Watched with the guys... I've wanted to see this classic for awhile now, though I think I might need to give it another watch to give it a "final" rating. I feel like the movie demands a full attention while we had a lot of talking (and laughing) over the movie... There's a lot going on here. Right from the get go you realize this is going to be some kind of "grand allegory" type trip. It didn't disappoint on that front, though the intro / narration kinda ruins some of the fun involved with "grand allegory" movies... Explained a little too much. The trip was fun though! So many crazy, funny outfits, absurd scenes that make little sense (felt a strong influence on Gilliam from a few scenes, the renegades especially), and a ton of hilarious quotes. I tried convincing the crew that we should go as a group of executioners for Halloween this year, but they wouldn't have it... We've found that when some combination of a movie's writer, director, and producer happen to be the same person, the movie has a STRONG chance of going on a little too long... Sometimes way too long. Heaven forbid anything end up on the cutting room floor. This movie reinforced that trend, though not horribly so. We also found it interesting that the writer/director/producer (John Boorman) directed and produced Deliverance right before this and "Exorcist II: The Heretic" right after. There seems to be a trajectory there... Overall a fun time and would definitely recommend. I want to give it a re-watch.

One of the weirdest movies ever! It is complete crap, stupid, deep and interesting at the same time. And that is what makes it a cult movie. One line at the beginning of the movie kinda summarises it: “The gun is good and the penis is evil”… for real! In fact, the underlying story is about humanity and claims that humans could not live forever as they would get bored to the point of wanting to die. They would also need other humans to exploit In order to do all they do not want to do. An actually interesting discussion to have. What is awful, despite a quite reasonable budget for the time of 1,5 million pound, are the visuals and particularly the costumes that are probably some of the worst ever seen on screen. Then there is the general structure of the movie which seems to have been made by people having no clue about movie making. It feels more like a back-alley theatre piece where the actors see themselves as great artists but the audience does not really agree. Well, I do believe that it really is a classic that you should see because of all that. The terrible overall quality together with the kinda interesting underlying story is what makes it cult.

It is a science fiction fable.

Actually you can watch the full movie free here: https://archive.org/details/zardoz-1974

One of the most perplexingly awful films I've ever seen, how this was even made in the first place is a mystery in and of itself. Multiple people looked at this script during production and said "aye sure, we'll make that" But you know what? I'm glad they did. it's so terrible it'll haunt you.