Having been producing movies for over thirty years Charles Band doesn't hesitate to admit that a lot of his company's movies have basically started with just a poster image and a title and been built up from there. From his early days founding Empire Pictures to his dredges of recent Full Moon fare to call Band's efforts basic would be pretty polite. This is why The Dungeonmaster feels pretty high concept even if the execution leaves quite a lot to be desired. In fact, it's such a mess that maybe Charles should have stuck with his usual batch of killer puppets/dolls.

Intended as a sort of anthology flick, but really just an excuse by Band to give some unproven directors (most of who worked with him in other capacities) a taste of being behind the camera, The Dungeonmaster takes the most basic of premises and muddles the shit out of it. Originally titled Ragewar, and perhaps re-titled to appeal to the nerds caught up in the TSR fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons, this stars Jeffrey Byron as computer whiz Paul who we first meet during a pointless dream sequence where he's chasing a woman in a red dress through an abandoned factory only for her to be dragged away by some mutants.

After that, Paul does the usual things a geek would by messing around with his super computer Kal, changing traffic lights with a switch on his glasses, and arguing with his girlfriend Gwen (Leslie Wing) who dislikes how Kal takes up all his attention. That's about to change when they find themselves being pulled into a thinly-veiled version of Hell reigned over by the evil Mestema (Richard Moll). He's chained up Gwen and forces Paul to complete seven challenges to save both his soul and Gwen.

From there we cue up each different "challenge", which are really just brief sequences I suspect Band couldn't stretch to feature length, as Paul pinballs between each challenge and listening to Mestema babble on. Our first scene is just an excuse to have a laser fight with a stop-motion stone giant, there's a battle against some zombies (which actually look decent) and their troll king (who doesn't), a Band directed sequence where Paul basically takes on the heavy metal band W.A.S.P., wax figures of famous killers that come to life, an overlong slasher movie wannabe where he has to stop a killer from murdering Gwen within an hour, a super brief battle with a goblin, and some apocalyptic car chases against desert raiders that feels swiped out of Band's previous effort Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn. To say there's no flow to any of this would be an understatement - this literally just bounces around with no purpose.

As our hero Byron goes through the motions making macho poses while never really having any challenge thanks to his handy wrist computer. It's much the same role he'd had in the prior Metalstorm. Speaking of Metalstorm, Moll returns from that as well and looks pretty ridiculous in his long robes and slicked back hair - he'd eventually shave his head and score a reoccurring role on the sitcom "Night Court". He has the unfortunate task of spouting all sorts of nonsense while trying to look sinister and his entire speech about cat torture is quite bizarre. Wing as Gwen makes for eye candy and little else.

Given that there's seven directors credited and the framework this hangs on is rickety, The Dungeonmaster is only really notable for giving such B-movie names as stop-motion pro David Allen (who'd do the second Puppet Master flick as well), effects guy and sometime director John Carl Buechler (Troll, Friday the 13th Part VII), Subspecies creator Ted Nicolaou, and Peter Manoogian (Demonic Toys) early directing exposure. They'd all go on to work for Band again so, if anything, you have to give Charlie credit for keeping a core of people working for him. You can also get some cheap laughs from the W.A.S.P. sequence and be happy they've at least managed to wedge in some PG-13 nudity in the opening scenes. However, apart from this, there's really no reason to watch this unless, like me, you have memories of watching it on television back when you were a tyke. (Chris Hartley, 3/19/13)

Directed By: Rosemarie Turko, John Carl Buechler, Charles Band, David Allen, Steve Ford, Peter Manoogian, Ted Nicolaou.
Written By: Allen Actor.

Starring: Jeffrey Byron, Richard Moll, Leslie Wing, Gina Calabrese.

aka: Ragewar.