Saturday, August 21, 2021

Sword & Sorcery & Cinema: The Throne of Fire (1983)

Doing a bit more research on my next Witch Queen adventure when I turned up this little Italian gem.  So. What do you get when you mix Italian actors, Norse myth, a witch, the son of the Devil, and a magical throne?  Well, you get Il trono di fuoco or 1983's The Throne of Fire.

Throne of Fire (1983)
The Throne of Fire (1983)

Azria the witch is impregnated by the Devil to give birth to a mutant baby.  The baby grows up to become the less mutated Morak played to great scene-chewing effect by Harrison Muller. Born at the same time is Siegfried played by Italian stuntman Pietro Torrisi in his last role.  I can't really find much on him.  

In order to gain the Throne of Fire Malak has to marry Princess Valkari, played by Sabrina Siani.  Now, obviously, this is an allusion to Valkerie, but they keep pronouncing it "Val-Kar-EE."  Hmm. I can live with it.  Malak captures the Princess, but not before she can show off her own Xena moves.  

Siegfried comes to the court of the former King Agon, and now belonging to Valkari, to fight Morak.  He stabs Morak, which only causes him to laugh and reveal his "devil face" ala Lucifer.   Defeated he is tossed into the Well of Madness, which admitted was fun.  Here, for reasons, he finds his father, Well it is revealed in a long flashback that he was in the court when Morak first attacked.  He makes Siegfried invisible and invulnerable to everything but fire. 

Siegfried teams up with the Princess and helps her escape, but not before Morak can shot him with a flaming arrow. 

Recaptured Princess Valkari shows she is more than capable of getting herself out of jams and if that means sacrificing Seigfried, well she only just met the guy after all.  She doesn't wear much more than what is show in the poster above in this, but that is still a lot more than she wore in the Blue Lagoon rip-off, the Blue Island.  But I'll give the writer and director credit, for a bit of 80s, Z-Grade Sword and Sorcerery romp Princess Valkari is quite capable. She manages to escape on her own and kill a few guards in the process while Siegfried is still tied up.  

Malak lets Siegfried go to lead him right the Princess, which of course works. And they are recaptured again.  This is getting monotonous. 

Malak charms the Princess to get her to marry him and the solar eclipse happens, "The Night in a Day," so he can sit on the Throne of Fire.  But I guess the timing was not quite right, because when Siegfried throws Malak onto the Throne he burns up.  

Valkari becomes the new Queen and the people want Seigfried to be King.  Really???  He didn't really do a damn thing.

Game Content

The Well of Madness is nice, and a real Queen would have given Seigfried a title and then told him to pound sand.   A Witch Queen would have turned him into a newt for his impertinence. 

Not much here though that can't be found in other, better movies.

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Tim Knight of Hero Press and Pun Isaac of Halls of the Nephilim along with myself are getting together at the Facebook Group I'd Rather Be Killing Monsters to discuss these movies.  Follow along with the hashtag #IdRatherBeWatchingMonsters.


1 comment:

  1. Hmm... interesting. I'd most likely buy this if it were available on Amazon (region 1, of course) and on sale.

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