If Lord of the Rings, Final Fantasy, Doctor Who, Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Avengers, and the roster of Sony PlayStation characters can all find their way on to Magic: The Gathering cards, why not make room for movie characters who actually feel in tune with the fantasy lineage of the core sets?
Artist Justin White has done just that for this week’s Deathstalker, a new fantasy film with a heavy-metal beat-’em-up soul that, well, wouldn’t get a Magic: The Gathering Universe Beyond set in a million years. But those of us high on the 42-year-old B-movie franchise can dream.
The original Deathstalker, produced by the legendary Roger Corman in 1983, was a proudly exploitative slice of pulp that leaned hard on attitude (rather than, say, millions of dollars in production design). To bring that scrappy-but-imaginative spirit into the modern age, director and special effects maven Steven Kostanski (Frankie Freako) hired John Wick stuntman Daniel Bernhardt to battle a cavalcade of practical monsters. The final product rips. Here’s proof:
Set in the kingdom of Abraxeon, the story follows Bernhardt’s Deathstalker and his magic sidekick Doodad (voiced by Patton Oswalt!) as they quest to stop the resurrection of the evil sorcerer Nekromemnon. In Kostanski’s hands, it’s a love letter to lo-fi fantasy excess, packed with creature effects, stop-motion, and 2D animation that channels the original ’80s aesthetic. Deathstalker’s approach to fantasy rarely manifests in today’s movies — yet it’s lived on in collectible card games and tabletop dungeon crawls for half a century.
On the occasion of Deathstalker’s Oct. 10 release, Shout! Studios shared with Polygon a set of TCG-style cards illustrating the many monsters that populate Abraxeon. They’re not tournament legal, but they are the perfect tease for what Kostanski has realized with his often-stunning SFX work. Is it that hard to get a muscled swordsman to punch swamp people in the face in a 2025 movide? Apparently. Deathstalker is a welcome correction.
