This month, Crap Film Club presents lo-fi bloodshed, pop-art visuals, and bizarro dubbing in The Sword and The Claw.
If you haven’t been before, Crap Film Club is a get-together in London where you can watch ridiculous and absurd films. And the club meets every month or so at The Old Queen’s Head in Islington.
So, what’s The Sword and The Claw about then? Its original title is Kiliç Aslan and it stars Turkish genre legend Cüneyt Arkin in his most iconic role. It’s described as Conan the Barbarian meets The Three Stooges meets Tarzan.
The Sword and The Claw’s wacky plot
When the wise and beloved ruler King Solomon and his queen are betrayed and slain, their baby son is hidden in the forest where he is raised by a pride of lions. Fast-forward many years and Solomon Jr, while unable to speak, is a ferocious fighter with beastly strength and claw-like hands. A resistance has been growing since the death of Solomon and they hope this ‘Lionman’ will lead them to victory against Antoine, the traitor who has ruled the land ever since… but there is a spy in their midst!
Can this small, ragtag group of heroes overcome adversity and free the people? Will Altar, Lionman’s secret half-brother, embrace his destiny and join his brother in the fight? And perhaps most importantly, how did everyone learn to jump so high?
Confused? Intrigued? Then get ready to delve into this astonishingly mind-melting world of Turkish rip-off cinema at the Crap Film Club. Better known to aficionados as ‘Turksploitation’, this bizarre wave of jaw-droppingly cheap movies have become holy relics of bad filmmaking, sporting such colloquial titles as Turkish Star Wars, Turkish E.T., and Turkish Exorcist.
These movies have a reputation for taking everything that isn’t nailed down from other films and The Sword and the Claw is no exception. It feels like a feverish collision of swashbucklers, spaghetti westerns and kung-fu flicks, mashing elements together with little regard for whether or not the final product makes any sense! Expect clumsy action sequences and badly-choreographed wall-to-wall fights. And a hysterically awful English dub!
Plus, there’ll be two special guests with Remakesploitation founder and Turkish cinema expert Dr Ian Robert Smith talking you through the colourful and prolific career of Cüneyt Arkin.
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When: 22nd August 2022 at 7pm
Where: The Old Queens Head, 44 Essex Road, London N1 8LN
£: Tickets cost £5 in advance or £7.50 on the door
More info: crapfilmclub.co.uk