This poster by the late Jeffery Jones is a pretty sweet image for a pretty sweet movie. Dragonslayer was a neat little mini-epic with outstanding special effects, even by today's standards, and an above average story of an apprentice dragonslayer having to fend off not only the monster but an entire village to boot.
The movie loses its way a bit in the spectacular ending which while visually compelling is at odds in tone to the rest of the movie, a bit too high octane.
Vermithrax Pejorative, the dragon remains the best evocation of a dragon on the screen that I've ever seen, and that's saying something given the advances in special effects since that time.
Here's a sketch Jones made as he constructed the poster.
Marvel adapted this movie with art by Marie Severin, and the cover above by Earl Norem is effective if not especially opulent.
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I remember my parents dropping me off a couple of weekends in a row to see this when I was 10 or 11. The scene where she finds her babies dead still haunts me. I've never revisited it as an adult for fear of "tarnishing" it.
ReplyDeleteI get that. I've spoiled a few childhood memories by seeing movies again.
ReplyDeleteBut I have to admit that the special effects hold up. I was bothered then and now by the way the dragon's flying seemed like an airship sometimes and not an animal, but that's been a problem right along.
Reign of Fire which has another outstanding dragon suffers a bit of that too.
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