Deathstalker (2025)
Loud, self-aware, and oozing practical effects
Every once in a while, a movie crawls out of the pop-culture graveyard, dusts itself off, and reminds us why the weird stuff is worth keeping around. Using old 80s Sword - Sorcery - and Sandals effects, Deathstalker (2025) is that movie.
Daniel Bernhardt plays Deathstalker, a battle-weary scavenger in the ruined kingdom of Abraxeon. After stealing a mysterious amulet from a dying warrior (never a good idea), he finds himself cursed, hunted, and reluctantly heroic. The villain is a necromancer, and the world around him is full of monsters, cultists, and collapsing castles.
Along the way, Deathstalker picks up a crew: a sarcastic little wizard voiced by Patton Oswalt, a morally flexible thief, and the sort of side characters who’d fit right in from any low-budget fantasy adventure film from the 80s.
The best part? Kostanski leans all the way into the charm of bad decisions. The monsters are rubbery, the blood is bright, and the humor lands somewhere between Evil Dead II and Conan the Barbarian if it had a sense of irony.
Deathstalker doesn’t pretend to be prestige fantasy — it’s pulp, and proud of it. A messy, glorious resurrection of everything weird, wild, and wonderfully unnecessary about the ‘80s fantasy boom.
It’s the kind of movie that makes you want to rewind the tape, pop another bag of microwave popcorn, and remember when sword fights came with synth music.