Orc Wars (2013)

Orc Wars is one man’s (Kohl Glass to be exact) desire to make a Lord of the Rings style film, on a shoestring budget, with a simple twist: guns. In this endeavour, he is an unmitigated failure. What is presented to us is 100 minutes of terrible storytelling, matched only by the casting. Not 5 minutes goes past where the film doesn’t trample over the line of copyright infringement, and even Peter Jackson, who’s well known as having started out making small budget movies (Braindead) would not support this venture. Tolkien truly would be turning in his grave at this abomination.

Orc Wars follows the story of princess Aleya (Masiela Lusha), who flees from her home world through a tunnel to earth as we know it looking for a ‘wizard’ to protect her and the gate between the two worlds. Unfortunately she’s followed by a horde of orcs who are determined to bring her back to their master and sacrifice her. Along the way she meets John Norton (Rusty Joiner) a retired military man, who just so happens to have moved into the previous wizards house. John reluctantly takes on the role of protector, and uses his arsenal of ‘magic’ (guns) to take on the might of the orc legions.

Orc Wars tries in no way to hide its intentions in deriving inspiration from Peter Jackson. So much so, that they actually use replica props from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. This sets the tone for the entire film. It’s just shameless. From the outset, you find yourself trying to convince yourself that they were making this for fun, but the stark reality swiftly hits you that this was no spoof. This is played completely straight.

All in all, Orc Wars is nothing more than one man’s realisation of an insultingly terrible rip off of Lord of the Rings. It’s a complete shambles from start to finish, and what makes it all the more terrible is its attempt to play it deadly serious. It’s difficult to find any redeeming qualities, but if pushed, the CGI on the dragon is half decent for a film of its budget. The addition of a dragon at all adds nothing to the plot though, so it would have been nice to see them plough some of that money into…anything else.

If you’re looking for a terrible film in the same vein as Orc Wars, one that knows it’s terrible, but plays on this and at no point takes itself seriously, check out Orcs!, which Kohl Glass also worked on. As for Orc Wars, avoid like the plague. There are countless fan made Lord of the Rings incarnations on YouTube that are infinitely better, for a fraction of the budget. If you need your fanboy itch scratched, then check those out instead.

Orc Wars is atrocious and borderline insulting. Think Cowboys vs Zombies, but even worse. Avoid.

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