Generally speaking, the title is one of the first things one notices about a film. As such, the title leads us to expect certain things from a film. Needless to say, if a film is entitled "Gar the Barbarian," we will expect it to contain at some point a barbarian named Gar (or that it is a fancy art film and that the title is a metaphor, anyway). Therefore, it stands out in my memory that "Sorceress" does not contain, at any point, any character who could be even vaguely described as a "sorceress." There are two sorcerers and a priestess, but no sorceress.

Moving on, we get to the opening scene, which is reminiscent of what happens when a bunch of college students with a video camera break into the theatre department costume storage. A bunch of barbarians with an evil sorcerer leader attack a good-guy village, looking for the daughter of the sorcerer. But the woman he raped bore twins, she won't tell him which is the elder (this is important for inexplicable reasons), and so they do unspeakable things to her with a fork. Then a good guy sorcerer shows up, catches a javelin in the most hilariously poorly edited scene in the entire film (no effort is made to disguise the fact that this is reversed footage of the sorcerer *throwing* the javelin), and kills all the bad guys. If they're that easy to kill, one wonders why anyone ever found them a threat. But anyhow.

We are then treated to a scene of the twin girls swimming naked, thereby illustrating how most cheap fantasy movies are basically soft porn with swords. From here, we watch the girls beat up a goat thing and beat up a horde of barbarian warriors, all without so much as drawing a weapon. Then we meet the Viking.

Yes, I said Viking. No, this movie is not set in any era in which a Viking would be appropriate. No, there are no other Vikings in the film. No, we never get any explanation for WHY there is a Viking here. Yet here he is, and here he shall stay. And he even says "Viking things" such as "by Odin's beard," just so we remember that he's a Viking. He apparently friends with the goat-thing the girls beat up, and it doesn't seem to care that they beat it up. Not that it seems to figure into the movie at all. I think the creators just found a Caliban costume in the theatre department and wanted to throw it in.

Pointless stuff happens.

The barbarian Erlich shows up. Apparently, he and the Viking go Way Back. They decide to keep the girls away from the Evil Sorcerer and almost immediately proceed to fail. The girls apparently don't know that they're girls (for some obscure and irrelevant reason), the entire consequences of which is that they disrobe in front of the men.

The bad guys determine (through a ritual I didn't understand at all) that Mara is the elder of the two girls. The Viking rescues Mira, the younger, and Erlich and Mara get captured and dragged off.

Pointless stuff happens.

We discover that Mira can "feel what Mara feels," a plot point that could be interesting if used properly. Unfortunately, it comes up only once, two scenes after it is first mentioned, and is used only so a sex scene can be played out without compromising the R rating.

Pointless stuff happens.

Mira and the Viking raid the fortress, trying to rescue the others. They end up underground. The Viking fights endless hordes of zombies while Mara and Erlich are prepared for the sacrifice. Then it finally occurs to Mira to shout the Sacred Words of Power given to her by the Good Wizard. I'll avoid mentioning that if I were in her situation, I'd have paid more attention to what the old wizard said, and remembered the words of power much earlier -- say, around when they were first captured. I'll avoid mentioning that if she really "feels what Mara feels," she should be in a trance. I'll even avoid mentioning the fact that if she can just shout this one word of power and beat all the bad guys, it renders the proceeding forty minutes of film meaningless. Why? Because I want to focus on what happens when she *does* say the words. Specifically, I want to talk about the World's Greatest Special Effect.

I am referring to the Winged Blue Space Lion. This is an effect so abrupt and so awful that even I was in stitches, and I had been warned of its coming well in advance. After Mira says the words, this Winged Blue Space Lion appears and fires lightning bolt/laser beams at the bad guys, devastating them. The evil sorcerer sacrifices his priestess (totally obliterating the entire premise of the movie, which was that he needed to sacrifice his eldest daughter), thereby summoning his god, who is apparently a Giant Orange Space Head. The Winged Blue Space Lion blows it up.

The twins kill the sorcerer *far* less ceremoniously than did the good wizard at the beginning of the movie, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Now, you might be thinking, "Two girls, two guys -- they obviously end up paired off." Well, you'd be wrong. Erlich gets BOTH girls. Then the movie ends with some crack about the two being one.

Rating: four and a half turkeys.

Scene to watch for: The Winged Blue Space Lion blows up the Giant Orange Space Head.

Best line: "By Odin's beard!"

Things that make you go "Huh?": How dangerous these bad guys really are if they're defeated so easily -- not once, but *twice.*