“In a place beyond time, comes a terrifying challenge beyond imagination!”
“Conquest” (1983) is a celluloid spirit who was birthed (apparently) from inside some still-uncharted void, a lost Surspace where both time and the imagination have been thoroughly transcended. (At least, if its marketing tagline is to be believed)
This possibly facetious origin story may perhaps account for the gander of hazy waterfog which coat its blue-erect frames…? The spacial star-distance over which Conquest’s televizor signal had had to cross had been too lengthy, perhaps, and so the footage had been over-impregnated by our own universe, had been covered over by a very ravenous noise. As Conquest’s dream descends on us, our uncomprehending eyelids are forced to fill in all the cognitive gaps. The delusional cast—Jorge Rivero, Andrea Occhipinti, Conrado San Martín, Sabrina Siani—are so talented, so in the zone within the spectral material that they positively crackle with elephantine character development, absurdity, flaws, and cosmic vapor trails. I watched Conquest together with a group of old pals, and all of us were silly-stupefied at its continuing presence.
Lucio Fulci may have been this film’s “director”, but (as we all know) in this new age of “quantum cinema”, that merely means its run-of-the-mill midwife. True credit goes out to the dustcats of Alpha Centauri, and to the wonderworms of Black Hole 9. It was They who washed Conquest, who clothed Conquest, who fed Conquest. It was They who dropped Conquest down the warpgate pipes, sending it on a new route towards our veryown earth. Hi Ho, Silver!
Whatafilm, whatafilm. The onericizer splash-bucketed this ‘un something fierce. From the very first frame, it’s translucents. It’s an Echo, dialoging with an Echo. We watch as a wise old man sends the leather-clad manchild off on some grand quest. And all the little Joey Campbells in the audience think they’ve got this ‘un hole-pigeoned at this point, but they’re wrong, O boy are they wrong. For the hero protagonist is not hero protagonist. In an hour or so, he’s dead duck & he’s meat. And that queen of gold is not a queen, either. She’s mytho-canine. And that soundtrack, it ain’t gonna be no Johnny Williams inspirational. That soundtracks been switched out by slydog Simonettis, it’s a fullon SCIFI synthy affair. Beeps and boops, drooping its viewers onward. And follow onward we do, like hypnotized sleepwalkers. Lost eternally inside Conquest’s paper-thin narrative skedattle.
The minutes fall away. A bluewhite haze drifts out from the TV screen, infecting all our minds. Blurring us. Blurring everything. A dogman grunts. A bird bleeds. A muscle-bound animal rights activist (our actual hero) shows up, and murders an unsuspecting animal-killer. Vigilante justice. It’s bonding time then, between these two hulking male heromen… Happygolucky music plays overloud on the soundtrack, yes it’s all in good fun. The evil sun goddess caresses a women’s severed head, and then makes love to her squirming serpent. Yes yes. It’s all in good fun.
Giggling women appear, allcovered in grey mud, flaking and ghost-like. They cast out to our hero(s) their soft erotic glance. But the Dogmen soon return, the dogmen killkillkill. Revenge? The story, such that it is, goes onwards and upwards from there. Twists and turns and all the other etcs. “The Hero’s journey”? Maybe so, maybe so. If Joey’s “Hero’s Journey” had been ghostwritten by five rugswimming centipedes, maybe.
The filmsun falls, and a false Night deepens the clouded film images still further. Underfocused fighters draw some sleeping dogmen blood. Is that Fantômas? Or a tomato? Meanwhile? Ancient dog gods silent sit upon their eggy oval throne. Webworkers, planmakers. The ouroboric soundtrack continues to pump out it’s water soaked weirdnesses into our seven sleep-tattered ears. And then we meet him–the man with No Face.
I lose time for a time, I lose the narrative thread. Have I been abducted? The clock reads 11:27. The film world continues on in sweet bewitching. Hero #1 gains a wound, gains a poisoned awful wound. Left to his fate? An ant crawls over him, and then another. And another. His bloodyfresh orifice becomes a breeding ground for the several celebrating maggots. A killerfaced shadow double of the dependable ol Hero #2 soon appears. And then Hero #2 returns, and murders his own self, murders him under a marvelous, purple-and-teal landscape…
Green-eyed cobweb kids soon cry havoc. Let slip. Crucify and then squawk. Cast out our muscleman into that great ocean blue. But it’s no biggie, it’s no worries. Crystal dolphins turn savior. Turn boyscout. Crystal dolphins untie his seawet ropes, somehow. But by god, do they take their damn time!
Night returns, and soonenough it’s beddy bye sleepy time for the two lovable heros. Our main hero protagonist, or so we’d thought, gets murdered by mole. Suddenly and irreversibly. There’ll be no “return from the underworld” for this chump, no siree…
Hero #2 pays his respects to Hero #1. He takes his rightful place at the head of the narrative then, gets real angrybold at the multiverse, he even decided to take on the goldmask’ed villian godhead. Hero #2 severs her alchemical face within his blueshining epileptic bow-n-arrow. Tyrant defeated! She dog-descends then, she under-evolves before his very eyes. Becomes the furry furry becomes the canine-cute. A second dog-god, also dog-reversed, joins loyally at her side. And then the two young pups run off towards the murky pink sunset, feeling quite romantic despite everything. True love prevails. Roll credits?
To sum up, “Conquest” is a genuinely surrealist film, in a way that (amusingly) feels insect-like (but isn’t). People often get bruised by past experiences in novelty, they barricade themselves off from her cloud-bursted catacombs. This becomes a habit, and the habit then becomes an erectile dysfunction. “Wait until the right dogkid slayer comes along” assumes that people stay as open and vulnerable as they were when they were transient states. But when you’ve been knocked around by an occult lifeforce, a shimmering surgical is not necessarily a 100% positive experience. Desire always comes with other painful things attached: dirtfish, overripe fog machines, insanity. “Conquest” explores it all.
