Steven Kostanski is Reviving The Sword and Sorcery Genre with His Take on Deathstalker
Daniel Bernhardt in Deathstalker.
Once a staple on the shelves of every Blockbuster Video, the sword and sorcery films that thrived throughout the ’80s have largely faded from the mainstream. But with Deathstalker, Canadian filmmaker Steven Kostanski is reviving the genre on his own terms. Known for his cult favourites PG: Psycho Goreman and Frankie Freako, Kostanski is bringing his take on the epic fantasy genre to the Calgary International Film Festival this September.
Deathstalker.
His reimagining of the Roger Corman–produced 1983 cult classic, Kostanski’s Deathstalker promises to be a monster-filled, action-heavy adventure. In the latest addition to the franchise (which has been dormant since 1991’s Deathstalker IV: Match of Titans) Deathstalker is played by Daniel Bernhardt (John Wick, The Matrix Reloaded), an amulet-cursed warrior battling assassins and dark magic in the Kingdom of Abraxeon. While the plot sets the stage for a fantasy epic, for Kostanski, the appeal lay in the creative freedom of the series. “It was really an excuse to indulge in fantasy aesthetics that I hadn't been able to indulge in since the early [Astron-6] days,” he said. “It's very much Deathstalker traveling through the Steve Kostanski monster universe.”
His desire to re-imagine the franchise was also a response to the wider landscape of fantasy film. He saw a distinct gap in modern cinema, especially post-Lord of the Rings, “everything either had to be a huge, big budget blockbuster or it just didn't exist,” he said. With Deathstalker he’s hoping to return to the feeling of the Corman-produced fantasy era, “they were very much low budget films, and [the series] were a playground for each director to just make the movie they wanted to make.”
For Kostanski, there’s a thrill in tackling the kind of filmmaking few others are attempting, creating a high genre film on a tight budget. “I mean, it felt like nobody was really attempting to make a movie like this…the idea of making a fantasy epic in Northern Ontario certainly seems like just a flat out dumb idea on paper,” he said with a laugh. “But that's part of why I gravitated towards it. This feeling of like, ‘you're not supposed to be doing this’ just pushed me to want to make it even more.”
Kostanski’s approach takes his favourite aspects of each of the films in the franchise, with a darker backdrop reminiscent of the first, paired with the lighter, more playful energy of Deathstalker II. “I love Jim Wynorski as a filmmaker. I think he's one of the greatest. He's made some of my favourite movies… I just wanted to capture a bit of that whimsy that he brought.”
He feels no desire to rework past films, but instead remained focused on making his own unique entry into the franchise. “I didn't feel beholden to too much of the Deathstalker lore. I'm very interested to see what fans come out of the woodwork and criticize me not adhering to some kind of carved in stone rules of the Deathstalker universe.”
His film brings in actor Daniel Bernhardt to take on the mantle of Deathstalker, a choice Kostanski said helped bring the project to life. “He just elevated everything because he's coming from a more Hollywood perspective than me, I'm coming from a shooting movies in my parents garage perspective,” he said. “Those two worlds colliding led to some very interesting things, and I think made the movie as crazy as it is. It's a really ambitious film. And even though [Bernhardt] and I are from two different worlds, I think we're totally on the same page about just making the best thing we possibly could with the resources that we had.”
For fans of Kostanski’s work, there is a full bestiary to be found within the realm of Deathstalker, as the film is packed with puppets and practical effects, “reality doesn't interest me that much, the idea being able to just build my own universe from the ground up, was maybe the most exciting part of this, because I could just populate it with whatever kind of insanity I could come up with.” This includes a compendium of creatures made with both practical puppetry and stop-motion. “I would hope that wherever Ray Harryhausen is right now, if he's looking down on this movie, he's smiling a little bit because it very much a tribute to him and his stop motion work.”
As much as Deathstalker is a tribute to the cult film-franchise, it’s unmistakably a Kostanski film: “all my movies are ultimately about friendship and family. There's some nice hugs in the movie. I'll put it that way.”
Deathstalker will have its Alberta premiere at the Calgary International Film Festival on September 25. There will be a second screening at the Chinook Cineplex on September 28. Tickets are available at www.ciffcalgary.ca.