The air hangs thick, not just with the synthetic scent of degrading magnetic tape, but with something primal conjured from the screen itself. It’s a fog, an inescapable miasma that clings to every frame of Lucio Fulci’s Conquest (1983), a film less watched than experienced, like wading through a half-remembered nightmare. Forget the sun-drenched heroism of its American contemporaries; this Italian foray into sword-and-sorcery plunges you headfirst into a primordial soup of smoke, shadows, and strange, savage beauty. It’s the kind of movie that felt illicit rented from the back corner of the video store, promising something weirder and darker than the polished Hollywood fare.
Through a Lens, Darkly
Right from the outset, Conquest establishes its unsettling identity. Fulci, the Italian maestro of macabre best known for gut-churning horrors like Zombi 2 (1979) and The Beyond (1981), approached fantasy not with wonder, but with a kind of hallucinatory dread. The film is infamous for its heavily diffused look, reportedly achieved by Fulci shooting through thick filters while simultaneously pumping the sets full of smoke. Legend has it that conditions were often so foggy, actors could barely see each other, lending an accidental authenticity to the characters’ disorientation. The effect is profound: landscapes dissolve into abstraction, figures emerge like phantoms, and the entire world feels unstable, perpetually cloaked in a dreamlike haze. It’s less Middle-earth, more primordial underworld rendered on a shoestring budget. This wasn't just a stylistic choice; it was a visual declaration that this journey would be unlike any other.
Echoes in the Mist
The story itself is archetypal, almost defiantly simple. A young hero, Ilias (Andrea Occhipinti), armed with a magical bow that shoots beams of light (a charmingly lo-fi effect), is sent from his ethereal home into the savage lands of men. His quest, vague as it is, inevitably pits him against the masked, animalistic forces of the evil sorceress Ocron. Along the way, he encounters Mace (Jorge Rivero), a hulking, cynical warrior surviving in this brutal world. Rivero, a notable star in Mexican cinema, brings a rugged physicality that contrasts sharply with Occhipinti’s naive idealism. Their uneasy alliance forms the backbone of the narrative, a classic pairing navigating a distinctly un-classic landscape. It’s a quest narrative filtered through Fulci’s grim lens, where heroism feels less triumphant and more like desperate survival.
The Fulci Factor: Gore and Grimness
You can take the director out of horror, but you can't entirely take the horror out of the director. Fulci peppers Conquest with moments of startling violence and bizarre creature encounters that feel ripped straight from his Giallo or zombie outings. Expect sudden bursts of gore, unsettling monster designs realized through often crude but strangely effective practical effects, and a pervasive sense of bodily threat. Remember those weird, subterranean mole-men creatures? Or the unsettling bat-things? They might look rubbery now, but back then, glimpsed on a flickering CRT, they carried a certain grotesque power. Even the score by Claudio Simonetti, famous for his pulsating work with Goblin, contributes a unique, often melancholic and atmospheric layer, distinct from his more driving horror themes but perfectly suited to the film's otherworldly mood. This isn't clean fantasy; it's murky, visceral, and deeply strange.
Charms of the Crude
Let’s be honest, Conquest is far from perfect. The plot often feels secondary to the atmosphere, meandering through episodic encounters. The English dubbing can be clunky, and the low budget ($1.5 million, a modest sum even then) sometimes shows its seams in the effects or set dressing. Yet, these limitations almost become part of its strange allure. It’s a film operating entirely on its own wavelength, unburdened by expectations of coherence or polish. There’s an earnestness to its weirdness, a commitment to its unique vision that’s hard not to admire, even when chuckling at a particularly unconvincing monster or nonsensical plot turn. Doesn't that raw, unrefined quality feel quintessentially 80s Italian genre filmmaking?
A Cult Relic Unearthed
Released amidst a wave of Conan-inspired fantasy flicks, Conquest was largely ignored or dismissed by mainstream critics upon release, seen as just another cheap European knock-off. Its US release, handled by exploitation kings Cannon Films, likely didn't help its critical standing. But time, and the enduring cult of Fulci, has been kind to it. For fans of Euro-cult oddities, atmospheric filmmaking, or Fulci completists, Conquest is a fascinating outlier. Watching it on VHS back in the day felt like uncovering a secret – a hazy, violent fever dream captured on tape. I distinctly remember the bizarre cover art drawing me in, promising something far stranger than the usual fantasy fare, and it delivered exactly that. It’s a film that embodies the spirit of digging through video store shelves hoping to find something truly unique, something that sticks with you long after the credits roll, even if you can't quite articulate why.
Rating: 6/10
Conquest earns its score through sheer, unadulterated atmosphere and its status as a unique Lucio Fulci anomaly. The visuals, though perhaps born of necessity as much as art, create an unforgettable dreamscape. The moments of bizarre horror and the earnest performances from Rivero and Occhipinti add to its cult charm. However, the often-incoherent plotting, budgetary constraints, and sometimes laughable effects keep it firmly in the realm of flawed B-movie fascination rather than outright classic.
It remains a captivating curio – a fog-drenched, blood-splattered detour from a horror master into the realm of fantasy, leaving behind a film that feels like a half-remembered myth whispered late at night. It’s pure, unrefined 80s Euro-cult, and for those attuned to its strange frequency, it’s a trip worth taking back into the mist.