BEASTMASTER 2: THROUGH THE PORTAL OF TIME (Sylvio Tabet, 107 min, color, 1991)
What’s Happening: Dar must seek and destroy his evil older brother
Famous For: Dar visits 1991 Los Angeles
Here comes a surprisingly fun sequel to the hit 1982 Beastmaster. It’s actually a new movie inspired by the first one, rather than a sequel, since it doesn’t connect plotwise and feels completely different.
The main difference is camp – on purpose. Perhaps by 1991 it was clear that the purposefully campy 80s fantasy films (like Sword and the Sorcerer or Deathstalker II) were the best ones.
So within minutes, the jokes are a’flying. The running joke is Dar the shirtless straight man (Marc Singer reprising his most famous role) paired with a wisecracking fun-loving Valley Girl from 1990s LA. The bad guys (the main evil wizard plus his evil witch companion) seem eerily at home in LA, and perhaps not unrealistically.
As viewers before me have pointed out, the story really has dimensional travel rather than time travel. We are told that the “dimensional portal” opens to “a world that exists on a parallel plane with our own.” The bad guys pop through to steal a neutron bomb. “What a brilliantly barbarous concept!”
The evil wizard is the usual gloating powermonger common among fantasy villains, but Wings Hauser (most famous for TV roles) gives him more flair than most. He wields the Key of Magog which can shoot green beams of force. The witch is obviously out for herself more than anyone else, but Sarah Douglas (Superman II) makes her somehow likeable. Kari Wuhrer (Eight Legged Freaks) is charming as the Valley Girl heroine, and James Avery (many TV roles) has a small role as a grumpy police captain. Michael Berryman pops up at the coda.
Flaws are easy to find. Many action sequences are poorly shot. Some effects, like the green or yellow beams, are cheap. Plot contrivances are everywhere, especially in the overlong second half. At 39:45 you can accidentally view the tent that shields the camera crew.
Everyone’s favorite goof comes at the closing credits: Dar is running toward the sunset, but neither the ground nor the sun moves, so it’s really just a background painting, and Marc Singer is running in place.
But Beastmaster 2 never pretends to be serious. It references itself at 105 min on a theater marquee. The animals, especially the tiger, are on screen a lot.
Producer-director Tabet was one of the co-producers of the original 1982 film and the later TV series. Jim Wynorski wrote the first draft of the screenplay and was first slated to direct. It’s under debate how much of his ideas made it into the final film.
Action: 8. Gore: 6. Sex: 6. Quality: 6. Camp: 6.
Don’t miss: Lots of genre film references
Notable boast: “My dear, I am the most powerful man on Earth.”
Article text copyright 2026 David Elroy Goldweber. Date of post May 2026.
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