Deathstalker (2025), directed by Steven Kostanski, is an irreverent comedy held together by campy gore and creature effects. It's basically, "What if Army of Darkness had the tone and gore of Evil Dead 2, and the budget of Evil Dead 1?". That last point is key. While I knew this was a low-budget offering, I thought that meant 10-20 million. Therefore, I was initially harder on the movie than I think it deserved. I kept thinking that the whole thing felt like an ambitious series of YouTube shorts more than a feature film. Turns out, the director did indeed come from a YouTube background (though, it should be noted, he has several features under his belt at this point), but I was way off about the budget. Rather than $10,000,000, the production budget was closer to $100,000, raised primarily on Kickstarter. Once I discovered that, I recalibrated my expectations and started to have a real good time with what was on offer.

The following evening, I spun up Red Sonja (2025), directed by MJ Bassett. Maybe it's because I had just finished lowering the bar for Deathstalker, but I found myself really, really digging it. While still "low budget" the productions had about $17 million to play with, so it's feels more like a "real" movie than Deathstalker. To some, that will make the concessions to budget stand out all the more (such as several characters having their voices seemingly dubbed over non-English performances, or some ropey CGI), but, like Deathstalker, I felt like I saw every dollar of the budget on screen.

Strong recommendation for this double feature. Deathstalker appeals to my inner teenage boy, sitting atop a stack of Fangorias, and Red Sonja...also frankly appeals to that teenaged boy (hang a lampshade on it all you like movie, you're still dressing the main character in a chainmail bikini), but there's also a femininity brought to story by the chief creatives which I found refreshing in this genre.