Deathstalker and the Joy in Resurrecting ‘80s ‘Cash-Grab Fantasy Movies’

It was not a question for writer-director Steven Kostanski about what movie he wanted to make next. It was a calling, or perhaps a prophecy written in the stars, when the Canadian filmmaker—and genre necromancer of old school creature features like Psycho Goreman and The Void—was invited to peruse a catalog of old Roger Corman titles that were about to have their rights optioned off.

Corman is of course the legendary director and producer who defined independent genre filmmaking for multiple generations in the 20th century. He also was visionary enough to see the appeal in producing, importing, and dubbing movies of a similar vintage (but perhaps less beholden to American mores toward standards and taste). In other words, he gave the world movies like Deathstalker, the 1983 Argentinian fantasy flick about a lone warrior sent by a witch to steal a sword of great power from a wicked king and sorcerer. And even before finishing his own future cult classic, Psycho Goreman, Kostanski was eager to see if this cultiest of cult relics was available for exhumation.

“I went right through the list and I went right to the ‘D’ to find Deathstalker,” Kostanski tells us when we catch up with him at Fantastic Fest. “I have a fondness for the Deathstalker franchise. I like the idea of adding to that universe because it’s such a budget, throwaway universe. It’s not Conan; it’s not Sword and the Sorcerer; it’s not even Krull. It is just this cash-grab franchise, and while there’s a lot of love and reverence that has grown for it over the years, it is a pretty obscure franchise. And I thought ‘oh this will be a fun sandbox to play in.’”

It’s a sandbox that also captures the imagination of fantasy nerds of a certain age—or at least those with a vintage sensibility. For Kostanski’s part, he fondly remembers days on the playground where he first heard about Deathstalker from a friend whose older brother let him watch all the inappropriate stuff. That buddy would reenact all the R-rated movies for young Kostanski, and as a child he would become absolutely petrified at the prospect of the mighty Deathstalker and his enemies of the dead.

“As a kid I was kind of scared of this movie Deathstalker,” Kostanski recalls. “That’s the movie with all the sex and violence and is so adult. As a kid, I couldn’t even wrap my brain around it, but then watching it as a teen, it’s like ‘yeah, it’s excessive but I can handle it.’”

Yet it is that childlike wonder which Deathstalker (2025) seeks to evoke with a nudge and a wink. In the new film, cult action star and real-life martial artist, Daniel Bernhardt (of Bloodsport 2  and III fame) takes on the role of the Deathstalker, who is still a lone warrior with even more luxuriant hair. But now he is also slightly aware of the joke as he goes on a quest that leads to him partnering with a young thief (Christina Orjalo) and a Yoda-sized wizard named Doodad, who is physically played by actor Laurie Field but voiced by Patton Oswalt.

While the image of Doodad riding on Deathstalker’s back as they travel among eastern Canadian forests evokes Star Wars, everything else has a wonderfully low-rent quality more apropos for the filmmaker of Psycho Goreman, or those with the most faded of memories of the three-bladed sword in The Sword and the Sorcerer.

“There’s Krull, there’s Sword and the Sorcerer, there’s Conquest—Fulci’s Conquest was a big reference for me, but then there’s some ‘90s stuff as well,” Kostanski says. He muses he even accidentally remade Krull just by virtue of both that ‘80s film and his own 2025 flick pulling from Dungeons & Dragons formulae. “Also ‘90s shows,” he adds, “like Xena and Hercules. I want to represent multiple eras of fantasy and not just stay in this box of the Deathstalker franchise.”

Such nostalgia also brought Kostanski toward Bernhardt as his star. Without auditioning the veteran action performer or talking to anyone else, Kostanski approached Bernhardt directly with an offer to lead the film due specifically to the filmmaker’s fond memories of the Bloodsport sequels, as well as ‘90s syndicated TV curio Mortal Kombat: Conquest where Bernhardt starred as Siro for 22 episodes.

“I got a call from Stephen, pitching this,” Bernhardt tells us, “and he goes you can run around in tight pants and high boots, a cutoff shirt, and long hair and a scar, and fight monsters. And I was like ‘this is incredible!’” Like many actors in the genre space, Bernhardt was an admirer of Kostanski’s handmade aesthetic on movies like Goreman and The Void. But he also seemed genuinely touched that such a distinct filmmaking voice treasured Bloodsport III and the Mortal Kombat TV show. Bernhardt has worked steadily since then, including appearing in iconic modern action franchises like John Wick, Guardians of the Galaxy, and The Matrix. However, Deathstalker represented a chance to once again be a leading man.

Says Bernhardt, “All the years in-between, and all the experience that I had, I put all in Deathstalker.”

For Kostanski’s part, it was a dream come true to have “Daniel beating the shit out of my rubber monsters.” He even cites it as a peak for his brand of filmmaking. “I wanted to inject as much of his personality into the character as possible. I wanted it to be Daniel Bernhardt’s Deathstalker, not him playing one of the previous iterations of it. His experiences as an actor, as a stunt performer, action choreographer, all of that informs the character and makes him wholly unique to me…. It was about taking everything Daniel brings to the table and making this Dan-Stalker instead of Deathstalker.”

Such an approach led to moments neither will forget, such as fellow cult favorite filmmaker Chris Nash (director of In a Violent Nature) operating a giant puppet wraith and having it thrash about with Bernhardt on the set. 

“He was in a full black morph suit with a pull, flying this wraith around,” Kostanski laughs. “It was like the most budget thing.”

It’s also about a million miles from what fantasy has become to modern viewers inundated with magnificently budgeted productions like Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones.

“I feel like right now most of what we have in the fantasy realm is stuff like Rings of Power and House of the Dragon, which are like huge-budget things where you’ve got scenes of thousands of guys fighting,” the writer-director considers. “I knew we would never have that, so I wanted to lean into the more budget stuff, because I felt like that was the kind of ingenuity that would help make this movie fun and make it what it is.”

And the fun of that is what Kostanski, Bernhardt, and the whole team are trying to conjure up, like the sorcerers of yore.

Says the director: “The fact they clearly didn’t have any money [back then] certainly gave it some flavor. It’s clearly just cashing in on Conan the Barbarian’s success, but a lot of fun imaginative things come out of that… out of that capitalist logic of ‘oh this is successful, let’s make something like that,’ it’s an excuse for filmmakers to play and use their imaginations, and because it’s low-budget they have a little more space to mess around.”

Deathstalker is messing around in limited release right now.