Dragonslayer (1981) – 4K Ultra HD + Digital Code
Note: all framegrabs were sourced from the 4K UHD disc
****/**** Image B- Sound A+ Extras A+
starring Peter MacNicol, Caitlin Clarke, Ralph Richardson, Chloe Salaman
screenplay by Hal Barwood & Matthew Robbins
directed by Matthew Robbins
by Walter Chaw When I first reviewed Matthew Robbins’s Dragonslayer upon its DVD release 20 years ago, I said the picture could be read as an allegory for the passing of the 1970s and, with it, the auteur-driven New American Cinema, which was losing favour to the blockbuster mentality that dominates Hollywood production to this day. The directors were the wizards, tied to their decrepit and pain-ridden dragons, and they were, in 1981, up against the reality of an administration perpetuated by a myth of American exceptionalism that would serve as a course correction from the predominantly downbeat, paranoid films of the previous decade. I don’t know that I’ve gotten any smarter in the years following my initial assessment of a work that has been dear to me since I saw it as a terrified eight-year-old, cowering beneath my seat in the long-defunct and paved-over Lakeside Twin, but I do know I’ve gotten measurably more pessimistic about our prospects. I think you can know things are broken when you’re young (and 29 didn’t seem so young at the time, but it is) without knowing how irreparably broken they are. And you can feel hopeless without knowing just how hopeless. When I watch Dragonslayer in 2023, I see a work about the rise of Christofascism and the prosperity gospel, about governments we trust to protect us making deals with monsters to enrich and empower themselves at the expense of the people who rely on them, and about the steady eradication of belief that there are any heroes left with the will or the wherewithal to save us.