Yor, the Hunter from the Future (1983)

½ star
Riding the wave generated by the success of Conan the Barbarian, Yor, The Hunter from the Future is a film so cheesy it'll make your stomach turn from overexposure. According to the good old Internet Movie Database, this was edited down from a four-part Italian miniseries. The American version clocks in at a mighty 90 minutes, thereby reducing the amount of cheese hurled at viewers. This movie is hideous from start to finish, a film featuring insipid dialogue, poor acting and nasty makeup. The hero looks like a Ken doll come to life, while the enemies range from hairy Papa Smurfs to cheap knockoffs of Darth Vader. Actually, Yor may have provided the model for Dark Helmet in Spaceballs.

Reb Brown stars as Yor, a blonde caveman who wears animal skins so skimpy that I'm surprised (and relieved) his penis doesn't show. His theme song is an uninspired techno-disco tune with an amateur chorus line spouting incomprehensible lyrics. Yor kills off a dinosaur and rescues a cavewoman and her guardian. They thank him by inviting him back to their village where the highlight of entertainment is to watch women wear ropes and twirl around. Cue the hairy Papa Smurfs (they have blue skin), who attack the village and steal the women and children.

Yor, Ka-Laa (Corinne Clery of Moonraker) and the wise old Pag (Alan Collins) escape and get in and out of trouble before stumbling onto a seaside village, where the village elder offers his daughter to Yor to be his mate. Yor declines, because he's already landed himself a former Bond girl as his mate and has no need for some prepubescent girl. The action leads to a futuristic island where the Overlord (John Steiner) plans to populate the planet with a new breed of humans. How does he plan to breed new humans? From what I could gather, the Overlord wants Yor to copulate with his androids that have been specially designed for intercourse.

The world of Yor looks to be set in the Stone Age, yet we discover later that an atomic holocaust reduced the mainland to scavenging tribes. Dinosaurs somehow evolved from the nuclear fallout. The Overlord's island escaped disaster, but its inhabitants are planning a revolt. They don't like the idea of androids giving birth to smarter humans. After over an hour of watching Yor fight enemies with sticks and axes, it's a little jarring to watch laser fights between humans and a bunch of Darth Vader clones.

The dialogue and plotting are so bad they inspire laughter. After Yor kills a beast, he says to Ka-Laa, "Help me cut the choice meats." Later, Ka-Laa asks Pag why Yor is different from other men. She asks this question after observing that Yor has superior fighting skills. That makes him different? When trying to escape the blue cavemen, Yor breaks a dam apart, flooding the entire cave without thinking that he might drown the women and children who were kidnapped earlier. Want more? How about a scene in which Yor uses a dead pterodactyl as a hang glider (accompanied by that lame theme song), or when Pag shoots a giant reptile in the eye to kill it.

Yor, the Hunter from the Future is endlessly stupid, but it has camp value to it. The script must have been a pain to read, though the actors deliver their lines with much conviction. I can't think of a single department involved with the film's production that did a good job. The make-up folks made all the men look filthy (except for Yor) while the women look clean. The costume department should have come up with better skins to cover the actors. Pag's furry towel in particular looks embarrassing—it exposes one of his nipples and threatens to reveal the other one at any moment. The movie's silliness is exceeded only by its tackiness.

© 2004 Silver Screen Reviews