Now THAT is a movie poster.

Warlords of Atlantis

Welcome to the New Year! Kind of feels like a lazy Saturday afternoon to me today, so I am going to reproduce a lazy Saturday in front of the TV. We have a stunning copy (looks restored or something) of Warlords of Atlantis from 1978 and as a bonus I threw in an episode of Thundarr the Barbarian, one of the weirdest limited animation cartoons to come out of the early eighties. And that’s saying something.

Warlords of the Deep sure looks like a Hammer film with some amazing split screen/stop motion thrown in – but it isn’t a Hammer film. Director Kevin Connor worked extensively at Pinewood, performing editing and cutting his teeth on directing so the influence is clear: It has all the bright colors and vintage costumes of a Hammer film. But special effects wise, this is a big step up from anything Hammer could accomplish. EMI ended up bankrolling this film.

Trivia! Doug McClure, the stylish American actor, worked with director Kevin Connor on three other adventure films. Must have been a great partnership for both of them. This included The Land That Time Forgot (1974), At the Earth’s Core (1976), and The People That Time Forgot (1977). All of those are Saturday afternoon classics.

So what is Warlords of Atlantis about? From IMDB:

Searching for the lost world of Atlantis, Prof. Aitken, his son Charles, and Greg Collinson are betrayed by the crew of their expedition’s ship, attracted by the fabulous treasures of Atlantis. The diving bell destroyed, a deep sea monster attacks the boat. They all are dragged to the bottom of the sea, where they meet the inhabitants of the lost continent, an advance alien race that makes slaves of the ship-wrecked sailors. The aliens want to rule the human world to create a Nazi state.

…And hilarity ensues! The undersea dwellers seem to all have helmet haircuts and the monsters are uncommonly good. Overall this is an enjoyable romp with a decent plot and as usual, somebody trying to conquer the word. I personally don’t remember anyone talking about a Nazi state in the film, I think this is editorializing from IMDB. It’s just the standard world-conquering/W.E.F. stuff. If anything, it shows the struggle of ordinary people against scientific elites, which is what we deal with on a daily basis now.

So watch! Or don’t! Everything is voluntary! Next week we have a Jess Franco spy film classic, Attack of the Robots! I hope you had a great New Years’ celebration! Remember, put down the bottle of Vantablack pills until at least March.

Bonus!

Thundarr the Barbarian: Harvest of Doom Digging some Thundarr? There were two seasons of this, both on Tubi. This is from early in season one.