It's an earnestly sincere ensemble story about a traveling group of Renaissance festival/motorcycle enthusiasts that have a hard time finding the line between the fantasy world they have created for themselves and the real world problems they have to contend with. They try to live life by the same medieval social structure they perform daily for the various towns they pass through. They may even be the first LARPers in cinema. The King is played perfectly by Ed Harris in his first leading role and you get to see first signs of the blue, steely eyed intensity that would propel him to a wonderful career, most recently as the man-in-black in the HBO Westworld series. The king calls the shots before and after the show but he may be going mad so Morgan Le Fey (a surprisingly nuanced performance by horror makeup god Tom Savini) is ready to challenge for the crown. They each have their supporting cast of servant knights for motorcycle jousting shows and moral support behind the scenes. There can only be one king but there also can be no true enemies because they are all bound by the same fantasy.
Written and directed by Horror Icon George Romero, and released the same year as the more serious Arthurian movie, Excalibur, this story is a total anomaly in his body of work. A complete departure from his horror films, the medieval code becomes an excellent allegory for the futility of refusing to grow up. When I was a kid, I would see it on the shelf at the video store, with the epic art of the knight riding a motorcycle, and the juxtaposition made me think it was some type of slapstick comedy and now that I've finally seen it 40 years later, thanks to Amazon Prime, nothing could be further from the truth. It's a drama through and through with a bit of humor here and there. The production value is a bit dated but it holds up because the actors knew exactly who their characters were and the theme is so timeless.
7/10. Still worth watching in 2021.
Written and directed by Horror Icon George Romero, and released the same year as the more serious Arthurian movie, Excalibur, this story is a total anomaly in his body of work. A complete departure from his horror films, the medieval code becomes an excellent allegory for the futility of refusing to grow up. When I was a kid, I would see it on the shelf at the video store, with the epic art of the knight riding a motorcycle, and the juxtaposition made me think it was some type of slapstick comedy and now that I've finally seen it 40 years later, thanks to Amazon Prime, nothing could be further from the truth. It's a drama through and through with a bit of humor here and there. The production value is a bit dated but it holds up because the actors knew exactly who their characters were and the theme is so timeless.
7/10. Still worth watching in 2021.