In this column, we’re looking back at the 1980s as their own particular age of fantasy movies—a legacy that largely disappeared in the ’90s only to resurface in the 2000s, though in many ways, the fantasy films of the 1980s are far weirder and less polished than what we got in the aughts. In each of these articles, we’ll explore a canonical fantasy movie released between 1980 and 1989 and discuss whatever enduring legacy the film has maintained in the decades since.
For a more in-depth introduction to this series of articles, you can find the first installment here, focusing on 1981’s Dragonslayer. This time, we’ll be jumping to the other end of the decade and the popularity spectrum to 1988’s beloved fantasy adventure classic, Willow.
Willow was a film I watched with my sister and stepsisters growing up. I don’t have any distinct memories of the first time I saw it, but it felt like it was in the rotation of movies we might reasonably watch on VHS. While it did not occupy the myth-making centrality of, say, Labyrinth or The NeverEnding Story in my household, it had its own place in our collection of relatively well-made, child-friendly ’80s fantasy —that is, except for one terrifying scene that is among the most grotesque, Cronenbergian body horror ever put in a family film (more on that later).
Based on a story conceived of by George Lucas in the early ’70s (which was, unfortunately, titled Munchkins), Willow is a beloved 1988 fantasy film starring Warwick Davis and Val Kilmer. It centers on Davis’ eponymous character, Willow Ufgood, a “Nelwyn” (basically a Hobbit with the serial numbers filed off) who is charged with returning a magically important baby, Elora Danan, to the human world and who ends up working to overthrow the evil sorceress, Bavmorda (Jean Marsh, who also took a heel turn in the traumatizing ’80s classic Return to Oz), alongside the villain’s wayward daughter (Joanne Whalley) and Kilmer’s lovable rogue, Madmartigan.
Directed by Ron Howard, the movie was nominated for two Academy Awards—sound effects editing and visual effects (the irrepressible Phil Tippett worked as an animator on the film, racking up his third nomination)—and lost in both categories to Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which honestly seems fair. Willow was released to mixed, lukewarm reviews and only a modest box office take in the U.S. But it went on to be something of a blockbuster overseas and a juggernaut in the growing home video market. That’s where I saw it, of course (and where, I suspect, many of you did as well).
Willow is an odd film. I don’t mean that as knock on its qualities, precisely. In some ways, it feels incredibly generic—a fantasy epic that borrows heavily from Tolkien (the aforementioned Nelwyns, a conflict between two magical gurus in the physical bodies of older people, the hunt for a magical maguffin disrupting the lives of simple farmers), Biblical tropes (the plot revolves around a baby set adrift on a river so that she is not murdered by a prophecy-addled tyrant), and Star Wars (a team-up between a good-hearted fledgling magic wielder, a wise old mentor with a personal stake in the political situation, and a lovable rogue who has to learn to care about people other than himself).
In other ways, it’s very much defined by its specificity. There is surprisingly strong worldbuilding, with a trio of human-nations locked in a (slightly) more complicated political conflict than one would expect, and there is a lived-in feel to the way that the film leverages the truly withering racial slur, “peck,” against its Nelwyn characters, drawing a more fleshed-out relationship between the two species than feels strictly necessary for a fantasy film. Additionally, it is sparing but somewhat unique with its use of fantasy creatures. Other than the Nelwyn, there are tribal, nature spirit-worshiping Brownies (mostly used as comic relief); feral, simian trolls; and a wildly inventive design for a hydra-like monster called an “Eborsisk” (more on that later). The weirdness of its world manages to cut against the potential staleness of its trope-y plot and, for all that it can feel rote, it captures a little of that George Lucas magic where a blend of Vladimir Propp story beats and Joseph Campbell characters combine into something that’s both familiar and genuinely fun.
Much as its world manages to feel both generic and unique, Willow is both elevated and hampered by its star, Warwick Davis. He made his acting debut, five years earlier, in Return of the Jedi as Ewok Wicket W. Warrick (my head canon is that the character’s name is just what George Lucas thought Davis’ name was) and Lucas supposedly wrote the part of Willow Ufgood especially for him. But that, in and of itself, seems odd; Davis was only seventeen during the filming of Willow (and very much looks it), but his character is the married father of two young children. Julie Peters, the actor who plays Willow’s wife, Kiaya, was 44 during filming while the actors who played his children were seven and five. Davis is at his best playing a magically-gifted teenage naïf—a diminutive Luke Skywalker—and is fairly unbelievable as a cautious and caring father of two. Beyond the strange age discrepancy, Davis is simply not yet at the peak of his acting prowess and, while he is charming, it seems like a risk to stake so much of the movie on a seventeen-year-old actor’s shoulders—especially when he had not had any lines in any of his previous films. He struggles, nobly, and doesn’t quite hit the mark.
I am, however, happy to report that, even after thirty-seven years, Val Kilmer’s Madmartigan is just as delightfully rakish (and wildly attractive) as you remember. The film comes to life as soon as he’s on screen. He plays Madmartigan as an obvious lout, but a lout who’s so desperate, shameless, and winning that one instantly forgives his trespasses. He also spends at least half the film wearing a torn, pink dress—the remnant of an ill-advised attempt to bamboozle a jealous husband he’s cuckolded—a detail I had forgotten and which absolutely makes the performance that much more delightful. I should note that this article was written before the sad news of Kilmer’s passing broke—while he’ll be remembered for many standout roles in a remarkably rich career, there will always be those of us who’ll keep a place in our hearts for Madmartigan: disgraced knight, incorrigible rogue, true hero, and the greatest swordsman that ever lived.
There’s also a lot to love about Willow’s production design and effects. There is a grubby, fallen, Gothic quality to the world, with more ruins than inhabited castles and clothes that feel dirt-spattered and threadbare. Rather than bask in splendor, the villainous sorcerer-queen, Bavmorda, wears a headscarf, spiked crown, and shapeless robes that deliciously evoke a nun or Catholic saint more than a monarch. Her captain of the guard, Kael (Pat Roach, Raiders of the Lost Ark’s ill-fated Nazi plane mechanic) wears a mask carved from a giant’s skull and fringed with ratty fur that oozes a rancid, flea-bitten aura. The gutted mouse head that the Brownie warrior, Rool (a vaguely continental-European-accented Kevin Pollak), wears as a helmet is an especially excellent touch, equal parts gruesome and endearing.
And the effects are also pretty spectacular. The transformation of the cursed witch, Fin Raziel (Patricia Hayes), is one of the most successful early uses of ILM’s digital morphing technology. She seamlessly but painfully transforms from a goat to an ostrich to a peacock to a turtle to a tiger before finally returning to human form. It’s still pretty convincing today. On the practical side, Bavmorda’s “Death Dogs” are played to menacing effect by Dobermans in wooly, giant rat appliqués.
But the transformation viewers are most likely to remember is a sequence where Willow uses some less-than-practiced magic to turn a troglodytic troll into the Eborsisk. Let’s give some context. The Eborsisk is a gigantic, two-headed monster whose fire-breathing visages look like an unholy cross between a dragon and an elephant seal. It’s never called anything in the film, but the on-set name is a reference to the acerbic film critic double act of Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. (Incidentally, the aforementioned Kael is named for iconoclastic film critic Pauline Kael—the script really has it out for luminaries of that profession). Its creation involves a singularly gory transformation where the troll’s skin peels off to reveal a brain-like, pulsating mass of flesh that seems more at home in The Fly or Alien.It was during this scene that my (uninitiated) viewing companion shouted “What in the John Carpenter?!” and stood up from the couch in shock. The Eborsisk is a pretty scary beast for a children’s film, but its genesis is the stuff of childhood trauma legend—a sequence that feels designed to give impressionable young viewers nightmares for years to come. Every ’80s genre film has something like it, and this one is among the best/worst.
All in all, Willow holds up admirably well. It’s not quite even enough to be an unblemished watch that effortlessly upholds cherished, childhood memories. It’s nowhere near bad enough to be consigned to cinema’s dust heap. I feel like this one, ultimately, comes down to one’s tolerance for well-worn tropes and one’s desire for high fantasy to be served with a generous portion of silly, cozy fun. Depending on your mood and your level of nostalgia, it might feel like pablum… or just the right amount of comfort for a night in.
Willow’s most obvious legacy (aside from the pretty fun, 1989 arcade game, filled with questionable translations) is the 2022 Jonathan Kasdan-helmed sequel series that premiered on Disney+ to generally favorable reviews before being promptly Zaslaved into æther and memory. Full disclosure: I’m obsessed with this show. It is deeply concerned with preserving and expanding upon the lore of the original film while also being a complete tonal mismatch with it. The show is horny, unsettling, bombastic, and surprisingly gay. It has a weirdly stellar, vaguely inappropriate cast that includes Bottoms’ Ruby Cruz, Les Misérables’ Ellie Bamber (who I was convinced was Angourie Rice right up until I wrote this sentence), The Grand Budapest Hotel’s Tony Revolori, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s Erin Kellyman, The Decameron’s Amat Chadha-Patel, along with a staggering number of the film’s original cast (Warwick Davis is in every episode, but both actor and character seem like they have no idea why they’re there).
Somehow, the show manages to feel both like a hollow, corporate amalgam of what various key demographics would want to see in a Willow follow-up and, simultaneously, like such an insane, gonzo, launching point for an instant classic that I genuinely cannot tell if I love this show or am put off by it. What it definitely isn’t is a series made for people who loved Willow and wanted to see more of the same (seriously, the show takes way more inspiration from Hellraiser than one might reasonably suspect). Its lack of availability is also part of its alluring mystique. Like Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme, it’s probably more fascinating to most people as a victim of corporate greed than for its actual content, but I can’t actually bring myself to refrain from, foolishly, recommending it… I’m definitely not saying you should torrent it. That would be a very irresponsible thing for me to do.
Beyond this star-crossed artsploitation streaming series, Willow’s cinematic influence can arguably best be seen in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies. Willow’s plot liberally cribbed from Tolkien’s template, but it took the lived-in, gritty approach to production design that people praise Lucas for using so effectively in Star Wars and brought it to fantasy films. Jackson would apply this dirt-under-the-fingernails approach to Middle-earth to great effect. Moreover, the deeper lore driving Willow’s story is hinted at but largely absent from the film, but there is a larger, cohesive world suggested by the way it combines a broken-in, well-used aesthetic with some limited but well-placed bits of exposition. Middle-earth is not dimly adumbrated by any means, but it would have been overwhelming to a wider audience to try and include the whole of Tolkienalia in Jackson’s adaptation of the books. Willow seems to be the nearest model for what Jackson ultimately achieved.
And it’s not just the abstract, unverified approach to making fantasy movies that connects Willow and these later blockbusters: There are a few moments in LotR that really feel as though they must have been directly inspired by Ron Howard’s movie. The final confrontation between Fin Raziel and Queen Bavmorda, though it involves a great deal of magic, is, ultimately, choreographed as a painful, drag-out brawl between two older women, pushing their bodies to the limit. It’s strikingly reminiscent of the fight between Gandalf and Saruman in Fellowship of the Ring, and serves the same emotional purpose.
Moreover, there is a sense of wonder and adventure mixed in with desperate terror and despair that runs through both Willow and LotR. For older millennials, like myself, Jackson’s films are the ultimate comfort watch. They are movies that capture resilience in the face of crushing darkness, and manage to tell a story about the good and seemingly powerless people of the world overcoming monstrous long odds without being treacly or pat. For those of us who came of age with those films (I was 18 when the first one was released), they were a soothing balm at the rocky end of a mostly comfortable childhood that had taken a hard turn into political upheaval and financial instability. Along with a significant portion of my peers, I’ve been known to tear up just watching the DVD special features. And in that regard, LotR feels like the fulfillment of a half-remembered promise. Willow was a movie watched on VHS, unmoored from larger context, which left us with a reassuring sense that the small and unprepared could triumph in the end. Years later, when the adult world proved harder and crueler than many of us were raised to believe it could be, Jackson answered those distant dreams that George Lucas and Ron Howard incepted, rousing us with the rarest species of hope just when we needed it most.
But what do you think of Willow? Do you have fond memories of it as family-friendly fare? Do you still have nightmares about the Eborsisk? Is this the definitive Val Kilmer performance for you? If you have other favorite Kilmer roles or moments you’d like to shout out, please share them in the comments, and definitely join me next time when we shift to the Sunday afternoon premium cable staple, The Beastmaster (1982)!