The Movies Made Me Do It: Confessions of a Film Actor (Issue #11)
KRULL, 1983, PG — It sounds like a doughnut, like a bear claw version of a Krueller. I remember catching it midway one early morning while I was on vacation in the mountains. It was another movie that HBO snuck in either late at night or for the 6am crowd. It’s a bit of an outlier for fantasy films of the 80s because it mixes sci fi with sword and sorcery, feeling very much like a cross between Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. It’s also another flick that has probably a dozen, truly disturbing moments involving people dying: sinking in quicksand, getting crushed between walls, speared to death, attacked by a giant Crystal Spider, laser beams, and so on.
The story: this truly bad alien guy called The Beast lands on the planet Krull in this fortress-looking spaceship, crashes a wedding, and kidnaps Lyssa, the quintessential bride princess. And it’s up to Colwyn, the valiant groom prince, to save the day with the help of his merry troupe of cohorts, ranging from old dudes in cloaks to a young Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane to a Cyclops looking giant. For it’s time, it looks like a pretty expensive film, with more set pieces than one can count, a moody vibe, and an unrelenting assault on children’s minds — seriously dude, they did not hold back on traumatizing youths in the 80s with fantasy, why I regard it as the peak period of this genre.
This was English director Peter Yates’s first and only foray into fantasy (apparently he hated filming the movie so much that he took a vacation mid shoot, halting production for a few weeks); he was primarily known for helming the 1968 action classic Bullitt starring Steve McQueen and also the 1979 bicycle racing drama Breaking Away. The film was scored by James Horner, who later went on to compose for films like Aliens, Apollo 13, and Titanic. The film was a flop at the box office, most likely due to its somewhat confusing storyline and, at times, hokey dialogue; some also thought it was too derivative of other more successful and relatable sci fi adventures, but it has gained a cult following in recent years and serves as another fairly imaginative ‘quest story.’ I do think parts of it play better than as a whole, but you gotta admire its old fashioned ambition and the production design alone, which employed mainly practical effects but also was shot on enormous soundstages, twenty three sets to be exact.
So what’s the thing about this movie specifically that sticks with me as an actor? I think it’s remembering the journey of the characters, how no one was really safe from the danger and threat of death along the way. As a kid, I would usually reenact the moments in my backyard, forcing my brother to participate and try to remember the lines from the film. After a few rehearsals, we’d get into the harrowing moments, switching characters to see whose performance rang truer. We both ended up as professional stage and film actors in the end, so I guess it was a tie.
One last memorable thing about this film is the weapon that the hero uses to protect himself and ultimately defeat the Beast: a magical star-shaped frisbee called a Glaive, sort of like a boomerang, but also a toy that every kid probably wanted back then. If they sold them on Amazon today, I might invest in a couple, just in case I decide to visit Dunkin’ Doughnuts.
