Boy oh boy. When you see a film as laughable as this one, you know there must be a hell. Yes, we're back in dodgy Italian barbarian film territory, where well-oiled beefcakes duel with rubber swords against helmet-clad stuntmen who die without being touched. Obtrusive music lurks behind every corner, as our badly dubbed hero must rescue the princess from a fate worse than.. watching this movie again? He must follow the ancient prophesy of marrying her and sitting on the legendary Throne Of Fire before the day is out, otherwise.. THE WORLD IS DOOMED!! DOOMED, I tell ya!! Unfortunately, he proves to be rather inept at his job.. getting captured no less than three times and wasting the spell his dad gives him that makes his body invisible and invulnerable to everything (except fire, conveniently). Some 'hero'. The princess, on the other hand is far more impressive.. she can butt-kick for fun and finishes the film without a scratch on her, despite the fact she is only dressed in a bra and loincloth 95% of the picture. Meanwhile, an eclipse that looks suspiciously like a raisin held up against a light bulb tells our protagonist he is nearly out of time, so he must hurry.. it won't be easy, with all those boom mikes to dodge. Can he make it? Who cares, quite frankly. I'm more interested in the mindset of those who would waste their life watching this kind of nonsense in the first place. (Don't worry about me, I've already gone mad..) And if all that still hasn't put you off, get this.. Our muscular, tough-as-nails lead character's real, non-acting first name is.. PETER. I shall now close this review, because if you're anything like me, you'll spend the next 5 minutes in hysterics. In fact, I can feel them come on again.. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA etc. 2/10
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This cheapjack Conan rip-off is so mightily inept that the villain actually comes off appearing more sympathetic, interesting and intelligent, not to mention handsomer, than the hero. Surely this was an unintended consequence of the poor script and bad acting, the seemingly lumbering stupidity of the wooden muscle-bound hero and the obligatory trotting around cardboard sets in g-strings by these supposedly heroic do-gooders. This makes the Conan and Beastmaster films look like Ben-Hur and El Cid in comparison. The only (accidental)redeeming feature is the striking presence of Harrison Muller, Jr. as Morak a surprisingly appealing "bad guy." Both his person and his character stand out, perhaps largely due to the colossally boring nature of those around him. It's hardly his fault that he was warped by destiny as the plot would have it...the viewer can't help but root for him to succeed since he's the only one of any interest or appeal on scene.
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kosmasp22 August 2017Watching this I got reminded of my childhood and how I loved watching these types of movies. Swords and sandals I think they are called, with a touch of fantasy. And then I thought my childhood was all a lie. How could I have watched this and think this is any good? But reviews in general here have proved that this obviously is one of the weaker efforts. Apart from one praising this as being better than LotR - pure magic, especially because in no way is this explained. Not that you could explain it and sometimes you go with your gut feeling. But if you want to compare this with a "big budget" movie take Army of Darkness, not LotR which even if you don't like it plays in a different ballpark altogether.
Another reviewer of course, how many times can the hero of the movie be captured? The answer lies within this film. If that resembles to anything that makes sense for you: good for you. Just don't expect the majority to get it. Even when the movie tries to defend it at every way possible. "Stunts" are as if they were from a different era. When you could spot the stunt man doing the back-flips. It has its charm I guess. But there are a lot of other problems too. The inability to act, the script that if it even existed, is as terrible at dialog as it gets. You could go further and accuse this of sexism (more on the women side, but men get a bad rep from this too) and many other things. Prop swords that bend on papier-mache walls and so forth ... I'm beginning to wonder why I gave it a 2 right now ... but I guess I'm still a sucker for this -
BandSAboutMovies2 February 2019We're barely five minutes into The Throne of Fire when one of the main characters promises his mother that he will live up to being Satan's son by massacring women and children. Yep. I'm sold. Let's do this - a rare sword and sorcery film with a female central character, in this case, Princess Valkari who is played by Sabrina Siani . Ms. Siani may be best known to maniacs like me for playing Oncron in Lucio Fulci's fog-drenched barbarian saga, Conquest.
Director Franco Prosperi probably made this at the same time as Gunan, King of the Barbarians, as he recycled much of the cast, including Pietro Torrisi who plays Sebastian here.
Everyone is battling Mora, the son of the devil's messenger Belial, who wants to sit on the throne of evil on the day of the night in the day. Modern people would refer to this an eclipse. But if he doesn't marry the princess first, he'll die.
Luckily, Sebastian has similar powers and can also turn invisible, so he's on hand to help the princess. There's also a Well of Madness and lots of people get to sit on the Throne of Fire, which makes them go up in flames. Perhaps you'd not want to sit on said chair.
Will you like this movie? Well, that depends. How well do you do with Italian barbarian movies? Are you a red blooded heterosexual man who would like to watch Sabrina Siani? Are you a red blooded homosexual man who wants to watch men go bare chested? Do you want to watch lots of people get immolated? Then hurry on down to The Throne of Fire! -
Peter McCoy (Pietro Torrisi) who also starred in the similarly themed Sword Of The Barbarians and The Invincible Barbarian appears here in this tale of swords, sorcery and ominous prognostication.
In it he plays Siegfried, a mightily muscled hero who is predestined to challenge Satan from attaining mastery over the earth, a feat that the dark one can (luckily for us) only achieve during a solar eclipse and whilst sitting on the magical 'Throne Of Fire' of the films title.
OK so the film isn't going to win any awards for ingenious plot intricacies but in this genre what can one expect?
As it is, the film is actually mildly enjoyable and even has a few decent scenes on offer (the 'Well Of Madness' being a particular stand out), plus there's some rather energetic sword fights on display from our oiled down hero (who looks a fair bit like fellow B movie action star Jeff Wincott!)
Always a plus in my book, this also stars regular Italian sword and sorcery sex symbol, Sabrina Siani who as usual looks absolutely gorgeous!!!
On the downside however, the movie does tend to drag a fair bit throughout, especially during the scenes when our hero is captured....in fact our hero seems to spend the entire film alternating between getting captured and then staging daring escapes! Oh well.....
Overall, if like me, you enjoy these types of films then I'd certainly suggest you give this a try. It's actually not half bad and is certainly infinitely better than most modern takes on the genre. -
drahcir-229 October 2000If you are like me...you don't mind spending a Saturday watching a poorly made movie with swords, magic, and beautiful leading ladies. The Throne of Fire is just such a movie.
The plot is basically good vs. evil. Satan's messenger and a witch have a son and he is raised believing no one can oppose him. He sets out to rule the kingdom. In order to sit upon the Throne of Fire (made by the Norse god Odin) he must be a rightful heir to the throne and sit upon it first on a solar eclipse. To obtain the right to the throne he kidnaps the princess of the kingdom and forces her to marry him. However, the good-guy barbarian Conan wannabe is there to try to save the day.
Plenty of sword fighting ensues and some pretty bad special effects. In my humble opinion this movie was too long and not worth much to anyone unless you enjoy the genre. The leading lady (Sabrina Siani) is indeed beautiful and I will try to find other movies of hers. Look for errors in this movie such as the Christian wedding ceremony in a Norse Barbaric period. -
buchass28 September 2005I'm a big fan sword and sorcery, and Throne of Fire in spite of being an extreme ultra low budget, i give him a reasonable 5 stars. "Throne of Fire", "Il Trono di fuoco" or even "O Trono de Fogo", its a European (special Italian) "Z" sword and sorcery\barbarian flick, like many others ("Sangraal, la spada di fouco", "Gunan il Guerriero", "Sorceress", "Ator 1 and 2", "Deathstalker", "Ironmaster" etc, etc...), full of bad actors, bad script, special effects and soundtrack, but this one, i don't know why, its enjoyable to me see it. I recommend this one for big, big fans of sword and sorcery flicks only..
But one thing i must say, this one is much better then the films i refer before, with the exception of "Sangraal la spada di fuoco". In "Throne of Fire", we have the amazing Siegfreid ( Pietro Torrisi aka Peter McCoy)the hero and the gorgeous Princess Valkiri (Sabrina Siani) the heroine, then we have the fabulous bad guys, the personification of Satan and terrible warlord, Morack, and his general, Tares!!
Well, if you like this movie, i recommend: "Sangraal, la spada di fuoco", "Deathstalker" and "Gunan il Guerriero"(one of the worst) -
unbrokenmetal30 May 2020The beautiful princess Valkari (Sabrina Siani) must marry the evil Morak (Harrison Muller, whom I remember from "She"), otherwise he cannot sit on the Throne of Fire and become rightful ruler. The hero Siegfried (Pietro Torrisi) goes on a mission to rescue the princess and prevent Morak's rulership.
If the storyline seems familiar to you: yes, we've seen it all before, and much better. This poorly staged movie ticks the usual boxes of the genre, and even other low-budget sword and sorcery flicks of that era shine compared to this ineptitude. It was the last movie Franco Prosperi ever directed and the last top-of-the-bill part in a cinema production for teenage queen Sabrina Siani who is familiar to fans of the genre from "Conquest" and the first "Ator" movie. You can easily give this a miss. -
Throne of Fire is quite an adventure. It is the story of siegfreid's quest against the son of the son of satan's seat on the throne of fire. The actor who plays siegfreid is very athletic and pulls of the sword fighting well. I enjoyed the entire film immensely, but I was unsure about one thing. When characters in the movie saw Morack with the melted face was it a vision of the future? or was it his true demon self? The well of madness scene was definitely among the highlights of the story. The talking severed head and armored warrior were very cool. the whole scene brought to mind the pit scene in army of darkness. Another highlight of the film is the princess. Movies of this kind rarely have leading ladies so lovely. If you love Throne of Fire, I recommend Lucio Fulci's Conquest. Very similar except with more gore and monsters.
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I remember seeing this one on home video back in the 80's. My friend rented it no doubt on account of its video cover which almost certainly featured a barbarian babe with a sword. I can't say I remembered it too fondly, as all I could honestly remember was the scenes of the throne of fire itself. Overall, it isn't nearly as salacious as some of the other barbarian movies of its era, such as Amazons, so I reckon that may be why it seemed so averagely routine back then. Having revisited it again just the other night I do have to say that it was considerably better than I thought it would be. Sure, its story about a warrior's quest to prevent the son of Satan sitting on the throne of the title and ruling the world in an evil way, is about as generic as you can get for this kind of thing. But when it comes to the mid 80's sword and sorcery sub-genre, cosy familiarity is not necessarily a bad thing, right?
What you get is a chief villain with a perm, who likes to kill as many innocent people as he can but fortunately for us, always puts the hero in easily-escapable positions and then leaves the room. To this end, various capturings and escapings ensue in the story, one sequence of which features the hero being thrown into the Well of Madness, where he encounters a floating severed head and an armoured warrior. So, this is all good silly fun that delivers the requisite ingredients basically, however, the definite highlight of the movie was the delectable Sabrina Siani who plays a character called Princess Valkari whom the chief baddie is set on marrying on the day of the night of the day (a badly rendered solar eclipse to you and me); anyway, Ms Siani has a body to kill for and kicks about for the entire runtime in a barbarian girl bikini, which was very nice of her to be perfectly honest. -
Antoine Tremblay14 July 2008There is something quite attractive about those Italian rip-offs. Everything seems to be more dramatic but will less talent. Throne of fire sure is one of those. You get everything you paid for, cheesy lines, inept acting, boring sequences after boring sequences and probably the worst villain ever.
If you're into those kind of films, you'll get what you're looking for and much more. The "pit of madness" scene, whatever is it called was hilarious, a classic Z-grade moment. Personally, I got a kick of watching this, just a glimpse of the cover art and I knew I was in for something "memorable".For the rest, quite a crap fest with some weird entertaining scenes but nothing good really. -
IsmaRubio23 June 2002A night of storm and rain, two children, Sigfried and Pollach are born. One performs the good and other one of the evil. The years happen(pass) and Pollach, the gentleman of the barbarians, struggle to death against all, to manage to discover the secrets of the THRONE OF FIRE. Vala, the daughter of the king, wishes the revenge of his(her,your) family, murdered all for Pollach. Only a hero, Sigfried, can defeat him. The director Franco Prosperi, creator of documentaries I peel such as MONDO CANE, there parodies the cinema of SWORD and FANTASY, begun by CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1981). Nothing mas to begin the movie after the birth of both children (that is weighed and slowly because it lasts almost five minutes), they show several barbarians' massacres to peoples(villages) (the same ones that SANGRAL THE SWORD OF FIRE and GUNAN THE WARRIOR). From there, up to(even) the appearance of clonico CONAN, Sigfried, it is possible to say that the movie is directed to a theatrical cheap work and badly successful. SAM RAIMI debio seeing this movie before rolling ARMY OF DARKNESS, because the sequences of the villain of shift killing to a poor villager with a cross-bow and the scene of the well of the death, are very similar. The special effects are not digital as(like) them of now, are typical Italian of the epoch of 80s '. The struggles and battles are poor enough and an evil choreographed, but tienens blood. The scenes(stages) (that are small) are the same that the used ones in ATOR THE POWERFUL ONE and SANGRAL SWORD OF FIRE. Gore are grateful for some special effects to themselves. The actors: Pietro Torrisi does well the hero's paper(role), to the style CONAN; Harrison Muller, does the villain's typical paper(role), but he recreates it very well; and SABRINA this SIANI in her sauce doing of Amazon, style ATOR, CONQUEST, SANGRALL, GUNAN ... the demas actors are the worst. The movie is bored and there stops much that to wish. In the epoch that we are this antiquated, but it is a collector's piece, together with others of TORRISI / PROSPERI: the invincible barbarian (gunan), and sangrall sword of fire.
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Leofwine_draca15 April 2021A pretty entertaining CONAN rip-off of its era, THRONE OF FIRE is a lot more entertaining than the likes of ATOR, THE FIGHTING EAGLE. Although basically plotted it has an absolute wealth of action as our Conan knock-off hero goes around dominating and impaling about a hundred different guard goons with his blade. The lovely Sabrina Siani plays a vengeful princess who also gets to strut her stuff and take down many bad guys working for an evil usurper. It's low budget for sure, but the real-life locations look decent and the touches of gore and supernatural horror add to the period charm.
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amesmonde20 February 2022A woman gives birth to the devils messenger's child abomination, Morak, who is destined to sit on the Thorne of Fire at any cost and marry Princess Valkari, only Siegfried, a mighty barbarian warrior stands in his way.
The late director Francesco Prosperi returns with another a swords and sorcery film. Prosperi and writers Giuseppe Buricchi and Nino Marino move away from the Conan copies of the time, opting for a more generic fantasy. It plods along like some films made 20 years prior. Disappointingly, there's a few jarring exposition voice overs and unnecessary slow motion scenes synonyms with Prosperi's work.
Lead Pietro Torrisi, in perfect He-Man-esque shape, handles the sword fights and action well, as he hacks his way through the flick, he has plenty of presence despite a lack of lines. Harrison Muller's heartless cocky Morak isn't the usual ugly old evil villian which makes a refreshing change. Although lacking screen time Sabrina Siani as Valkari is on form here and gets some sword play action. To Siani's credit she injects some much needed energy into the film, stealing every scene she's in.
The locations, castles, courtyards and sets; corridors, well/cave offer weight. The stuntmen set on fire and the effects are adequate enough (if dated even for 1983), the devils child puppet, burning throne, Moraks true zombie-like face, opticals visuals in 'the well of madness' to name a few.
Prosperi delivers a film that is reminiscent of swords and sandals old films of the 50s and 60s on a smaller B-movie scale. Due to the direction, pacing and cinematography it uncannily feels of that period, Carlo Rustichelli and Paolo Rustichelli biblical epic score (for the most part), the look of the cast only compounds the feeling.
On the whole, it's a vast improvement on Gunan il guerriero (1982). Intentionally or not, it's callback or homage to mythical tales of films gone by. Torrisi, Siani and Muller work wonders with what they are given. Despite its flaws, more importantly Francesco Prosperi goes out on a final movie high. -
lor_12 March 2023My review was written in June 1986 after watching the film on MGM/UA video cassette.
"The Throne of Fire' is a very ordinary Italian fantasy adventure cranked out in 1982 with the same cast and virtually the same plotline as a dozen other pictures at that time. Cannon pickup bypassed U. S. theatrical release to debut on video cassette instead.
Peter McCoy (real name: Pietro Torriso) toplines as Siegfried, a muscleman destined to save the world from evil, latter personified by Moark (Harrison Muller), the on of the devil's messenger Belial (also played by Muller) and the witch Azira.
For evil to continue to exist in the world, Morak must take the title throne "on the day of the night in the day" (another cornball eclipse coming up). To qualify, he must marry beautiful blonde princess Valkari (Sabrina Siani), daughter of King Egon who recently died. To sit on the throne without qualifying means instant death as it magically generates flames.
Imbued by his sorcerer father with invulnerability (except for a susceptibility to fire), Siegfried also get the temporary use of invisibility, just like his legendary namesake of "The Nibelungen" saga. Sluggishly paced low-budgeter has okay sword fight action but little else. The uncrowned queen of the genre, Siani (who made at least seven such films in 1982) is an athletic, intense beauty who deserved to graduate to better roles. She co-starred with the wooden McCoy in "The Sword of the Barbarians", which Cannon released theatrically in 1983 and the much sexier "The Invincible Barbarian" (released here on video cassette only). Co-star Muller (of "2020 Texas Gladiators") is funny with his rapidfire (self-dubbed) dialog delivery.