10 Things to Know About 'Dungeonmaster'/'Digital Knights' (1984)

10 Things to Know About Dungeonmaster/Digital Knights (1984)

10 Featured on Red Letter Media’s Best of the Worst (Plinketto)

The Dungeonmaster was featured on episode 98 of Red Letter Media’s YouTube series, Best of the Worst as an option on their Plinketto board, a take off of The Price is Right game Plinko. The Dungeonmaster was chosen Best of the Worst over the films Spacejacked and The Suckling. (Don’t watch The Sucklng by the way, unless you have a very strong stomach.)

9 So Many Titles

The Dungeonmaster was released under multiple titles including Ragewar, Ragewar: The Challenge of the Excalibrate, and Digital Knights.

8 Ragewar Was a Production Company?

Ragewar is one of the alternate titles of The Dungeonmaster but at least one newspaper ad listed Ragewar Productions Inc. as the owner of Digital Knights which is also The Dungeonmaster.

7 The Same Month Digital Knights Was Re-Released as Dungeonmaster There Was a Dungeonmaster Tragedy

After it failed under the title Digital Knights, producers released the film under the title Dungeonmaster in January of 1985. That same month, in San Francisco, a 14 year old boy was killed when while playing a game of Dungeons & Dragons in the character of Dungeonmaster, he invited his brother to shoot him to test his cloak of invincibility. They’d removed the clip from the gun but were unaware of the bullet left in the chamber. The San Francisco Examiner covered the story with the headline

“Fantasy Game Leads to Real Death of Teen ‘Dungeonmaster’

And somehow the producers of Dungeonmaster still released their movie under that title.

6 Richard Moll from Night Court and Metal Band W.A.S.P

There is one thing that the movie Dungeonmaster can claim that no other movie can match: It’s the only movie that co-stars Bull from Night Court and the heavy metal band W.A.S.P.

5 Adam Savage from Mythbusters

As noted by the Red Letter Media guys in their Best of the Worst episode, Adam Savage from Mythbusters was a fan of the movie Dungeonmaster. A phrase he used on the show Mythbusters, featured in the show’s opening “I reject your reality and substitute my own” came from the main character in Dungeonmaster.

4 A Tribute to Ray Harryhausen

Ray Harryhauser began his career as a teenager in the 1930s and became the most respected and innovative stop motion effects artists in the business. His monster creations influenced generations of kids who went into the business of special effects including Dave Allen who used his gig on Dungeonmaster to pay homage to the master. Allen’s work on The Stone Canyon Giant is classically in the style of Harryhausen.

3 There Was Supposed to Be a Sequel

A sequel to Dungeonmaster was actually in production in 1988 with Richard Moll and Jeffrey Byron back in their respective roles. The sequel was set to be released as part of a new anthology called Pulse Pounders but it was never completed.

2 Tagline Fun

The tagline for Dungeonmaster played up the role of Richard Moll, Stating:

“He is the Overlord of Strange Beasts and Stolen Souls.”

Digital Knights meanwhile, had a tagline as well

“They’ll Go Anywhere for Adventure.”

1 Cleve Hall “Monster Man”

Cleve Hall was a special effects artist on Dungeonmaster and also appears in the film in the role of Jack the Ripper in the Ice Gallery sequence of Dungeonmaster. But fans of reality television are more familiar with Hall as the star of Monster Man, the SyFy channel reality series in which he starred and brought fans inside the world of a special effects artist.