’YOR’: CAVEMAN HUNTERS ACT SILLY

’YOR’: CAVEMAN HUNTERS ACT SILLY
Miami Herald, The (FL) - August 20, 1983

Author: BILL COSFORD Herald Movie Critic



In Yor, The Hunter From the Future, a bunch of spindly looking cavemen, dark-haired and dark-bearded and cloaked in scraggly dark furs, are doing battle with an even more swarthy band when Yor strides in to set things right. Yor is from another tribe, he’s blonde and clean-shaven, wears an itsy-bitsy loincloth and carries a big ax, and he’s a foot taller than everyone else. The frizzy-haired heroine named Ka-Laa takes this all in and approaches boldly: "Yor, you’re different from the other men I’ve seen." Ah, the Dawn of Enlightenment.

Yor, as it turns out, is not from prehistoric times at all, but as the title suggests, from the future. For that matter, so is everyone else, which may explain that while they are grunting, seizing, looting and pillaging, the cave characters are also exchanging such bons mots as "It’s like fire burning inside me, a question without an answer" and "Hurry, the gods must be appeased with fresh blood." and "My life has taken on new meaning."

They’re not always so sage, however. In one scene, Yor is warned by the only other blonde in the cave, the shapely Roa, that the Diseased Ones are about to put him to the knife. "They are convinced that sacrificing every stranger they capture is the only way to placate the gods," she says. Yor, none too quick in dealing with abstractions, replies: "What’s your name?"

Yor is meant to be another of the great-and-timeless quest pictures, of course, with the mighty Yor out to save his "civilization, " but its absurd dialogue lends it that extra dimension, and a recent preview audience chortled happily for the whole 90 minutes. Yes, it’s one of those films stupid enough to laugh at, which goes a good way toward excusing the bronze-age performances (Reb Brown plays the title hunk, Corinne Clery the smirking Ka-Laa) and chem-set special effects. The director was Anthony M. Dawson, billed as "a key figure in the Italian horror -film renaissance," which may explain why that renaissance has yet to reach these shores.

Movie Review

Yor, the Hunter From the Future (PG) *

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CAST

Reb Brown, Corinne Clery, John Steiner, Alan Collins, Ayshe Gul

CREDITS

Director: Anthony M. Dawson

Producer: Michele Marsala

Screenwriters: Robert Bailey, Anthony M. Dawson

Based on the novel by Juan Zanotto and Ray Collins

Cinematographer: Marcello Masciocchi

Music: John Scott

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A Columbia Pictures release

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Brief vulgar language, considerable violence

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At (DADE) Omni, Hialeah Cinema, Riviera, Marina, Cutler Ridge, Kendall Mall, Westchester; (BROWARD) Movie City, Movies of Pompano, Cinema, Diplomat Mall, Sheridan, Broward Mall, Coral Springs, Lakeshore Drive-In, Thunderbird Drive-In; (PALM BEACH) Cinema 70, Jupiter, PGA, Boca Mall, Delray Drive-In.

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