Awfully Good: The Beastmaster with Tanya Roberts

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

It’s been a hard week for fans of former Bond girl Tanya Roberts. In her honor, we look back at one of her most famous roles…

The Beastmaster (1982)

Director: Don Coscarelli
Stars: Marc Singer, Tanya Roberts, Rip Torn, John Amos

After they burn down his home and murder his dog, a warrior with a deep connection to animals seeks revenge on those who wronged him.

It’s like CONAN THE BARBARIAN meets DR. DOLITTLE meets JOHN WICK.

The first half of the 1980s was packed with classic sword and sorcery movies: CONAN THE BARBARIAN, DRAGONSLAYER, HAWK THE SLAYER, and KRULL, just to name a few. And while BEASTMASTER is definitely not the best of the bunch, it was the first I remember watching—probably because it played on TV constantly when I was a kid and my parents were like, “Oh, it’s PG and has animals. This is appropriate for our young child.”

Little did they know the effect Tanya Roberts in a loincloth would have on my life.

Spending all his time with animals left Beastmaster confused as to the proper way to greet a human woman.

Beastmaster! The self-described hero who has the eyes of an eagle (!), the cunning of two ferrets (!!), and the strength of a ~~blackface tiger~~ panther!!! The movie truly is as goofy as it sounds, but in a confident, mostly charming way. The cheese level is high, especially as the quality of the script dips low, but it manages to be entertaining throughout with decent production values and an epic score, a variety of action sequences and practical creature effects, and only the occasional head-scratching decision. What more could you ask for in your fantasy movie?

Well, maybe a protagonist that wears pants… And it’s not just the title character. I don’t know if the costume designer was trying to save money, but so many people in this movie (thankfully not Rip Torn) spend the majority of their screentime wearing embarrassingly little. I’m not a prude, but it was honestly distracting in some scenes when a camera angle would highlight just how nearly naked someone was (including the young child actor) or two people get in to a close quarters fight while almost Winnie The Pooh-ing. I can’t imagine that GOOD TIMES star John Amos was particularly happy about having both ass cheeks hanging out for the final act of this movie.

Tony the Tiger was canceled after footage emerged of the spokesanimal wearing blackface in his younger days.

The Beastmaster’s origin story is basic fantasy fare, if not a little convoluted. Stick with me now: An evil wizard learns through his team of trusty psychic witches that he will someday die at the hands of the King’s yet-to-be-born son. So to prevent this, he has a witch paralyze the king and his pregnant queen, transfer the baby from the mother’s womb in to a nearby cow, cut the cow open to retrieve the baby, brand the baby with a fiery symbol, and then attempt to murder the infant. (This seems like a lot of extra work when you could’ve just killed the pregnant mother while you had her incapacitated. Why bring an innocent cow in to all this?)

Luckily, a random passerby notices the commotion and rescues the child, taking the baby and raising him under the name Dar. Dar grows up in a peaceful village and eventually discovers he can telepathically communicate with animals. Life is great for the Beastmaster…until a tribe of murderous barbarians show up to burn down his village and murder everyone. Dar only survives thanks to his dying dog, who drags his owner’s body out of a fire to safety despite being shot with an arrow. That’s a good boy.

Armed with a pointy sword and a Caber (a much less cool version of the Glave from KRULL), he sets out on a journey of vengeance. Along the way he uses his animal ESP to team up with an eagle who can see really well, a pair of feisty ferrets who are good at stealing and chewing through things, and a panther, who is really just a tiger the production unsuccessfully tried to paint black. Together, they form an awesome team that brings justice to all the lands. Although mostly the animals are just there as indentured servants to continually save the Beastmaster from certain death. And once in a while, he ties the ferret to the eagle for maximum teamwork.

The all-ferret remake of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE was still better than MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE II.

However, the first thing the Beastmaster does with his new animal posse is use it to pick up girls, obviously. He spies a naked slave girl named Kiri bathing topless in a nearby lake and creepily watches her. He then has the ferret steal her clothes and the panther threaten to kill her so he can pretend to heroically fight it off. Then he forces himself on the poor girl, kissing her against her will and winking at the panther like he’s his furry wingman. Later on, he again forces Kiri to make out with him in exchange for agreeing to help her. Not a great look for our hero.

So the story is set in motion purely because he learns this slave girl he saw naked one time is about to be killed in ritual sacrifice and sets out to rescue her. There are some side quests and battle scenes, and of course Dar eventually gets a chance to get revenge on both the wizard that tried to abort him and the barbarians that murdered his village, but make no mistake about it—the main plot of BEASTMASTER solely exists because the title character wanted to get laid.

Beastmaster? More like Backscratcher, amirite? Hello?!

The film is directed by Don Coscarelli—yes, that Don Coscarelli of PHANTASM and BUBBA HO-TEP fame. There are definitely some scenes that venture in to horror territory where the filmmaker gets to shine, including a random interlude with a group of mutant bird people who suck a their victims literally bone dry, a fiery child sacrifice, and some spiky BDSM demon soldiers coming out of the castle walls. Honestly, the things that work best in this movie, or are at least the most memorable, is when the Coscarelli just gets weird with it. Which is ironically pretty much anything not involving the title character .

While the movie does have a lot going for it, I’m afraid the acting isn’t one of them. Marc Singer has the physical look for the title role, which is at least half the battle, but comes across a little awkward with both the fighting scenes (i.e. anytime he tries to unconvincingly swing a sword) and the dramatic moments (i.e. someone calling him a freak and he runs away to cry). He’s regularly outshone by the supporting cast, which includes COMING TO AMERICA’s John Amos and future FREDDY GOT FINGERED legend Rip Torn, who wears a ridiculous fake nose to highlight just how evil he is.

To his credit though, Singer did return for all three BEASTMASTER movies. That includes the sequel that sees Dar and friends follow his nemesis through a portal in to 1990s New York City, as well as the third film that teams B-Man up with both Tony Todd AND Casper Van Dien.

This daddy would like some sausage.

And of course no proper review of BEASTMASTER would be complete without singing the praises of the film’s true star, the late Tanya Roberts. Her beautiful redheaded slave girl was memorably very attractive and I’m sure awakened special feelings in an entire generation in the 80s. However, maybe it was the skimpy outfit, maybe it was her natural charisma, but despite not being given much to do as the damsel in distress, Kiri still manages to have an intangible magnetic presence in every scene, even moreso than the title character. All I know is that after watching this movie, I remember asking my parents for two things: to get me a ferret as a pet and to track down a copy of Tanya Roberts’ SHEENA for “research.”

Which brings me to my one real issue with this movie. So Dar is the secret long-lost son of King Zed. Along his journey, Dar meets a young boy who is the king’s son. The king’s son then tells him that Kiri is his cousin. Am I completely misunderstanding that or does this not make Beastmaster’s love interest his own cousin? They make a big deal out of the reveal at the end that Zed is Dar’s real dad and that he’s the rightful heir to the throne, but Kiri never comes up. It’s just a weird thing to arbitrarily mention once and then completely drop. Instead, our hero ends the movie making out with a member of his family as they set off together on further pantsless adventures.

The scene that launched a thousand awkward conversations. RIP Donna’s Mom.