Deathstalker IV (1991)

Vaniat: "I bet you chase women too."
Deathstalker: "Best exercise I know."

Upon entering a fighting tournament, Deathstalker discovers that a sorceress is drugging the winners to enslave them.
Starring: Rick Hill, Maria Ford, Brett Baxter Clark, Michelle Moffett

Link to IMDB

It's time for our final adventure with that cheesy bastard, Deathstalker!

The OG Stalker returns!

Once again the opening narration establishes how violent this old world is, and that there are few heroes still protecting the innocent from all the evil lords and savage bandits. There's also a brief synopsis of the first movie, which is fitting because Rick Hill is back in the titular role he played in the first movie. The opening ten minutes recycles a lot of clips from part 1 and 3, and even though every movie in the series reuses scenes to pad the running time, it's pretty extreme here and gets a bit unnecessary.

In a recent battle, Stalker accidentally switched swords with his friend, Aldilar, so he's eager to find him and get his sword back. Seems like Aldilar headed off to a tournament being held by the magical queen Kana. This is the same queen that has an army of knights terrorizing the country folk, but Stalker has no fear and goes off to join the tournament.



Along the way he befriends the warrior Vaniat and the beautiful Dionara. Once at Kana's castle we see a hundred of the finest warriors in the land have gathered for the tournament, and there's lots of drinking and fighting as the men and women train for the upcoming battles. As the tournament advances, Stalker begins to suspect that Kana is up to something. She's luring all the winners away with her sexuality and mysterious wine, and they are never seen again. Stalker decides that Vaniat, who doesn't drink or know anything about sex, is the perfect guy to help investigate what Kana's evil plan is all about.

"Well, I am a great athlete and pretty good looking... She'll never know what hit her." - Vaniat

In bed with the enemy !

Rick Hill really seems to be having fun playing Deathstalker again, and he's much more lively than the first time. There's not much plot to follow but it's kept interesting by just being fun, and these movies are about the adventure anyways, not the story. I guess the Pig-man budget finally went dry, because now there's lion-men instead, and boy do they look funny. We do see Pig-man again, but it's just re-used footage from part 1.

Although Kana is a rather boring villain, it still ends in a big fight sequence as Stalker struggles against her mystical warriors. Overall, I'm glad the series ended on a somewhat good point, but part 2 remains the best by far.

Be sure not to miss:
- How did they get out of that cave?!? It's implied they might have had sex, and then in the next scene they are just back on the road! What!?
- Some electric guitar in the score, which really feels out of place.
- That guy that Stalker was looking for, Aldila, yeah he shows up for about 5 seconds at the end.

Internet review:
"It's all still cheap and cheesy but by now it would be wrong to change that." - Philhubbs

Should I watch it?
It's the second best in the series, but I'd say all four are worth seeing to get the full effect.

Where can I find it?
I used the vidzi link here

Deathstalker IV gets...