GazerRise Fantastic!

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

William Samuel The Blade Master, alternatively titled Cave Dwellers, is a pathetic Conan the Barbarian rip-off that was made in Italy and dubbed into English. It was made on a very low budget by people who knew virtually nothing about acting or directing, but that still doesn't explain how things went so horribly wrong. I suspect the writer(s) may have been smoking something.The titular hero is the beefy, Ator, who we first see in the opening credits, sneaking through some caves alongside a black man who is never seen in the actual movie. It's hard to tell what is actually going on because there's no sound, the footage is extremely choppy, and the lower half of the screen is blacked out so we can read the credits. Our first proper introduction comes in an extended flashback in which some philosopher/monk/king tells his daughter Leila Ator's life story so far, which I suspect occupied an entire previous film. No sooner is this father/daughter story time finished then the castle is attacked by a horde of barbarian horsemen, and Leila flees to call Ator for help. She finds him of course, along with his sidekick, the unfortunately named Thong. Then it's up to the three of them to save Leila's father, and the kingdom, from the bad guy.This movie's biggest problem, aside from the lack of any money or talent, is that it never quite gets its act together. It never establishes the time and place. I can't tell whether all this is happening in prehistory or in the middle ages. I'm also not sure if this is supposed to be Earth or if it's some mythical realm. I don't think they ever refer to the kingdom by name.Nor is there much sense of scale or space. For instance, Leila's father tells her that Ator's home is 'at the ends of the Earth.' Yet after escaping the castle, she arrives at Ator's cave in the very next scene- with the arrow she was shot with during her escape still embedded in her chest! This would lead one to believe that the ends of the Earth weren't so far after all. But then they spend the rest of the movie returning to the castle. I don't know how that works, and I suspect that neither do the writers.Anyway, while the heroes are having their adventures, the bad guy is holding Leila's father prisoner. He doesn't kill the old man because he wants to discover the secrets of a powerful weapon known as – I'm not making this up- the geometric nucleus. But his method of interrogating the old man is rather strange. Rather than torturing the knowledge out of him, the evil warlord engages him in long, boring conversations. I very much doubt that any real people have ever spoken the way these two do. The bad guy sounds like a Republic serial villain, and Leila's father sounds at various times like a fortune cookie, a teenage socialist, and an educational video on the importance of the modern justice system.Not that the other characters have dialogue that's much better. Ator is established early on as having been the old guy's most brilliant student, a master of magic, science, and natural philosophy. Yet when he opens his mouth he talks like a first year English-as-a-second-language student, which he may actually be. At one point he gives a less than rousing speech laying out the blindingly obvious strategy for an upcoming battle, and then the battle never takes place! Did they mean to film the battle and then run out of money, or was the speech intended as a red herring? I don't know, and I'm not sure it really matters.Now I've put this off as long as I can, but there are two scenes in this movie that leave me asking "What the hell were they thinking?" The first comes when the heroes storm the castle. Ator tells Leila and Thong to take a secret passage into the fortress while he prepares a distraction. "He's up to something" remarks Leila. Boy is he ever. Cut to Ator jumping from a cliff- aboard a hang glider made from ropes and skins. WTF!?! He actually flies- and drops bombs! - from a hang glider. At this point they might as well bring in the Great Gazoo atop his flying saucer.But as unbelievable as the hang-gliding scene is, this next one takes the cake. At the end, as Ator rides off into the sunset, the movie cuts to footage of an atomic bomb test, while a voice over guy intones that modern man would do well not to unleash world destroying powers, etc. Once again, WTF!?! They actually put a clear anti-nuclear warning into a sword-and-sandal B-movie! One might as reasonably slip a message about overpopulation or credit card debt into a pirate movie. I don't know what they were on when they decided to make The Blade Master an issue movie, but I'm guessing it was something pretty strong.Now let me think, is there anything else I should mention before wrapping up this review? Oh yeah, there's a scene where the good guys nearly get sacrificed to a giant snake. It's a bit hard to tell because it was so dark, but I think the snake-god was a massive plush toy. And I'm fairly sure that the princess's chest plate was a hubcap. When the leading lady is given a hubcap to wear, it's safe to say you're watching a true no-expense-taken enterprise.

Simon This film, Blade Master, may be cheap, clumsy in appearance and it is sometimes, but it shares thoughts on problems that are way beyond the era this film is set in. Ator is the chosen one that has to protect the earth against a terrible weapon, that is compared in an unforgettable and unpredictable way to the atomic weapon. He goes through obstacles as a witful character who is just more than muscle power, although he has quite is lot. I would say this aspect of the movie makes it surpass a film like Conan the barbarian, which is the least I can say, quite brainless. It doesn't diminish in any ways the great adventure movie that is Conan, but it gives Ator his wholesomeness that he shares not with the barbarian. For a lower budget movie, this film does good in terms of setting and the fights are most of the time believable. Zor, the villain, has with is prisoner throughout the film one of the most interesting psychological confrontation that gives tension to the movie, even if Ator seems way too fit for the task to loose. What gives this movie that little extra are those scenes that may look quirky, but worth of mention. The fight with the serpent god, even though he is a gigantic puppet, is well handled as the snake, with good lightnings, remains a silhouette and the fight is quite convincing. The movie climaxes in a most unusual way, quite anachronic, but breathtaking : the deltaplane sequence. The scene itself is not introduced properly, read not at all, where did Ator get that machine, it's pretty unconvincing, but it leads to a really poetic and beautiful midair sequence, that standalone, is the culminating point in the movie, elevating Ator in a place where few human fantasy heroes have been. If Blade Master is not among the great fantastic movies of all time is no surprise due to its lacks, it's a bigger surprise, considering the philosophical way it chooses on the confrontation between good and evil, the truth it speaks and the heart it shows, that this movie is so unwlecomed. I suggest it for every fan of the genre and try take it seriously as an intelligent movie that's to be taken more seriously than it seems.

Torgo_Approves Why was this movie made? Are producers so easily fooled by sadists that they'll give them money to create torture methods such as this so called "film"? I love a bad movie as much as the next masochist, but "Cave Dwellers" is pushing it. It's seriously physically painful to watch. The plot is something about a dude name Ator - a buffed-up numbnuts whom I will refer to as Private Snowball for the rest of this review - who has to fight invisible warriors and rescue a princess in order to beat the bad guy who needs to find a better hair stylist. I might have gotten the plot wrong since it's been a while since I watched this excrement, but really, do you care that much? Oh yeah, Private Snowball also has a mute Asian sidekick (who hasn't?). Who's not funny.Anyway, Private Snowball fights invisible people, visits some caves, all in the name of a good king so personality-free he makes Al Gore look like Jim Carrey. Then Private Snowball builds a hang-glider (yes, I'm serious) and gets the girl. Yippie-kee-yay. It's cheap, unintentionally silly, and mind-numbingly dull. Why am I not surprised that the director ended up making porn?Bottom line: AVOID. Ator will steal a part of your life and you will have no funny "so-bad-they're-good" catchphrases to take with you from the experience. Bad Ator! BAD! Aak! *gags*

Seth Nelson I just read an extra long review on the front page of this movie on this site and he explained in full detail that this movie is only worth watching on the television show "Mystery Science Theater 3000!!!!!" And yes, I do find that advice really helpful! I mean, a movie that tries to be this good and this exciting just really is not what that movie wants to be!!!!! So yes, do watch this movie as seen on that show and instead of giving this movie a single star out of ten stars, you can give this a ten out of ten stars! Until then, my one star review is for the real, pure, untouched version of this movie only!!!!!! Got that now?