Hawk the Slayer - The best ‘worst’ film ever made

‘Hawk the Slayer’ deserves top marks.  Not because it’s that good, but simply because of the effort put into it.  It is truly an awful film with few genuinely redeeming features, yet it’s played ‘straight’ all the way through.  Someone wrote online, ‘If the ‘Carry On...’ team ever made a serious ‘sword and sorcery’ film then it would be this.

Therefore, the only people who will ever get anything out of this film will be those who can appreciate those ‘so bad they’re good’ films, or people (like me) who watched it as a child and still have nostalgic feelings towards it (for the record, me and my friends ‘played’ Hawk the Slayer in the playground in junior school).

I will start by listing (at least some) of this movie’s bad points (mainly because it – technically – doesn’t have any good ones).  All ‘bad points’ can also be looked at as good points because they’re so laughably fun.  The acting.  Oh dear.  On the one hand you have Jack Palance who does his best to hiss his way through every scene going and on the other, you have John Terry (no, not the footballer, although his acting may be at least on a par with our leading man’s) who has a daft haircut which goes some way to take your mind off his acting abilities.  He teams up with a giant (who isn’t very tall), a dwarf (who isn’t very short), a man with one hand (or rather his ‘missing’ hand wrapped in a bandage) and an elf (who acts like Mr Spock only with less light-heartedness).  These famous five then take on Jack Palance’s merry men in a variety of different places in the British woods.

Then you have the special effects.  They consist of people being killed by coloured ping pong balls and covered (to death) in silly string (no, seriously). 

The action scenes have to be seen to be believed.  By repeatedly using fast-paced editing shots on someone firing a bow and arrow or crossbow, you get an almost ‘machine gun-like’ effect (the bad guys don’t stand a chance!).

It’s fair to say that Hawk the Slayer is the best of the worst films ever made.  It’s so bad you have to see it to believe it.  Then, if you still haven’t had enough, I could also recommend Star Crash (which is so bad it’s good, only in space instead of the British woods).

9/10 almost as perfect as The Godfather