during the shooting in Mexico. Among other things, the two main actresses got into each other's hair and part of the equipment was stolen for the shooting of the science fiction film The Desert Planet (1984). Corman finally made the final cut and shortened the film from 100 minutes to about 80 minutes. Accordingly, Hill withdrew his name from the project. "Brian Stuart" was finally given as the director, which was a pseudonym made up of the first names of Corman's two sons. It was not only to be the last collaboration between Corman and Hill, but also to be Hill's last directorial work as a whole.
The film score actually comes to a large extent from the film Sador - Rulers in Space (1980) and was composed by James Horner without being mentioned at any point in the film. Parts of the buildings come from the setting of the film Zorro with the Hot Blade (1981) by Peter Medak .
The film was finally released in the United States on October 1, 1982. The film grossed just $ 4,210,405 in the box office and flopped at the box office. In Germany, the film received its theatrical release on April 15, 1983 and was later released on VHS. It was not published for many years. DVD and Blu-Ray were then released in 2017 in a version approved by the FSK for people aged 16 and over. On September 14, 2018, the film was shown in the series The worst films of all time (Schlefaz) on Tele 5.
Reviews
The film not only flopped financially, it also received little positive feedback from the critics. The film magazine Cinema wrote : “Trash filmmaker Jim Wynorski ( Piranhaconda ) mortgaged the script, Jack Hill stuttered it down as a director. […] Medieval pick with wobbling breasts. ”The film was included in the 2004 documentary The 50 Worst Films Ever Made .
As a trash film , it has found its audience in recent years. So Rated Haiko herds in his Filmlexikon the film ". A real pearl of the upcoming fantasy and barbarians film of that time" Markus Haage speaks of the fan Neon Zombies also sympathetic about the film: "A shame - is forces of light but a the biggest bombs that can explode in a video recorder (or DVD / Blu-ray player). And this bomb is tearing away everything - especially your brain. Unless it has long been praised by previous Corman films. "
Web links
- Powers of the light in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of Release for Powers of Light . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF).
- ↑ a b Andrew J. Rausch: Trash Cinema: A Celebration of Overlooked Masterpieces . BearManor Media, 2015 ( google.de [accessed March 26, 2020]).
- ↑ a b c Calum Waddell: Jack Hill: The Exploitation and Blaxploitation Master, Film by Film . McFarland, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7864-5288-0 , pp. 187 ( google.de [accessed on March 26, 2020]).
- ^ Wheeler Winston Dixon and Jack Hill: Filmmaking "for the Fun of It": An Interview with Jack Hill In: Film Criticism 29, No. 3 (2005): pp. 57f. Online: www.jstor.org/stable/44019180. Accessed March 26, 2020.
- ↑ Sorceress. In: AFI Catalog. Retrieved March 26, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Erich Kuersten: Acidemic - Film: Jills of Jack Hill Part 2: BIG DOLL HOUSE, COFFY, SWINGING CHEERLEADERS, SORCERESS, BIG BIRD CAGE, FOXY BROWN. In: Acidemic film. June 27, 2017, accessed March 26, 2020 .
- ^ Sorceress (1982): Trivia. In: IMDb. Retrieved March 26, 2020 (English).
- ↑ Maitland McDonagh: The Exploitation Generation: Or: How Marginal Movies Came in from the Cold In: The Last Great American Picture Show: New Hollywood Cinema in the 1970s , edited by Thomas Elsaesser, Alexander Horwath and King Noel,. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2004. p. 125. Jstor:: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46mxhc.8
- ↑ Oliver Kalkofe, Peter Rütten: The 100 worst films of all time: The great SchleFaZ book . Riva Verlag, 2019, ISBN 978-3-7453-0697-2 ( google.de [accessed on March 26, 2020]).
- ^ Sorceress (1982) - Financial Information. Retrieved March 26, 2020 .
- ↑ Sorceress - The Forces of Light. In: schlefaz.de. Retrieved May 4, 2020 .
- ↑ Sorceress - The Forces of Light. In: Cinema.de. Retrieved March 26, 2020 .
- ↑ Haiko Herden: Powers of Light, The. In: Haiko's film dictionary. Retrieved March 26, 2020 .
- ↑ Markus Haage: Mächte des Lichts, Die (USA, 1982). In: Neon Zombie! August 16, 2010, accessed on March 26, 2020 (German).