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Rating: 8.5 stars

All movies seen on 07/10/2011

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Tarkan and the Blood of the Vikings (1971)

Directed by Mehmet Aslan

Fantasy

Most recently watched by sleestakk

Overview

Features a mustached villain, who is the leader of a Viking clan that worships an octopus god-monster. The Vikings wish to kidnap a beautiful girl to sacrifice her to their demigod, but the heroic Tarkan, aided by his dog, Kurt, is there to save the day.

Length 86 minutes

Actors

Kartal Tibet | Eva Bender | Seher Seniz | Fatma Belgen | Bilal Inci | Can Kurt | Atıf Kaptan | Hüseyin Alp | Tarık Şimşek | Yusuf Sezer | Osman Han | İbrahim Kurt | Ahmet Koç | Ahmet Sert | Arap Celal | Muzaffer Cıvan | Yesim Tan | Refik Ansav | Deniz Çimenli | Oktay Yavuz | Kadir Kök | Tarzan Baba | Sonmez Yikilmaz | Nuri Balaban | Hayri Esen | Sadettin Erbil | Jeyan Mahfi Tözüm | Alev Koral | Timuçin Caymaz | Tijen Par | Erdoğan Esenboğa | Zafer Önen | Ayton Sert | Ayşegül Devrim | Ünal Gürel | Devrim Parscan | Hüseyin Özşahin | Kamer Baba

Viewing History (seen 1 time)

Viewing Notes

This is by far one of the best “bad” movies I have ever seen! Based on a popular Turkish comic book, Tarkan revolves around our titular hero and his ‘wolf’ Kurt’s attempts to first protect, and then rescue, Ghengis Khan’s daughter from a group of evil Vikings (who are accompanied by the Chinese Emperor’s daughter and her retainers).

It sounds goofy enough as is, but then throw in a giant, hilariously fake octopus that the Vikings sacrifice victims to; the fact that the Vikings are all clothed in velour in place of fur (and in all sorts of unnatural colors, like light blue and pink) and sport some seriously epic wigs and fake mustaches, and it goes from average Z-grade goofy to just plain nuts.

There’s plenty of pillaging, raping and killing in masterful scenes of violence that are so bad that they’re laugh-out-loud great! I can tell you that I wouldn’t normally laugh so hard as to have tears in my eyes when a baby, carried by her mother, gets whacked by a Viking axe, but here that’s the response. The battle scenes are so unrealistic that you don’t have to worry about them being the least bit serious.

This was one of two movies on a single DVD double feature from Mondo Macabre. If you like trash cinema like I do, I cannot recommend picking up this disc enough. It’s worth every penny you spend on it and then some (you can also get the disc from Netflix if you’re so inclined; that’s how I got mine).

Sadly, it’s the only Turkish Pop Cinema release from Mondo Macabre, and a quick search of the Internet hasn’t really turned up any other promising discs released here in the states.

If anyone knows how I can lay my hands on more Turkish movies from the sixties through the eighties, let me know!

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