A caveat to anyone who is going to watch DRAGONSLAYER for the first time, this medieval kingdom adventure is not your usual Disney fare, in spite of it is a coproduction between Walt Disney and Paramount Picture.

Ostensibly posturing as a warmed-over story of a callow sorcerer’s apprentice Galen (MacNicol), who takes the baton from his master Ulrich of Cragganmore (Richardson, looks a shade off-color, but sprightly when he finally rises to the occasion), the last sorcerer, to slay a gargantuan, fire-breathing dragon named Vermithrax Pejorative which has been wreaking havoc on the kingdom of Urland for years and can only be appeased by the sacrifice of virgin girls twice a year (the reason behind the virginal obsession is not disclosed though).

Emboldened by becoming the new owner of Ulrich’s magic amulet, after the latter is somehow weirdly dispatched even before stepping out for the expedition, Galen finds his beginner’s luck by invoking a landslide to seal the dragon’s den, a victory he takes as a sign that he is the next sorcerer in the making, but not in the eyes of King Casiodorus of Urland (Eyre) and his cynical Captain of the Royal Guard Tyrian (Hallam), Galen is interned, only when Princess Elspeth (Salaman), the virgin daughter of the king, is selected as the next sacrifice (much owing to her own guilt-ridden conscience and death-seeking martyrdom), Galen is returned with the amulet and sets out his solo mission to kill the dragon and rescue the princess.

Just when we naively presumes that the rest of the plot would go exactly like that, DRAGONSLAYER defies our wonted expectation every which way: Galen survives, by the skin of his teeth, his heroic but botched attempt, he doesn’t even fall in love with the saintly princess (who meets a ghastly payoff that is essentially startling) to begin with, it is the tomboy Valerian (Clarke) he takes a shine to; Ulrich’s seemingly cavalier departure is not what it seems to be, a resurrection is fairly preordained; what is more, Galen might not even be cut it for a sorcerer at all (though the ending gives an ambiguous touch of that), and the real dragon slayer might stay forever undisclosed and the mass, like as not, will worship a bogus savior, that is some food for thought!

More akin to John Boorman’s EXCALIBUR (1981) than any number of bright-colored sword-and-scandal period adventurer, Matthew Robbins’ film is mostly shot in North Wales under a somber hue and adorned with a primitive look, and its landscape and topography conduces to an otherworldly presence of an ancient magic realm that is rightly on point. But the real McCoy here is the special effects and state-of-the-art animatronics, created by the company Industrial Light and Magic, it is Oscar nominated (in concert with Alex North’s plangent score), mostly for the fruition of an underground lake flickering with either flames or will-o’-the-wisp, and the horrifically formidable dragon itself (which fares better in its dank lair than the pre-CGI simulacra near the firmament), imagine it to be seen through the eyes of its audience at then, DRAGONSLAYER is quite a dark fantasy that duly grinds out all the thrills and chills, and occasionally when you least expect it.

referential entries: John Boorman’s EXCALIBUR (1981, 7.2/10); Peter Jackson’s THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG (2013, 6.9/10).