Yor, the Hunter from the Future (1983)

It truly pains me to say I never got to experience the 80's.

Indeed, the 80's were a time when men were men, and action movies were still relevant and homoerotic. A homosexual man could literally jerk one off to all the best action movies, and that's because they starred men like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, shirtless and beating the fuck out of other shirtless ripply men. But when you couldn't afford Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger to be a shirtless fuck beater with an awkward accent, you had to turn to the to poor man's shirtless fuck beaters with awkward accents, and in the 80's, the poor man's shirtless fuck beaters with awkward accents were Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren.

Jean-Claude looks like he's a pretty awesome guy and Dolph totally looks like the second Super Saiyan form of Billy Idol, but I assure you, you will very rarely hear of either of these guys outside of a movie that wasn't universally panned by everyone who saw it. Still, somehow they continued to be relatively famous - I'll get to what it's relative to in a minute, I promise - and it could cost you a lot of money to hire them. Hell, I wanted to hire Dolph for a public appearance and this site says it'll cost me $5,000 minimum (people who want to get me something special make note of this). So, where do you turn when you can't afford the B-movie stars?

That's right, you turn to Billy Idol's first Super Saiyain form:

REB MOTHER FUCKING BROWN

The unsung hero of bad ass low budget action movies filled with ridiculous concepts, foreign screenwriters, and stock footage. The man never made it into mainstream movies, probably because he didn't have an awkward accent, but he certainly did manage to land roles in some of the most interesting and absurd non-pornographic films conceivable. His acting in Yor, the Hunter from the Future is significantly understated compared to his other films, as most of them feature scenes of him being completely buttfuck insane and yelling nonsense... but of course, I wouldn't want to give anything away.

So, dear reader, let us open and sniff the empty Slim Jim can of low budget 80's action together, as we dive into the prehistoric futuristic world of Yor, the Hunter from the Future.

Before we even start this movie, I want to note that it's never a good sign when your lead actor is out of costume on the DVD cover.



Reb has long hair in this movie and looks at least ten years younger than this. Just something I couldn't help but notice.

Our journey begins with our hero Yor hiking (walking briskly) through some mountains (medium height rocky outcrops) set to a lively pop tune someone was nice enough to write for the movie. Truly, the song defies all explanation, so I'll just let you listen in before I analyze what's going on.


(also available for download as mp3)

I wanted to analyze the lyrics but found it pretty impossible to tell what they were or if this song was even in English, so I had to ask the internet:

Yor's World! He's the man! Yor's World! He's the man!
Lost in the world of past, in the echo of ancient blast.
There is a man of future, a man of mystery.
No tribe to lead the way, in his search for a yesterday.
Misty illusions hiding, his famous destiny.

Yor, the touch of fire. Yor the proud and free desire.
He never sees the sun, he's always on the run, him and his days are gone.
They say he will go on, his search goes on and on.
Yor's World! He's forsaken the name! Yor's World! And the world was like fire!

He's gonna make all the wild things look tame tonight, in his fight!
Yor's World, he's the man! Yor's World, he's the man!

Yor's World! He's forsaken the name! Yor's World! And the world was like fire!
Yor's World! On the sun there's a soul! Yor's World! And the world was like fire!
Yor's World! He's forsaken the name! Yor's World! And the world was like fire!

Okay, so let's recap. Here's what we know about Yor so far from the opening scene of this movie, with zero events or dialogue to expound anything:

1. Yor owns the world.
2. Yor is the man.
3. Yor is lost in the world of past.
4. Yor is a man of future.
5. Yor is a man of mystery.
6. Yor has no tribe to lead the way.
7. Yor is searching for a yesterday.
8. Yor has a famous destiny and it is hidden by misty illusions.
9. Yor does not see the sun.
10. Yor is always on the run.
11. Yor's days are gone.
12. Yor's search goes on and on.
13. Yor has forsaken the name.
14. Yor is going to make all the wild things look tame tonight in his fight.

Noted. So the song ends on the word "fire" and the first scene of the film after the opening credits shows us... a torch. Very clever, movie. A group of tribesman is surrounding the fire thanking their gods for reaching fertile ground by picking up their children and hoisting them up in the air. I like where this is going, I'm already hooked!

We cut to an old man and a young woman, in traditional caveman rags, hunting in the woods with sticks with nooses on the end. The first thing I notice is that the old man appears to be someone who lives outdoors, covered in dirt and grime and generally sweaty, while the young woman looks prepped for a photo shoot. Immediately, I tried to fill in the blanks here. Maybe the old man is dirty because he's a man, and the women of these kinds of tribes don't do a lot of manual labor. One would imagine they mostly just have sex and give birth. But of course, that explanation doesn't work because the scene features the woman as being integral to the hunt. And even if all the women did was fuck and give birth, if they were fucking men like this guy, they would be dirty and grimy like this guy. So I guess we're going to sacrifice continuity for the sake of fan service.


The woman and the old man spot an appetizing baby triceratops in the brush, digging a hole, and the woman uses her amazing dog-catcher rod on it to wrap a loop of rope around its neck. Just when it seems all will be well and the tribe will have a bountiful feast of triceratops baby, a gigantic triceratops appears quite literally out of nowhere, presumably to defend her young. Helpless against the savage herbivore, the woman and the man grovel in fear until the hero of our movie, the mighty Yor, jumps in between them and the beast, entering the film with a, "YAAA LEAVE IT TO ME!" He proceeds to make that wild thing look tame tonight (in his fight) and stabs it in the face until it dies. Naturally, this draws quite the crowd and the whole tribe gathers around Yor. There are certainly ways I could convey to you how odd the part immediately following this is in writing, but after giving the matter a lot of thought, I decided that its bizarre brand of "what the fuck," could probably be better demonstrated by showing it to you in .gif form:


So after doing that - which I'm forced to assume he did out of jubilation for the delicious treat to come - he cuts open the beast and begins to drink its blood, because of course, "The blood of your enemies makes you stronger. heavymetalbill" The old man says he would rather stay weak, and thanks Yor for saving the girl. We learn her name is Ka-laa, and that the old man's name is Pag (for the record, I did have to look up how to spell both of those), and he has watched over Ka-laa since the death of her father. Pag remarks on Yor's gold medallion, and asks about its origins; of course, Yor has no idea where he got it, and he'll be damned if he's going to sacrifice the convenience of this plot to explain how the fuck that came to be. Suddenly an old guy that looks a lot like Gandalf and/or Dumbledore (I'll call him Gumbledorf) decides to interject that he has seen a medallion like this before, and that it was on a woman who lives among the desert people and, why the hell not, is the daughter of the gods. Next there is a short scene of Yor eating among the tribe while Ka-laa dances and makes extended eye contact with him, while some hairy purple-tinted morlock-men kill the village sentries and prepare to invade.

Ka-laa walks over and tells Yor how different he is from other men she's seen, an observation she will be repeating many times throughout the film. Quite suddenly and jarringly we see the leader of the hairy purple-tinted morlock-men watching from the darkness, and he commands a legion of hairy purple-tinted morlock-men to "kill 'em" with an unfathomably shitty audio dub. The morlock-men flood into the village while some kickass Star Wars-like orchestration kicks in. The leader of the morlocks commands them to kill all the men, and capture the women. After an odd fighting scene in which Yor hits several men with the blade of an axe that affects people like a blunt instrument, Yor knocks over the torch from the opening scene and lights the entire village on fire, because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Ka-laa screams Yor's name, fearing for his safety; apparently disregarding that she just met him, that her village and presumably her family is under attack, and that he just lit fire to everything. After that Yor flees the village with Ka-laa and Pag in tow, as the morlocks make off with all the village womenfolk. After getting a safe distance, Yor tells Pag he should go back to the village and check for survivors, and meet he and Ka-laa later at his cave. Damn what a player. I know where this is going.

So Pag goes back to the village to find the only survivor is Gumbledorf, and he is swiftly fading. Pag kneels down next to him, and Gumbledorf tells him that he should go with Yor, for that is where his future lies. Before he can explain how the hell he gathered that information, or how he managed to divulge all of it without opening his mouth, he dies.

After a padded and boring scene in which Yor and Ka-laa make conversation about how Yor is a man of mystery searching for a yesterday, Pag arrives at Yor's cave to find it empty. Yor and Ka-laa have gone for a little stroll, and from the ridge Pag sees them get attacked by... more morlocks! Yor is hit on the back by one of them, and he falls over on the ground, presumably unconscious. The morlock takes his medallion, and takes the woman for himself for the purpose of human sacrifice, as "the Gods must be appeased with fresh blood heavymetalbill" and orders two of his subordinates to stay behind and throw Yor off the cliff that this scene evidently takes place next to. Apparently taking a nap up until this point, Pag shoots one of the morlocks with an arrow, which causes it to spontaneously launch off the cliff. The other one manages to toss Yor off before running away. Next we're treated to a very pointless scene of morlocks eating large chicken legs and chasing captured women around their morlock cave with no real agenda.

Our hero wakes up, surviving a cliff drop that it was implied would be of a fatal height (otherwise, why would the morlock-men have bothered to throw him off instead of just smashing his unconscious face in?). Evidently being limp worked to his advantage, as he sustained no visible injuries, and climbs his ass right back up that cliff. To the film's credit, an obvious effort was made to compensate for how shitass absurd that is by having Reb put on his best "I think it might not have been a fart!" face while he does it. Once he reaches the top, he immediately lays down, either to get some rest or because he suddenly remembered he was thrown off a cliff. Pag rushes to his side, leaving me insatiably curious as to what exactly he was doing while Yor was unconscious, and for that matter, how long he was even unconscious for. The time of day hasn't changed and since Pag would have a lot of unaccounted dicking around time if we accepted Yor was unconscious for any significant span here, we're forced to assume that he wasn't, and he is actually Wolverine.

So he retracts his claws, and Pag tells him that the law of the land dictates that Ka-laa now belongs to the morlocks, for they defeated Yor in battle. Yor says TO HELL WITH PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE, LET'S GO RUSTLE UP SOME CATTLES. Then the camera zooms in way too close on Pag's face and he says "That way," indicating the direction of the morlock cave, information he ascertained in a scene I must have missed. This gesture seems like an odd leap in the conversation, and Pag was pretty easily convinced to forget about his laws and help Yor, wouldn't you say? Oh well! The duo aways!

We cut to the morlocks, who are determining who will get to keep Ka-laa as a mate by fighting to the death (which does not tie in very well with that "fresh blood" part from earlier, but whatever, guess we are going to ignore that). Pag and Yor have made their way to a ridge overlooking the scene, and then suddenly they are attacked by a Cliff Racer!


Pag warns, "A creature of the night! Stay low!"

Yor basically says "fuck that shit," and takes hold of the bow, taking the creature of the night down with a single arrow. The beast falls to the ground and... wait... what?


Oh man... you guys aren't even trying anymore are you? This early in the movie and you're going to pull this on me. Look at this thing. Can this even be considered a prop? Does this even count as a device of the film makers?
I like to imagine the scenario that resulted in this scene went something like this:
"We have to make a prop that can glide through the air. This is gonna be tough. Any suggestions?"
"Let's make a kite! Kites glide through the air!"
"Kites do glide through the air, but won't that make the scene where it falls to the ground make it look unsettling, stiff, fake, and terrible? Maybe we should design two separate props, or just come up with another method for filming this."
"HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA SHUT UP IDIOT. YOU'RE FIRED."

So anyway, back to the movie. Yor clubs a sentry above the cave to death with a club that he obtained off-screen. Meanwhile, the morlocks have decided a winner, but Ka-laa refuses his advances, so he smacks her in the face, and then... Yor hang glides into the cave using the corpse of the Cliff Racer, while the chorus from his theme song plays briefly.

Yor kicks some ass while some music that would probably fit a lot better in a military movie starts up. He grabs Ka-laa and makes his way around the cave until he locates a dam built at the bottom of one of the tunnels, which he of course, breaks. This of course floods the cave and drowns everyone inside it, including the captive villagers, in a rather drawn out and dramatic scene saturated with shrieks and cries of death. What a hero!

The trio is then shown hiking through the mountains (all wearing fur coats now!) while a pretty sweet orchestrated version of the film's theme plays, and Pag warns Yor that they are near the land of the Sand People, who worship the fire gods. Ka-laa then tells Yor that he shouldn't venture to find the daughter of the gods because she fears only bad things can come of it because of a dream she had and because she totes jealous. Yor says TO HELL WITH PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE, LET'S GO RUSTLE UP SOME CATTLES.

After walking for a bit Yor is attacked by men with flaming branches and napalm bombs, which they brandish at him until eventually deciding to (unconvincingly) capture him in a net. The daughter of the gods calls out "BRING HIM TO ME," and without further ado Yor is guided to her, and sees her medallion, identical to his. She explains to Yor that she also does not know, and she is not truly a goddess, but arrived in a time before her memory with several similar bodies frozen in ice. She also explains that those bodies frozen in ice is the desert people's main source of water (okay), her name is Roah, and that the Sand People believe in sacrificing all outsiders in order to sway the gods to stop the poisonous vapors coming up from the ground. Yor says they must escape and find the origin of their people, which I kind of figured was implied at this point. The desert people come in to sacrifice Yor, grabbing him by the arms and bringing him to an altar. If this movie has any degree of consistency, sacrificing to the gods actually means to make someone into a sex slave (since that's what the morlocks meant by it, apparently), and Yor won't have any of that business. He suddenly breaks free after exchanging some completely opaque expressions with Roah, and he kicks everyone's collective ass and makes off with her. They rendezvous with Pag and Ka-laa, and Ka-laa sees Yor carrying the other woman, looks jealous, signaling the beginning of a boring love-triangle subplot.

Later, we see the party has made camp. Ka-laa asks Roah who she is, to which she does not respond. Instead, we cut to Pag making a raft with Yor, saying, "We're going to need a lot more hemp before we're through." You said it buddy. They all sail down the river on the raft, and then suddenly we cut to Yor and Rhoa alone on the banks (this movie has a habit of completely forgoing the overrated idea of transitions). They exchange some deep and romantic dialogue in which she tells him she loves him like no other man before (which isn't very remarkable since we already know the only men she has any recollection of knowing are mute Sand People) and kisses him. Then, we go back to Pag and Ka-laa sitting by the fire. Pag explains that Ka-laa has no reason to be jealous for among their people a man has many wives. Ka-laa says TO HELL WITH PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE, LET'S GO RUSTLE UP SOME CATTLES and attacks the other woman with a knife (no really). Evidently, the morlock who won Ka-laa earlier is watching from the darkness, having somehow survived the flood. He starts laughing and Yor rushes to the scene, beating a lot more morlock ass, and executing another one of his signature drop kicks from a ridge, but without the corpse this time. Roah is clubbed in the head, and after Yor throws the morlock off a cliff (poetic justice?) he finds her dying on the ground. She says that suddenly, and for no reason at all, she remembers their race comes from a mysterious island, and she also suddenly and for no reason at all feels that Ka-laa should have her medallion despite the fact that Ka-laa just went stab-crazy. Roah says something that sounds an awful lot like, "kiss me awkwardly," which Yor indeed does, and then she dies. Kind of seems like they squeezed in this character's relevance and importance to affairs in the last few seconds of her life.

The original trio arrives at a beach, where the orchestration of the theme plays again. They set up another camp, (even though we have to yet to see any scenes that take place during the night) cook some fish over a fire, and then suddenly hear a roar and a woman screaming coming from a cave behind the beach! Yor tells Ka-laa to stay the fuck put (which she doesn't even pretend she's going to do), and they rush to the scene to find an odd dinosaur with a huge fin on its back attacking a young women and two children. In a shameless repeat of the scene from the beginning of the film, which was barely interesting to see the first time, they brutalize and kill the creature by basically hacking and slashing at its face in a manner that makes you think some action RPG video game developer made this part. After saving the family, they follow the family to their village. Yor observes their guards on the outskirts and asks, why the are watching the sky, to which one of the children replies far too abruptly "THEY ARE WATCHING FOR THE GODS."

Yor is told now by her father that now the woman he saved is his property, and he respectfully declines. One might assume its because that the last girl he was in love with just died, but he actually says its because Ka-laa is his woman, a development that happened quite alarmingly suddenly with no exposition whatsoever.

The man from the village explains to Yor (for some reason) that a strange object fell from the sky recently in the village, and they go take a look at it. The object is a little device that sort of looks like a headlight, and after deciding it is of no interest, they leave it be. Yor is told they have prepared a feast in his honor, and they go off to eat in a pretty inconsequential scene. Afterwards, Pag goes to look at the strange object, and it starts making some odd beeping noises reminiscent of a keyboard trying to sound like a theremin, and suddenly the village is bombarded with... lasers.

Yor, Ka-laa, and Pag run back to the object, and we discover it is a radio of some sort, and we hear some voice reporting "mission completed." Yor picks it up, calls it a DAMN TALKING BOX and then throws it down on the ground in disgust. The trio makes use of one of the village's boats to search for the island of Yor's origin. The boat is destroyed in a storm, but they all Yor coincidentally washes up on the shore of the island he was searching for, alone. Next, we see a dark room with columns, in which a hooded man (who is horrendously over-acting) is looking into a crystal ball at the scene unfolding. He sends a robot to investigate Yor's arrival, and before even stopping to think "whoa what is this thing," Yor knocks its head off with a rock. He is surrounded by more robots, who arrive from no where, and all simultaneously fire their lasers at him, something that apparently has the effect of knocking him unconscious.

A robotic voice tells the hooded man that there are two more intruders, and it also refers to him by the name that we'll come to know him as, Overlord. He sees in his super crystal future ball that Ka-laa and Pag have also coincidentally washed up on shore here somehow (together even), and demands they both be captured alive.

The pair see an ominous door begin to open on the side of the beach-side facility and take refuge behind some rocks, when a hand reaches out from a crevice and pulls them inside. The hand belongs to a pale faced man with slicked back blond hair, who explains to him that he is a friend and is completely trustworthy, which they accept without question.

Next, we see a blond woman hand a computer chip to one of the robots in a white operating room of some sorts, a scene which shows us that their hands are basically two-pronged claws.


This completely confounds me, because if you were really going to design a multipurpose robot, and you could give it any apparatus to use as a hand that you wanted, why the hell give it this? The robots have normal-shaped robotic hands on their other arms with normal shaped robot fingers, so what is the possible reason or advantage behind designing a fucking robot with this bullshit claw? What the fuck can this claw do that a hand can't? Maybe if it was a real claw that could fucking CLAW things but it can't even FUCKING CLAW THINGS.

An odd tube thing is uncovered from Yor, which automatically wakes him up. The blond woman tells him that she is a friend, that her name is Ena, that this is the land that he left as a child, that only the Overlord can release him, and that his medallion is actually a record of his life. She says his name is Galahad, and he is the son of the rebel Asgard, and that his
he came to live in the outside world because his father was banished, and their ship was destroyed.

Okay, wait, what. This movie is called Yor, THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE. It says on the back of the box he is trapped in prehistoric times. HE ISN'T EVEN FROM THE FUTURE? The story is he is an escaped rebel from a high technology island?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH

Next we see Yor watching videos of himself as a child while Ena provides commentary, and then the Overlord interrupts, commanding that Yor be freed. Yor is released from the table, and Ena leaves the chamber, but remains outside to eavesdrop. Yor and the Overlord exchange small-talk, and the Overlord explains that since he saw that Ka-laa had a medallion when she arrived on the beach, he will see what can be analyzed from it, and then kill Pag. Yor, super inconspicuously, leaves the room. The Overlord opts to ignore this (for plot convenience, I guess?), laughs, and disappears in midair.

Pag and Ka-laa discover that the blond man is part of underground secret society that is made up of the survivors of an atomic blast. Ka-laa runs away to go find Yor, and the leader of the society explains to Pag that now that the son of Asgard has returned, they will rise up against the Overlord. Next, we see the Overlord watching Ka-laa and Yor in his crystal ball, wandering aimlessly through his facility (the boundaries of his magic vision are never fully explained, if you were wondering) Ka-laa finds herself in a room of mirrors, which causes her to scream because HOLY CRAP MIRRORS OH NO and Yor hears her through the corridors and comes a-runnin. He finds her in the room, but they have a laughably hard time finding each other. I know the room is lined with mirrors, but come on, there is no god damn way it is this hard to fucking find someone.

After some inexplicable confusion, they finally grab hold of each other, and journey through the corridors back to the white operating room Yor awoke in, where he intends to show Ka-laa his past on the video screen. But the Overlord will have none of it. He comes in and explains to them (for some reason) his ultimate evil scheme, which is to use the genetic material of Yor and Ka-laa to produce a new "race" of androids to replace all humans on the planet (I guess it's earth?) and to replace his current androids which he considers "slow-witted." Not sure if the genetic material of these two is the best to turn to, but whatever.

He says Yor must inseminate Ka-laa, and then DIE. Yor and Ka-laa apparently agree to this with no contest, as next they are lying down on the operating tables, preparing for whatever odd procedure this movie had in mind for the insemination, when suddenly the rebels break in, lasers a-blastin, and the Overlord disappears again. Ena releases Yor and Ka-laa from their weird stasis (the nature of which is never explained) and more robot ass is beat.

THE TIME FOR THE REBELLION IS UPON US!! DAMN THE OVERLORD!! VIVA LA REVOLUCION####

Ena tells Yor that they are going to destroy the facility, and that he alone is responsible for carrying on their culture to the mainland, which doesn't seem a contrived way to bloat our protagonist's importance at all. Yor dive-rolls on the ground and grabs a laser, and begins shooting at robots, since apparently he knows how to use those now. Yor makes his way to the main reactor thing, but the Overlord retracts the bridge across the molten-whatever pit that it is (for some reason) held over. Yor takes the bomb and swings across on a wire that is conveniently hanging from the ceiling, but then realizes he's trapped when he sets the bomb on the other side. He tells the others to go on without him, and Pag says "hell nah!" and wraps his legs around the wire, swings over, and picks up Yor fucking trapeze style while hell yeah, the chorus from the theme song plays again.

The Overlord tries to run away, but Yor corners him with a laser, which he
discards in the spirit of fairness. Suddenly, the Overlord reveals his ultimate superpower we've been waiting to see this whole time, the reason he's the Overlord:


He raises up his hand and attacks Yor with... a bright light of some sort? Yor is stunned (he forgot to cover his eyes I guess) and the Overlord runs into an elevator to make his escape, but Yor impales him with a stick before the elevator starts moving, breaking it off in his torso. The team rushes to escape, and now even Pag is using lasers, which makes no sense at all, but whatever. Pag volunteers to cover the escape of the others, but is cornered by robots, and then suddenly, they all shut down, for reasons apparently related to the bomb which has still not exploded.

But wait, the Overlord has almost dragged his crippled ass back to his control panel. It's never explained how, but we learn that from there he can reverse everything our heroes have done and save his island! Could their efforts be for nothing? The explosion begins, and the Overlord dies in the heart of the island, feet away from his control panel. It's not really clear if it's from the stick in his torso or if it's related to the explosion.

Our heroes find a jet, an excellent means of escape, if they only had a pilot with them.




Wait? What? They can operate the jet!? How? You better explain this shit, movie. You better explain to me how they are flying this thing right now. Fucking anything.

Flying into the sunset... a narrator wrapping up and saying they lived happily ever after... wait. Are you seriously not going to explain how they're flying this thing to us at all?

NO

NO

FUCK THIS MOVIE