User Reviews

John Norman is a professor of philosophy and the creator of the Gor series of books, which are basically male-dominated bondage science fiction fantasies that also feature critiques of modern society and the exploration of philosophical themes from a Nietzschean view. And you thought Incels were a brand new thing, huh?

The series began in 1966 with Tarnsman of Gor - which this movie is based on - and was put on hold when DAW refused to publish the twenty-fifth installment, Magicians of Gor in 1988. The series returned in 2001 with Witness of Gor. There's also an entire subculture called Gorean flourishes online, as you can only imagine that it would.

So yeah. Somehow, this got made. And so did a sequel, Outlaw of Gor.

Professor of physics Tarl Cabot (Urbano Barberini, Demons, Opera) is pretty much a loser with the ladies until he gets a magical ring that sends him to the world of Gor. Think Den from Heavy Metal and you have the picture.

He also comes into conflict with Oliver Reed, playing the priest-king known as Sarm, who is looking for the Home Stone to create more paths to Earth. Our hero accidentally kills Sarm's son before he's knocked out and left for the buzzards. Luckily, he's saved by Talena (Playboy Playmate of the Month for June 1986 Rebecca Ferratti, who is also in Cheerleader Camp and Embrace of the Vampire), the barbarian princess of Ko-ro-ba.

Of course, while Cabot strikes out at home, he somehow scores with this vision of womanhood because on Gor, men are the rulers. But he's still a moron and activates the Home Stone, sending him home to, one assumes, spill his seed, hack the carrot and sail the seas of mayonnaise all by himself.

Gor at least has some great character actors like Jack Palance, Paul Smith (Bluto from Popeye and the landscaper in Pieces) and a young Arnold Vosloo.

Norman almost didn't get the movie made, as his publisher wanted nothing to do with it. He told the fanzine The Gorean Voice, "Ballantine Books refused to do movie tie-ins to either film; they failed even to answer my letters. My attorney finessed his way around Ballantine's rights department and contacted the legal department at Random House. The movies were made by going over the heads of the censors."

It was produced by Harry Alan Towers (who you may remember ran a vice ring that implicated the United Nations, JFK, Peter Lawford and several others when he wasn't producing Jess Franco movies) and action film impresario Avi Lerner. Direction was provided by Fritz Kiersch, who also brought us Children of the Corn and Tuff Turf.

If you ever played lots of D&D and wondered why the popular girls liked jerks and figured, "I'm going to treat them badly, too!" Good news. You are the target audience for this movie.

When I first saw this title in the video store, I was excited. I have read and enjoyed several of the books, and I was hoping that the movie version would be truthful to them. Unfortunately, I was wrong. The credits claim that this movie was based on the book "Tarnsman of Gor", but there were no tarnsmen in the movie, nor were there any tarns. They could have released this movie as is without paying any money to John Norman (or his estate) and they wouldn't have been sued. That's how little the movie resembles the book.

Jack Palance was given the third credit in the movie. I assumed that he would be playing the bad guy. As the movie neared the end, I turned to my brother and asked, "Wasn't Jack Palance supposed to be in this?" He just shrugged. Then Mr. Palance appeared just before the credits rolled, setting up the sequel. Obviously, he had a much better agent than Oliver Reed.

This movie does have a few redeeming qualities. I always liked Oliver Reed (except when he sang in 'Tommy'). Urbano Barberini has a pretty cool name. If you're a fan of character actors, this film has Paul L Smith (a.k.a. Bluto from 'Popeye'/the Beast Rabban from 'Dune'). And, of course, there are the female fight scenes, if that's what you watch movies for.

I have never read the novel from which this film was derived, so I approach it untainted by literate expectations.

I muse at the notion people got dressed, got into motor vehicles, traveled at least a few miles, and paid cash money for a ticket to enter a cinema in order to sit and watch this thing on the big screen. I was never among those ranks, and having just experienced the movie for free (save the electricity required to operate the TV) while sitting on my couch, I'm torn between Schadenfreude and sympathy for the ones who were.

Unlike other reviewers, most of whom seem to have read the Gor novels, I declare this movie has measurable golden turkey value. The art direction is where I found redeeming elements.

The 80's hair is to die for, and I was especially taken with the mullet sported by one of the comrades with whom our protagonist aligns. The idea that hairstyle would be the single common thread between the civilizations of Gor and earth is quirky and cute.

I was also impressed with the quantity and diversity of injection-molded plastic props and wardrobe accessories. Molded *rubber* spear points in a vast array of shapes and sizes also appear on screen. (Some of the blades of the swords seemed to be actual tin or aluminum, and not painted/colored plastic/rubber.) I am not sure how they managed to color and paint all these things so well (and that is not sarcastic, the finish work on the props and wardrobe is exemplary; no "Attack of the the Eye Creatures" detail treatment in Gor), yet still betray the counterfeit nature of an item's composition material. Typically, when the detail work is this good, items pass for genuine articles, but not in Gor. The bejeweled crown Oliver Reed wears looks very similar to items I have seen in the toy aisle at many dollar stores, even though I have never seen any of the toys look so much like actual precious metal and stone.

Another worthy point: Oliver Reed, as a blonde. It's a surprisingly good color for him. Oliver Reed, alone, is a worthy point. I missed the opening credits, and came to IMDb as soon as I saw him on the screen, as the film was already so bad I was not expecting to see anyone with as much film cred as Reed, and as a blonde??? Surely this must be some Reed look-alike, but no... it *is* Oliver Reed. I was hooked at this point, and spent much of the time, while watching the movie, trying to imagine the circumstance and how Reed came to the decision to accept this role.

It's true this is a movie that exploits heterosexual men's vulnerability to t&a, but there is also some fine presentation of male buttock and overall physique that we don't often get in such scripts. I was pleasantly surprised.

One reviewer wrote that this would be good with (a few cases/kegs of) beer and lots of bored friends looking for a laugh, and I have to second that. (If you live in California, you may choose to substitute beer with medical marijuana for even better results.) Ignorance of the content of the Gor books also seems requisite for maximum enjoyment. If you watch this movie for the celluloid it is, without anticipation of visual presentation of some previously learned story, it is bad enough to be entertaining.

I'll never forget that brunette boy's 1986 mullet juxtaposed with his ?first century AD? semi-barbaric attire, fashioned from cloth and plastic resins. That, alone was worth the time it took to watch the film.

Still I am left with the question: Why, Oliver, why?

I honestly don't know why they bothered making this movie (or Outlaw of Gor either).

Now, I know that people are tired of listening to the fans of books put down movies because they stray too much from the books, but in this case, listen up. They didn't just "stray" from the books. This is nothing like them at all.

In the books, there is a counter Earth called Gor. This planet orbits our sun directly opposite the Earth, so it cannot be seen. The "Gods" of Gor are a technically advanced race of giant insects called the Priest Kings. These insects use their technology to prevent humans on Earth from detecting Gor.

The Priest Kings realize that humanity is close to destruction by their own hand (nuclear war) and so they bring a large sampling of Earth's population to Gor, but forbid them from making any form of technology other than medical. Because of this, Gor has developed Stabilization Serums that allow them to stop ageing.

The people of Gor are organized into a caste system, with slavers, warriors, builders, physicians and so on. The main character Tarl Cabbot is in the caste of Warriors. He is a professor from Earth, who was kidnapped and brought to Gor. It turns out his father was a leader of one of Gor's city-States called Ko-Ro-Ba.

The books are all based on his learning the way of Gor, and becoming the best swordsman the planet has ever seen.

Because of the sampling of humanity brought to Gor, the peoples there are separated into areas of the planet they would naturally be from on Earth, thus you have Viking like people in the north, Arab like people in the desert and so on. Many of the books take place with the main character in different areas of the planet amongst different peoples.

Due to the caste system on Gor, they have developed slavery. All slaves are branded and become property of their masters. Many women are used as pleasure slaves, and the author John Norman often goes overboard (especially in the later books) trying to convince the reader how women naturally want to be dominated by men. He gets so involved in this in his later books that I often found myself skipping chapters that had nothing to do with the story.

All of this back-story is basically completely missing from the movies, and the Priest Kings have been relegated to being played by Jack Palance's Xenos character.

So, basically, everything that made this book series "epic" was removed, and they made it into a bad warrior-journey movie ala The Beast Master.

One of the problems is that they may have not had the budget or the capability to pull off some of the great things about the books, like some of the encounters between the Priest Kings and their deadly enemies the "Others", or the ability to see Gor's warriors riding their mounts, Tarns, which are giant hawk-like birds (I can just see them trying to pull this off at the time and failing miserably).

The book that follows the first two, The Priest Kings of Gor, Cabbot actually goes to the mountains the Priest Kings live under, and meets them and is involved in a civil war between the forces of The First and the Fifth (those are the leaders of the Priest Kings, as in the first born, and the fifth born).

Nothing like these characters, events, or even the true nature of the Gor books is even touched on in these two complete failures they called movies. They should have just called them something else considering how bad they were, and how little they had to do with the books.

Personally, I think that if they were to make a real attempt at making these books into new R rated movies, they could have some real block busters on their hands. They could remove 75% of Norman and his fetish with dominating women, but still had a great, bloody, sexy series of movies that could interest a lot of adult scifi/fantasy fans.

As for the movies, just skip them, They're so bad they will leave a bad taste in your mouth. Just don't let it stop you from reading the books.

While the novels are a view of one man learning to exist in another society, the movie is about imposing the views of our society into another. The only thing true to the novels in the movie is that the names are the same, but even the names aren't accurately applied to characters. The alliances in the novels are between men while in the movie the alliances are non-existent or fraudulent. The characters in the novels are very well-developed but in the movie they fail to bring out many of the character traits that make them important in the novels. All-in-all, it seemed to me someone wrote a B-movie and needed a source for names. They used names from a novel that was relatively not well-known and so whether the plot matched or not was of little concern.

I really can't imagine anyone watching Gor and thinking, "What a great movie." It's got problems galore - bad acting, ridiculous dialogue, poor special effects, a horrible plot . . . you name it, it's probably bad.

With all that in mind, I understand I've most likely overrated Gor. But it's just too much fun! Three things I enjoy - 1. The Cheese - I really hate the expression, but for me, Gor is the definition of so bad it's good. Fortunately, the movie never seems to take itself too seriously. 2. Oliver Reed - I doubt Reed could have passed a sobriety test while filming, but he's got so much presence, he's always worth watching - even with the ridiculous dialogue. 3. Rebecca Ferratti - What's not to like - WOW! And that hair - puts most 80s hair bands to shame.

Even with the many obvious problems, the thing that bugs me the most is the ending. The last 5 minutes is tacked on to setup the sequel. Jack Palance is also featured in the ending. You'll be forgiven if you forget he's supposed to be in the movie. He's only there to plug the followup.

The John Norman "Gor" series gets a thoroughly shoddy screen treatment with this hopeless Italian entry in the sword 'n' sorcery genre. Norman's novels blended magic and fantasy with elements of erotica, and the early entries in the series were quite highly regarded (though later ones received increasingly negative reviews). There is none of the sexual stuff in this film version and anyone expecting to be titillated will be sorely disappointed. In fact, anyone expecting to be entertained will be disappointed too – this is one of those films that bears few, if any, redeeming qualities.

A nerdy American college professor, Tarl Cabot (Urbano Barberini), is involved in a car crash, but his body is catapulted by magic to another planet. This other planet, named Gor, is terrorised by ruthless tyrant Sarm (Oliver Reed), who spends most of his time leading his army from village to village enslaving the people and stealing their homestones. Tarl arrives just in time to witness an attack on yet another community. He accidentally gets caught up in the fight and kills one of Sarm's soldiers – who happens to be Sarm's son. The people hail Tarl as a champion, a warrior from another dimension sent to overthrow Sarm. It soon becomes apparent that this timid scholar is far from a hero, and he has to be trained in combat ready for his quest. Tarl and a small group of companions – among them accomplished swordswoman Talena (Rebecaa Ferratti) – set off across the desert to Sarm's realm to end his reign of fear once and for all.

Where to begin with what is wrong with "Gor"? Finding fault is almost too easy – it's like tripping a handicapped kid. The performances range from the vacant (Barberini and Ferratti) to the downright bizarre (is there a scene in the whole film during which Reed appears to be fully sober?) The dialogue is utterly trite, the narrative is so episodic it becomes boringly predictable, and there is a distinct lack of conviction in the fight sequences. If Norman's novels contained any intelligent ideas, they are nowhere to be found here. The only thing saving "Gor" from a 1-out-of-10 rating is that it is at least ripe for unintentional hilarity. The joke turns a little sour when Jack Palance turns up in the final five minutes to set up a sequel – what has the population of the world done to deserve another dose of this moronic garbage?