Review of “Korgoth of Barbaria” (2006)
This review refers to a pilot episode. The offered series was picked up for production but cancelled due to high production costs.
This is a pitch perfect parody of a specific underground aesthetic: Schlocky 1970s sword and sorcery. The genre was originally based on Robert E. Howard but, filtered through the angstier Michael Moorcock and the environment of nerd culture ca. 1980 with early fantasy wargames like Warhammer, role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, and movies like Fire and Ice (1983), the genre degraded to the level of “Korgoth”. This was especially true in the near-private, personal settings of the games, where stories were told by the fans themselves. The “hero”, Korgoth, is therefore an unshakable badass while the general population is a mass of mook scum. The implicit contempt for humanity is parodied so well here that it supports the more ordinary elements of the comedy beautifully.