Relaying the story of the birth of King Arthur, his claiming of the throne and his eventual death at the hands of his own son, Boorman's Excalibur was a vision of the famous legend ripe with Freudian madness, incest, rape, and wild surrealism. Despite a limited budget, Boorman created a sumptuous film full of gory bloodshed, exhilarating action, magic, and sex. Unfortunately for Boorman, who had unsettled and confused audiences with everything from Deliverance to Zardoz, this uncomfortable yet lush and dreamy version of the story was not what people wanted.

Although embraced by a cult following that grew larger and larger over the years, upon its initial release the film was a financial and critical failure. It certainly wasn't the impetus for the birth of any sort of genre, but the ground broken by Boorman's daring cleared the way for the sword and sorcery films to come, and many of the genre staples that found mainstream success in Conan found their way to screen first in Excalibur.

For starters, the film was violent. Previous versions of the King Arthur story were mostly family-friendly fare like the musical Camelot, but Boorman was determined to realistically portray the brutality of early medieval life. He did so with gusto. There are enough blood-spurting stabbings to make you wonder why those knights even bothered with all that armor. Seems like it'd be easier to simply ditch the armor, which everyone was poking through anyway, and just move a lot faster than everyone else. In fact, during the first battle of the young king's reign, in which he has to save Patrick Stewart's fortress, Arthur does just this. While everyone else lumbers about in useless bits of metal, he hauls ass all over the place killing people left and right while wearing just his normal clothes.

Excalibur also added a lot of sauce to the fantasy mix. Peplum films always teased with loads of cheesecake and beefcake, but they could never go the full nine yards. Boorman, on the other hand, was the same guy who gave audiences Ned Beatty squealing like a pig, so he wasn't exactly squeamish about exploring the really nasty side of things, and the legend of King Arthur certainly has its seedy bits that are generally left out of the Disney versions. Arthur was born when his mother was raped by Uther Pendragon, and later he was adopted by Merlin the Magician. His own sister later seduced him, birthed his son, and then raised the child to one day slay Arthur. It's enough to make Oedipus shake his head at what a screwed up family they have. Boorman pulled no punches in portraying this more twisted history of Arthur, and in doing so he cleared the path for the ample nudity and sex that would become one of the primary aspects drawing teenagers to the sword and sorcery movies.

Although a box-office flop and a critical confuser (some loved it, most didn't get it), Excalibur eventually received the recognition it deserved and has since become a genre favorite and all-around bible for people with a tendency to dress up in cheap medieval garb and speak in Old English about mutton and sweetmeats at various medieval festivals around the country.