Peter Yates directs Ken Marshall, Lysette Anthony and Freddie Jones in this full on fantasy that wants to be a cheap Star Wars cash-in but plays as if HR Giger designed Lord of the Rings.

Krull is not a good film, it certainly does not entertain. I remember being thoroughly bored by it as a kid, apart from a set piece or two mainly involving a five blade frisbee type gidget (this universe’s lightsaber). And this revisit as an adult I found myself easily distracted again too, it was hard not to spend the entire running time checking emails on my phone. There were action beats which happened so fast (possibly due to budget or shoddy effects that would not withstand more than a milliseconds scrutiny) that even on a rewind I struggled to understand what the threat was and where it had come from. This aside there are campy pleasures too; Marshall is the spit of a young Chris Pratt and has maybe a fifth of his charisma, the cast list cherry picks from RADA to Carry On, and the FX are optimistically ambitious given their limitations. Also the moments when a breathy young Lysette Anthony runs around an alien prison palace seemingly made up of dedicated internal organs, populated by a beast seen only in jarring Lovecraftian reflections, have a haunting quality. As also does some plot wrinkles involving blank eyed doubles replacing key characters. Not very watchable aside from these stark images unless fantasy is your manna.

5