Predating Conan the Barbarian by a year is the surprising 1981 entry from Disney of all places, a rather gruesome and dark film by the name of Dragonslayer. As it entered the 1980s, Disney was going through a whole weird phase where it put out a string of rather complex (for Disney) young adult market sci-fi and fantasy films that left everyone just a little bit baffled as to what the heck was going on. The once powerful family-friendly studio woke up one morning and found that people weren’t all that interested in Herbie anymore. Disney was suddenly unable to attract any big-name actors to projects, and doing a Disney movie was, frankly, for squares.

So they tried to redefine themselves somewhat. Along with Dragonslayer, Disney scared little children with the sci-fi adventure film The Black Hole which featured a murderous robot going to Hell after attacking Anthony Perkins with spinning razor blades, then really wowed and befuddled people with the visually ground-breaking computer adventure (and flop feature film) TRON. Although it was a PG film, Dragonslayer managed to pack more gritty, dark violence into its story than many of the R-rated sword and sorcery films that followed. It also shocked parents and delighted young viewers with flashes of bare bottoms and underwater nudity. Obviously, this was not going to be Disney fare as we traditionally knew it.

Peter MacNicol starred as Galen, a bumbling sorcerer's apprentice who, after the death of his master, takes on a quest to rid a distant village of the destructive dragon (as opposed to constructive dragons that help initiate public works projects) that has taken nest in the nearby mountain. The local king has found that the only way to keep the dragon docile is by feeding it a steady stream of female virgin sacrifices. Frankly, making the sacrifices female virgins seems nothing more than an indulgence on behalf of the king. There's never any indication that the dragon gives a balrog's ass about the gender or sexual experience of the victim, so long as they provide a few seconds good eatin'. They could be sacrificing Barry White for all the dragon seems to care.

The townsfolk are less than enthused that they ordered a great sorcerer and got a goofball neophyte, but once Galen chants a spell that makes an avalanche bury the dragon's cave, everyone is in a good enough mood to have a festival in celebration of the dragon's obvious demise. Predictably enough, since there's still quite a bit of running time that can't be filled simply with medieval revelry and mirth making, the dragon has a back door from which it emerges doubly pissed off. With the help of his newfound sweetheart, Galen must figure out a way to slay the dragon once and for all. Galen's supposedly dead master reappears to help the lad by informing him that the key to killing the dragon lies in destroying a magical amulet "when the time is right." When is that, you ask? He will know when the time comes. Why do "wise men" always pull that crap? Just tell him!

In defense of the sorcerer, though, when the time does come, he doesn't so much depend on Galen realizing it as he does just shout out, "All right, now would a good time, Galen! Now! Come on, man, smash the amulet already!"

Audiences were simply confused by a Disney film featuring Peter MacNicol's bare ass, blurry female nudity, a holy man graphically burned alive, old farts impaled with daggers and arrows, and exploding dragon guts. Although the movie contains much that would become cliche, and despite its Disney origins, it's a grisly adventure film with some truly wonderful dragon effects. The cast is solid, the story predictable but entertaining, and the action well-executed. It also has a dirty, authentically medieval look to it, quite in contrast to medieval films that had come before. It was all enough to freak out Disney executives and place Dragonslayer closer in kin to films like Conan the Barbarian than The Sword in the Stone.