In the peaceful kingdom of Axeholme lives the teenage boy Simon, son of Wulfrik, the king's court wizard. The evil sorcerer Shurka starts a coup d'état, aided by the King's wife, killing the king, and imprisoning the princess, Aura. Before he is slain by Shurka, Wulfrik teleports Simon and his friend Gulfax to safety and gifts him his powerful magic ring. However, unbeknownst to all, Simon loses the ring during his escape.
Simon teams up with the warrior Kor to free the kingdom and rescue the princess. After narrowly escaping one of Shurka’s insectoid creatures, they make camp for the night. Seeking help to defeat the evil wizard, Simon summons long-dead legendary warriors from their resting place, using his powers to resurrect them, but only provokes the reanimated corpses into attacking him before they return to their graves. Kor and Simon stumble upon the cottage of the hobgoblin Hurla, which is attacked by lizard men. Simon uses magic to defeat them. The hobgoblin afterwards joins forces with Simon on his quest.
On the way to the castle, Kor is then captured by cyclopses to be wed against his will or eaten, though he is rescued by Simon. The next day, while at a waterfall, they notice a woman drowning. Kor attempts a rescue, only to discover she is a Naiad and the guardian of the river. They have passed her test of heroism, allowing them to go further, reaching the castle. Meanwhile, Shurka has imprisoned the queen, usurped the kingdom, and hypnotized the princess to make her his bride.
Returning to the castle after exile, they release a group of townsfolk from prison, leading to a huge battle outside. Simon, having retrieved the ring, and Shurka face each other on the towers using white and black magic, where the latter is slain. Simon and Aura are crowned the new King and Queen of Axeholme. Kor departs, looking for more adventure.
The film re-used a large amount of stock footage from Sorceress (1982) and Deathstalker (1983). Ed Naha later recalled:
I don't think this movie was so much shot as it was beaten to death. When they whittled it down to what was useful from the footage, it only ran 58 minutes. Now Roger had done a lot of sword-and-sorcery films, and so he told a couple of the editors to pull all they could from them and edit that footage in. So now the finished movie has a 15 or 20-minute prologue that has nothing to do with rest of the film![2]
Reception
Wizards of the Lost Kingdom received a mixed-to-positive reception from critics, who consider it a lighter and softer improvement on the Roger Corman Barbarian films of the 80s.[citation needed]
Legacy
Sequel
In 1989, Wizards of the Lost Kingdom was followed by a sequel (featuring none of the cast or crew of the original film), Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II. Ed Naha stated:
Three years later I'm at a wedding reception for a friend who still works for Roger. And Roger's there. So we're chatting and kidding around, and I said, 'Ah, man, remember that "Wizards of the Lost Kingdom" movie?' And he said, 'Oh, y'know, that did very well in video. We filmed a sequel!'[2]
