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There’s something to be said for the “do-it-yourself” approach to making movies. Director Don Coscarelli followed up his smash horror film Phantasm with a fantasy adventure inspired by Andre Norton’s fantasy novel The Beastmaster. Unfortunately, this project couldn’t be entirely self funded so Coscarelli had to go to outside sources. That’s where the trouble began. Although he finished the film and was overall quite satisfied, what followed was a battle of wills where the film was taken away from him, he was locked out of the editing room initially but finally the story does, indeed, have a happy ending of sorts. ***

Coming off like Dr Dolittle for the sword and sorcery set, Dar (Marc Singer) the son of a King stolen from his mother’s womb and transported into an animal, seeks revenge against the evil Overlord Maax (Rip Torn) a fanatic who has stolen Dar’s kingdom, murdered his parents and tried to sacrifice him when he was an infant. With the assistance of his father’s former bodyguard Seth (John Amos) and a freed slave girl Kiri (Tanya Roberts), Dar moves against Maax in a winner-takes-all battle involving magic, swords and a fight to the death. Placed inside an animal by an evil witch intent on sacrificing him at the direction of the nasty overlord Maax (Rip Torn), Dar survives and is adopted by a local peasant. Whne Dar discovers his origin and learns of the murder of his parents by Maax’s henchmen, Dar speaks to animals in their language and can make them do his bidding. Dar ---

A new documentary directed by Perry Martin was especially commissioned for this edition. Featuring new interviews with Writer/Director Coscarelli , Writer/Producer Pepperman, Production Designer Conrad Angone and actors Josh Milrad, Tanya Roberts and Marc Singer, we get an inside glimpse into the origins of the film and the conflicts that almost derailed its success. Coscarelli ran into constant interference from his overseas financer and co-producer almost immediately. Since Coscarelli had arranged the financing of his previous movies and all had been under a million dollars, he had never run into interference of this sort before. Also, on his previous productions he and Pepperman did almost everything behind the camera and in post production. Here, for the first time, both had to work with others and trust the professional crew they had hired. The real koo for the production was wrangling veteran Kubrick cinematographer John Alcott to shoot the movie and composer Lee Holdridge to write the wonderfully evocative score for the film. We also get the original theatrical trailer (which demonstrates how much work went into restoring this film for its Divamax presentation), production stills, behind-the-scenes photos and all the poster/advertising art that survived. The talent bio and DVD-ROM with the original screenplay are icing on this already moist cake. Coscarelli also contributes liner notes on the insert that has a reproduction of the original poster. A marvelous job from Anchor Bay.