Under the Spell of Fantasy: The Sword and Sorcery Production Cycle in British Popular Cinema of the Early 1980s

Despite what are now long-standing challenges to the prominence of the realist
paradigm in British cinema history, the significance of Fantasy film remains a
largely underexplored area. This article focuses on a group of early 1980s British
films — mostly critically and commercially unsuccessful — popularly labelled
as ‘sword and sorcery’, in order to explore their significance for conceptions of
both the Fantasy genre and British cinema in this period. In doing so, the study
examines aspects of the industrial and cultural circulation of the films at the
time of release, drawing on promotional materials, industry and press reviews,
and genre-based fan publications. The article contributes to the historical study
of British film genres and the contexts in which they are produced and circulate.
It also further expands conceptions of popular British Fantasy cinema.