Way Bad Stone (1991) — Triskaidekafiles

WAY BAD STONE

WRITERS: Screenplay by Jan Kafka and Archie Waugh

Story by Jan Kafka

DIRECTOR: Archie Waugh

STARRING: Jan Skipper as Aladar
Lisa M. Gallao as Arith
Cory Boyas as Nico
James Thaggard as Wathan
Barrie Blankenship Maag as Phaedra
Steven L. Guthrie as Bane
Michael K. Maag as Jagadai
Archie Waugh as Spyder
Gregory Miller as Spar
Henry Lee Williford as Dirk
Janne as Razja
Bob Applegate as Syrus
Ken Kenoke as Ren
Patrick Byron Johnson as Trajan
Jeffrey K. Lee as Kreel
Richard L. Norris as Bjorn
Johnny Martin as Hawk

QUICK CUT: A day at the Floirda Ren Faire goes horribly wrong.

THE MORGUE

Aladar - A great wizard, who knows the importance of appearances. Overly sure of himself, while also seeking validation and love.

Arith - A young woman created by Aladar. She’s naive, gentle, and curious, but also holds a dark secret.

Phaedra - A minor enchantress who is hungry for power and seeks the Way Bad Stone for her own ends.

Bane - A thief and brigand who is in it for riches. A bit jovial, and always up for a bit of violence.

Jagadai - Another thief who has a penchant for spouting proverbs. Clever and able to manipulate others.

As opposed to Way Bad Stone: The Broadway Musical.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! This week is a bit of a departure from our norm, but not entirely out of pocket. Trisk does like to delve into fantasy from time to time, and when I heard about Way Bad Stone, it captured my attention. And I do love sharing low budget stuff y'all might be interested in. While this isn't strictly horror, there is plenty of horror adjacent things going on here.

The movie opens up with some narration setting the stage, that we are in the waning days of the rule of the "Red King" and his wizards and warriors are scattered across the land, as a great evil is lurking...

We then meet the great wizard Aladar, Dar to his friends, as he is preparing a great magic, that could have dire consequences.

Aladar uses his magics to create a beautiful woman, and bestows upon her a glowing stone that she wears around her neck, and seems to center her. Weird new take on Frankenstein, but I'm here for it.

From my heart and from my hand, why don't people understand my intentions?

He doesn't get much time to feel up his new love interest, as Aladar's two apprentices Nico and Wathan burst in, with a message from the Red King. Gondor calls for aid from Aladar, in a most urgent matter, so the wizard prepares to begin the long journey.

Before he leaves, he tells the boys to watch over the girl, Arith, and what to do should they have need of him while he's gone. They also take a moment to establish Aladar can summon the great warriors of the land using Chekov's chess set. But I'm sure everything will be fine!

As Aladar makes his way through the forest, he encounters a comely fortune teller. The mage is about to carry on his way, until he sees her, and decides to make the time.

Always thinking with his wizard’s staff.

The fortune teller tells Aladar something vague, and then they part ways. She meets up with two men, Bane and *checks notes* Jagged Eye? No wait, Jagadai. I am both impressed and annoyed with the spelling.

Anywho, this was all a plan, including the message, to get the wizard out of his lair. The fortune teller, Phaedra, used her magic to capture the wizard's voice, and they will sneak in and raid his stuff while he's gone.

They have to wait for nightfall, when they wizard will be far enough away, so we kill some time at the local Ren Faire...er, I mean, the camp of thieves and brigands.

Bane is largely interested in just whatever gold and valuables he can get his hands on to sell, but Phaedra wants the Stone of Mabrahor, presumably the titular "way bad stone".

So they break into the tower, and unfortunately, Nico and Wathan both die when they try to defend their master's shit. The group raid the place, as raiders do, but there is no sign of the stone. They eventually force Phaedra to leave empty handed, or risk getting caught.

Oh, right, they also find Arith, and not ones to waste a wench, they take her with them, to pass around the camp. Lovely.

After they leave, Wathan still has a bit of life left in him, and uses the Staff of Emergencia to alert Aladar to his home being broken into. Hey, it's the first house alarm system!

Back at the thieves' camp, Phaedra is going through their ill gotten gains, and she can sense the stone is near, and if only she could think to ask the girl wearing a stone necklace. Ah well!

Aladar returns home, finds himself robbed and short two manservants. He shatters his Franklin Mint collector's chess set, and summons the great warriors.

Which means we get a hilaaaarious montage of wacky situations the warriors are right in the middle of when the summoning compulsion kicks in. You can also tell the precise moment they ran out of wacky hijinks ideas.

It actually kinda bothers me, because it's not clear if this is a summons they are unable to ignore, and thus have all agency stripped from them in that moment as they drop whatever they're in the middle of doing at that precise moment. Or, is it just a magical nudge that tells them Aladar is in need, and they are free to come as they please, like some ancient agreement they're honouring.

Tensions are running high at the thieves' camp, as they try to decide what to do with the girl. Jagadai does his best to protect her from all parties, and the movie hints that she is exerting, possibly unknowingly, some will upon the people. Possibly even Aladar. This feels clearer in later scenes, but even then it’s presented as more like the people are guessing.

For now though, the forces of good gather so Aladar can tell them the stone of Mabrahor has been taken and they must get it back. Since they are all such great warriors, it shouldn't be difficult for their comparatively small numbers to stomp on the baddies. Great way to undersell any sense of stakes, but whatever. Anyways, the heroes are charged with protecting Arith, and leave the stone to Aladar to deal with.

Also, it's kinda like "Well, you used the important summoning spell to bring us all here, so we might as well do this thing. It would be a shame to waste the trip and inconvenience this caused all of us."

They try to keep things interesting by having a few of the heroes have some doubts over all this, and voice concerns that the wizard is hiding something, but it all doesn't really go anywhere aside from making sure it feels like they're not all a united front.

After the thieves camp has a debaucherous night of partying, the heroes arrive the next morning to kick off a massive battle.

In fact, the battle is so massive, it is pretty much the entire last act of the movie. Since it kicks off at this point, and is almost all dialogue free fighting for 20 or so minutes, until almost the end of the movie, I ain't gonna describe every last little flick of a knife or bow of an arrow. Instead, I'm just gonna treat y'all to a screengrab-a-palooza of highlights until actual plot occurs again

Don’t you hate it when you show up for the big battle, and someone is wearing the same dress?

Whomever can remove the axe from the face shall be rightful king of England

Possibly the funniest moment in the fight is when someone throws a punch, hits a tree, possibly by accident, and you can hear them mutter, "Ah geeze!"

After all...THAT and nearly every character dying in the fight, it comes to an end. And thanks to Aladar constantly shouting "The girl! Find the girl! The girl!" Phaedra finally pieces things together and realises the girl wearing a stone around her neck might have the stone. More like the stone of Made-a-whore, am I right??

Phaedra removes the necklace, and that turns out to be a way bad idea, as Arith transforms into a demon, presumably because Aladar summoned her and the stone kept her true form and nature at bay. Like a lot of plot points, it’s unclear if he knowingly summoned a demon that he contained, or if he thought he made a girl from scratch and the stone made her alive, or something.

Forsooth, doth thou think there be mead upon thy sun?

Aladar finally gets the stone back, after almost everyone is dead, and works on a ritual to rebind the demon, as the last few remaining cast members but he and the demon are finished off.

He does his best to turn her back into Arith, but one of the fallen heroes, with his last breath cursing at the wizard, breaks the magical circle, freeing the demon.

The demon uses the opportunity and kills Aladar before he can force her into a human form, and then proceeds to go out into the world, ending the reign of the Red King. So, the world was pretty much brought to an end because one wizard couldn't keep his staff in his pants. Great.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It looks pretty rough, since it was a low budget shot on video movie, but under the circumstances, it look decent enough. I feel like a lot of detail is lost that might have been nice to see, since the production values are pretty good. But, even though the fidelity is low, it otherwise looks fine.

Audio: Pretty low budget audio, but I’ll give it credit, if I can hear the guy going “Ah geeze!” when he punches a tree, it certainly could be a lot worse. There’s one scene towards the start of the movie where the music overtakes the dialogue that is really my only complaint.

Sound Bite: “We're already corrupt! We might as well have power!"

Body Count: Hey, there’s a demon and tons of death? That’s “horror” enough for me! Also, this movie might have the highest body count I’ve seen in…five years?

1 - 16:45 minutes in, and Nico gets a crossbow bolt to the gut.
2 - And Wathan gets marked with a sword as he tries to awaken X
3, 4, 5 - Rowsdower slices the guts of three goons attacking him

Aaand at this point the epicly long fight scene begins, so I might miss some deaths or get some details wrong. There is a LOT going on here.

6 - One of the brigands gets an arrow to the gut
7 - Another one gets a pike to the chest
8 - And another gets a fireball to the chest
9 - Rowsdower shoves another onto a broken branch
10 - Another gets his hand cut off
11 - And yet another is sworded in the gut
12 - Another brigand is killed
13 - Jagadai takes out one of the heroes
14 - Another of Aladar's forces is taken out by Bane
15 - Another brigand is gutted by the warrior woman
16 - Someone's head is crushed on a tree
17 - Another is slashed open
18 - Yet another has his neck snapped
19 - And then one is pitchforked
20 - Someone gets their throat ripped out
21 - One of Aladar's heroes is stabbed in the back
22 - And then he stabs his killer back with the same weapon
23 - Rowsdower stabs another in the gut
24 - Phaedra is ripped apart by Aerith
25 - Rowsdower and the Raj both stab Jagadai
26 - Then Raj gets crossbowed
27 - And then her killer is speared by Rowsdwoer
28 - Rowsdower gets accidentally killed when Aladar uses him as a shield
29 - Arith tears off Bane's scalp
30 - Demon Arith kills Aladar

Best Corpse: Bane’s skin being torn away is really well done, and very satisfying.

Blood Type - C+: Not overly dripping with blood, and a lot of the gags are pretty quick and dirty, but there are a few standouts, and some good blood gags here and there. And some extra points for that kickass demon makeup.

Drink Up! Every time Jagadai uses a proverb.

Movie Review: Well, you really can’t fault their dedication to the bit. They threw themselves into this project, and said it with their whole chests. It is almost the perfect example of “a group of friends want to make a movie” and used all their skills to do so, with bonus points that they’re nerds with a love of ren faires. The quality of costumes is great, and the special effects, from the magic, to the kills, and the demon, are all very well done. But while I DO like this, it is short on plot. It's really boiled down to "steal from the wizard, gather the heroes, fight scene until the end". But they give it their all, and even if it's just 20 minutes of fighting in the forests of Florida, you can tell they're having fun, and they actually succeed way better than you'd expect. These people put in the work, and while some of the fighting has moments where they’re playing it safe so no one gets hurt, that’s understandable and the fight choreography succeeds more than it fails. It may be too much fighting, but it’s fairly well done for this level of film. I think this movie happened at exactly the right time, when people could do something like this on their own, do it well, and before cheap digital computer effects, which would have taken away a lot of the movie’s charm. It’s a flawed movie, but effort and earnestness go a LONG way here, and this is clearly a movie where people knew what they wanted, and things just exceeded their ability to pull it off. A fun little fantasy movie, four out of five stones of Mabrahor.

Entertainment Value: Being light on plot does leave the movie feeling a bit flat at times, and I wish there was more meat on these bones, but it is still a lot of fun. The acting is better than expected, and the characters all have fairly distinct personalities, some of them actually very fun. Jagadai’s proverbs and occasional turns toward the camera with a “or is it?” kinda throwaway line are fun. The situations the heroes are in that get interrupted are amusing, and even if it’s long, the fight is a lot of fun to watch. The biggest problem with the movie is that there feels like a lot of lore that gets left on the table. Even just from this quick glimpse, this feels like a lived in world, with a lot of depth to it, that could have only enriched the story, fleshed things out, and made us care more about the characters. Some simple fun, but fun nonetheless, two out of five chess pieces.