FIRE AND ICE

Ralph Bakshi, 1983

Starring: Susan Tyrrell, Maggie Roswell, William Ostrander, Stephen Mendel

The kingdom of Icepeak is waging war against the world, sending glaciers further and further towards the kingdom of Firekeep. The evil Queen and her son Nekron ignore requests for peace or compromise and soon kidnap King Jarol’s daughter, Teegra. She manages to escape from the band of barbarians taking her to Icepeak and meets Larn, whose entire people has been killed by Nekron. Teegra and Larn try to find their way back to Firekeep, but are caught again by the barbarians. A stranger, Darkwolf, intervenes to save them and takes Larn to destroy Nekron once and for all. 

I'm sad to say it, but Fire and Ice is one of my least favorite sword and sorcery films. I watched it for the first time this week and was sorely disappointed. I wanted to include it because it's a collaboration between the renowned Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta, but it represents what I consider to be the worst elements of fantasy and sword and sorcery films. 

First and foremost, which I already mentioned in my review of Yor, the Hunter from the Future (1983), is that I hate films with tribes of humanoids running around in loin cloths, communicating in grunts and kidnapping scantily clad barbarian babes. This film is full of them, putting Nekron as the lesser villain in the face of his humanoid henchmen. I find this an incredibly distasteful, basically racist plot device. The second strike against Fire and Ice is the total lack of characterization. I was completely uninterested in anyone in this film by the halfway point. While Nekron and Darkwolf both had promise, this was utterly stripped from them by the script. 

The third and final element is the treatment of Princess Teegra, whose lack of clothing was more appropriate of softcore attire and felt demeaning. I love a lot of porn and erotica films and generally don’t feel like a woman’s attire makes much of a statement about how the film treats women. In this case it’s almost like they made a list of offensive things and then added them into the script. Teegra is a completely worthless and uninteresting character. 

This cult animated film is a collaboration between two famous figures in ‘80s fantasy fandom. Ralph Bakshi created of a number of well-known animated films for adults like Fritz the Cat (1972), Wizards (1977) and Lord of the Rings (1978), while Frank Frazetta is one of the most celebrated fantasy artists of the last century. His iconic Conan paintings influenced the entire '80s fantasy film genre. I assume if you’re reading my sword and sorcery series, no explanation is needed. They used rotoscoping to give Fire and Ice a realistic, but specifically Frazetta look. On this point it completely succeeds and benefits from Bakshi and Frazetta’s constant involvement in the production. Written by Conan comic writers Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas, I sadly have nothing good to say about the script. It lacks the humor, adventure and intelligence of much of Marvel’s Conan. 

Blue Underground put out a great two-disc DVD full of special features, including a feature length documentary about Frazetta, Painting With Fire. There’s also an audio commentary with Bakshi, a making of feature, more featurettes, a trailer, etc. The single disc DVD doesn’t have the Frazetta documentary. I wish I could recommend this, but you're probably better off watching Deathstalker II. 

DISNEY'S HALLOWEEN TREAT

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. Generally every year since childhood, I've celebrated a number of rituals to officially usher in the most wonderful time of the year. Watching Disney's Halloween Treat was one of these things and, thanks to the internet, I can now watch it anytime I want.

Though it's not an actual film, it's a series of Halloween appropriate Disney clips joined together with a narrator. The original version, aired in 1983, is 47-minutes long. The version I grew up watching is about 85-minutes and includes "Disney's Greatest Villains," which is narrated by a live action version of the Magic Mirror.

First up is the excellent "Night on Bald Mountain" segment from Fantasia. This is followed by "Mad Madam Mim's battle with Merlin" from The Sword in the Stone, a Silly Symphony short called “The Old Mill” about a stormy, spooky night at an abandoned windmill, and a short segment with Mickey scaring himself. Next up is "Donald and the Gorilla," which is one of my favorites, then the great nightmare sequence from "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day" with heffalumps and woozles, as well as "Pluto’s Judgement Day" about Pluto, some mischevious cats, and some bad nightmares, “The Truth About Cats” from Disney’s Wonderful World of Color about cats being persecuted for superstitious reasons and the Salem Witch Trials, and, finally, the obnoxious "We are Siamese" from Lady and the Tramp.

This is where the Halloween Treat originally ends and the villain segment takes over. The Magic Mirror discusses a number of important Disney villains and how misunderstood they are. First up is a Captain Hook segment from Peter Pan, followed by the butler from Aristocats, the ending of Mickey and the Bean Stalks (another childhood staple) with the giant, Kaa and Shere Khan from The Jungle Book, the evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty, and a few brief clips of other villains.

The whole thing concludes with two older Disney cartoons. The first, “Lonesome Ghosts,” has Mickey, Donald and Goofy working in a Ghostbuster-style ghost hunting business. They are prank called by some ghosts, who "hire" them and then try to scare the living daylights out of them. The last one, my absolute favorite, is called “Trick or Treat” and features Donald and the three ducklings. Huey, Duey, and Louie are trying to trick or treat, but Donald nastily torments them. Witch Hazel comes upon them, and, taking pity, makes a powerful witches brew to transform their Halloween into something magical. And, of course, they get revenge on Donald.

If you didn't grow up watching this or watching lots of Disney films, you're probably going to be pretty bored. But if you're part of my generation, you've probably seen it a million times already. It's also great for people with young children, though unless they've seen all the Disney movies, they might be a little confused. I love it. It still makes me excited for Halloween and fortunately now it's much easier to find. It is available for purchase on VHS for a million dollars, on bootleg DVD, or you can watch the whole thing on Youtube. The Youtube link, which is in 9 parts, also has a link right under the video where the whole thing is available for download.