'All she does is complain'

Search parties sent out in pitch black amid 'heavy snowfall'

What do you think?

Add a fourth branch of government

'Though his earthly body may have passed, Raul’s spirit will live on forever'

Legal group tied to the Antifa movement

Column 80s Fantasy Film Club Krull Deserves a Bigger Cult Following — Who’s With Me? Is this a good movie? Debatable. Is it an *awesome* movie? Hell yeah it is. By Tyler Dean | Published on December 9, 2025 Credit: Columbia Pictures Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Columbia Pictures 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 ’80s 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 the series, you can find the first installment here, focusing on 1981’s Dragonslayer. Last time, we looked at a singularly dark interpretation of L. Frank Baum’s Oz books with 1985’s Return to Oz. This time we are delving into the sui generis fantasia that is 1983’s Krull. I didn’t see Krull until about seven or eight years ago, but it instantly became one of my favorite films. The film and I are almost exactly the same age (it’s about two months younger than I) which helps me justify the fact that, in 2021, I celebrated my 38th birthday with a socially distanced outdoor screening of this movie. So let’s dive in! Krull is a strange one. Standing boldly astride the Fantasy/Sci Fi divide, the story is set on the titular planet, a world of magic that has been subjugated by an alien warlord called the Beast. Prince Colwyn (Ken Marshall, of Deep Space 9 fame) and his fiancée, Princess Lyssa (Lysette Anthony—redubbed by Lindsay Crouse) are attacked on their wedding day. Lyssa is stolen away by the Beast and his Slayers, prompting Colwyn to embark on a quest to win her back and topple the Beast’s rule. He is joined by the sage Ynyr (The Elephant Man’s Freddie Jones), the shapeshifting wizard Ergo, a blind seer, along with his young apprentice, Titch, as well as an oracular cyclops and a band of thieves led by the lovable rogue, Torquil (played by Alun Armstrong—RSC member, Penny Dreadful luminary, and star of more than a few BBC adaptations of Dickens novels). Fun fact: Torquil’s merry men include Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane, both relatively early in their respective film careers. Colwyn and company conquer crystalline spiders, changeling assassins, and the Beast’s laser-toting, armored Slayers on their way to the forbidding Black Fortress, where Lyssa has been imprisoned. Along the way, Colwyn fulfills a prophecy by retrieving the mythical “Glaive,” a weapon that resembles a vaguely sentient, bladed starfish. He finally comes into his full powers after marrying Lyssa, thereby fulfilling another prophecy, and destroys the Beast, liberating Krull and giving the survivors a happy ending.  So, how does Krull hold up? I already tipped my hand in the intro, but Krull is fucking great! It strikes the perfect balance of engaging and stupid. It takes itself just seriously enough as it’s pushing its absolutely gonzo vision of its fantasy world to be thoroughly enjoyable, even if the viewer doesn’t take it quite as seriously… If I had to point to a single quality that makes Krull so delightful, it would be a fearlessness with regards to its worldbuilding. Released the same year as Return of the Jedi, Krull clearly takes the Star Wars approach of confidently launching its original story in the kind of lived-in world whose history feels much deeper than what is actually explained on screen. Unlike Star Wars, however, it basically eschews all exposition, to both its credit and its detriment.  Take, for example, a third act plot point where Ynyr must visit a character who has rated only the briefest mention up to this point in the film: The Widow of the Web, an ancient sorceress (Francesca Annis) who lives in a crystal at the center of a huge web guarded by the aforementioned crystalline spider. We learn, in very short order, that the Widow has some sort of control over the flow of time, that Ynyr and the Widow once had a son which the Widow killed shortly after his birth, that the Widow is also named Lyssa, and that she is willing to sacrifice herself to save the other Lyssa by providing Ynar with just enough time to deliver vital information to Colwyn. That’s a lot of plot, and there is almost no other context for any of it. In most movies, that sort of dense plotting would require an entire act of a film to set up and explore and Krull burns through it in a scene that lasts, at most, five minutes. Imagine if Obi-Wan just shouted out a laundry list of all his past entanglements with Darth Vader in the two minutes before their duel and none of it was ever mentioned anywhere else in the film.  That’s definitely not to Krull’s credit (and there is a reason taking the same approach as Star Wars doesn’t necessarily lead to Star Wars-esque success) but at the same time, there is something so matter-of-fact and unforced about the whole of Ynar and the Widow’s backstory that one finds oneself intrigued rather than impatient. Krull, despite being an original property (producer Ron Silverman claims the original prompt for the film was inspired by Dungeons & Dragons), feels like it is using remarkable economy of storytelling to cram in details from much more complex and capacious source material. It’s a movie that feels designed to make viewers question if there wasn’t a trilogy of forgotten fantasy novels on which it was based. Everything about the story—from its magical wedding rites and its ancient rivalries between noble houses to the Glaive itself—somehow manages to feel deeper and more engaging than it is. To this end, Krull boasts a production design that leans, tantalizingly, into its blending of sci-fi and fantasy. Knights wear tunics straight out of a 1960s BBC Shakespeare adaptation alongside smooth, ceramic-looking armor that suggests either that the peoples of Krull have adopted fabrication techniques from the Beast or else were a more technologically advanced society before he came to the planet (Torquil’s spiked collar and chainmail mantle are particular highlights). Likewise, there is a charming faux-Medieval brutalist quality to some of the castle sets that feels inspired by Cedric Gibbons’ in-world sets for Kiss Me Kate (1953) or Mary Blair’s design for the exterior of “It’s a Small World.”  Some of that geometric, minimalist brutalism also gets repurposed to far more intimidating effect for Lyssa’s scenes in the Beast’s Black Fortress which, from the outside, looks like a glacier-carved rock formation along the lines of Devils Postpile or the Giant’s Causeway. From the inside, the fortress is vaguely implied to be the body of the Beast itself, with apertures shaped like eyes, huge curling bridges studded with teeth, and claw-like spirals through which Lyssa meanders. The film never explains whether the twenty-foot-tall reptilian baboon that manifests as the Beast late in the film is the true body of the creature or if Lyssa has been wandering around its bones and organs the entire time. Similarly, there is no explanation given for the humanoid, glass-helmeted spacesuits of the Beast’s Slayers which release grotesque slug-like creatures, reminiscent of John Carpenter’s The Thing, that burrow into the earth when their shell is damaged. It is implied the slugs are the Slayers themselves and the humanoid suits are mecha they pilot, but any real explanation feels tantalizingly beyond the grasp of the film, not out of laziness, but because the humans and Cyclopes of Krull would have no way to unravel those extraterrestrial mysteries.  This is not to say the Krull doesn’t have its low points. Neither Colwyn nor Lyssa is particularly engaging as a lead (and, in the latter case, Lyssa is done no favors by the mismatch between her body acting and her dubbed lines), and for every fascinating choice or odd plot point, there is a plodding scene of our adventurers trudging through the grim ocher swamps of Pinewood Studios. Even some of the costume design falls flat: Robbie Coltrane appears to just be wearing a sturdy pair of builder’s coveralls. The presence of two different wise old mentor figures also feels quite unnecessary. Still, there are cast highlights as well. David Battley, who seems to be channeling Eric Idle (with whom he’d worked a few years earlier), manages to mine some charming comic relief from his role as the initially selfish and self-important wizard, Ergo the Magnificent, and gives one of the best line deliveries in B-movie history when, after pestering the seer’s young apprentice for sweets, he introduces himself and lists his many (self-bestowed) titles. The boy responds that it’s all very impressive and introduces himself as simply Titch…a name to which Ergo responds cheerfully, “That’s not impressive, but it is adequate! Adequate.” All in all, Krull is wildly stylish with only the barest hint of real substance that never actually manifests, but I would argue that still puts it ahead of many other fantasy films of the day.  Krull was a box office flop and, even if it’s been more fondly remembered in the 42 years since it was released, it has never achieved as extensive a cult status as, say Fire and Ice, or even the far less interesting Beastmaster. So let’s talk about what impact it has had in the decades since. Most of its pop cultural afterlife has been centered around its magical weapon: the Glaive. I want to start out with the obvious. A glaive (sometimes called a glaive-guisarmes) is a real weapon—a polearm culminating in a sword-like blade, similar to a naginata. You will note that the Glaive in Krull is nothing like that. It’s a psychically controlled shuriken that mostly works like a bandsaw. In addition to causing an endless amount of confusion among nerds about what a glaive actually is, the boomeranging throwing star/chakram has been a popular archetype in fantasy games ever since: Blizzard Entertainment’s Warcraft games prominently feature a “glaive thrower,” a sort of Krull-style glaive-launching ballista; Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon has a “killstar” that functions the same way; a personal favorite—2001’s Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magicka Obscura—calls its glaive-type weapon “Azram’s Star;” and so many of the chakram and bladed boomerang-type weapons seen in Xena: Warrior Princess to Secret of Mana to the Smart Discs of the Predator franchise may be directly inspired by, or at least owe some of their raison d’etre to, fond memories of Krull.  While far from the first piece of media to blend science fiction and fantasy (Anne McCaffrey and Frank Herbert were doing it back in the ’60s and, obviously, Star Wars was the ascendant speculative fiction of the day when Krull was released) there is a particular subgenre of medieval-ish fantasy worlds invaded by sci-fi forces that feel like they owe much to Krull. The Dungeons & Dragons space fantasy setting Spelljammer certainly seems to have taken aesthetic notes from Krull, as do the foundational Japanese RPG series Super Hydlide and Phantasy Star. While Krull was released a couple years after C.J. Cherryh’s Pride of Chanur, you can see the influence of both in early ’90s fantasy like C.S. Friedman’s Coldfire Trilogy, or in the way that Games Workshop kept elements of period-specific fantasy when it launched Warhammer 40000, its space opera counterpart to its established Lovecraftian-Horror-in-the-Holy-Roman-Empire-but-make-it-anti-Thatcherite setting. As a final note, Krull is also likely to have had a lasting impact on the twelve couples who were married on a version of the Krull set as part of one of the weirdest promotions in the history of cinema. I’m not saying that I would want to have a Krull-themed wedding—who am I kidding, I would adore that—but I am saying that getting married as a promotion for a film (particularly one that wouldn’t be released for another month or so and wasn’t based on any sort of known franchise) is the kind of thing that we should do more often. Think of the Rebel Moon weddings we missed out on!  But what do you think? Is Krull an accidentally brilliant piece of ’80s fantasy or is it yet another, plodding dud saddled with an underbaked plot? Do we stan Rell the Cyclops, and his unbelievably drawn-out death sequence? Is baby Liam Neeson’s facial hair worse in Krull or Excalibur? What do you think a glaive is? Please share your thoughts in the comments, and be sure to join us next time when we go from a film that somehow gives the impression that it’s drawing from a deep (if nonexistent) well of lore and source material to one whose source material is a plotless treatise on dragon physiology with Rankin/Bass’ 1982 animated classic The Flight of Dragons![end-mark] The post <i>Krull</i> Deserves a Bigger Cult Following — Who’s With Me? appeared first on Reactor.

November’s White House meeting between Prime Minister Viktor Orban and President Donald Trump was more than just a diplomatic photo op. It was a geopolitical turning point that established a new foundation for U.S.-Hungarian relations and launched what many across Europe are already calling a golden age of partnership. For years, Brussels insisted that small nations must bend, obey, and absorb the ideological fashions of the moment. That era is ending. Two nations committed to strength, stability, and peace have chosen a different path. The achievements of the Trump-Orban summit speak for themselves. First, Hungarian families won. The lifting of U.S. sanctions on Russian energy companies for Hungary eliminates a politically engineered chokepoint that threatened our hard-won utility price reductions. Energy security is not an abstraction. It is what keeps household bills low for millions of families. Removing Washington’s sanctions barrier ensures that Hungary can maintain affordable, reliable energy without being punished for rejecting to adopt the European Union’s green ideology. Second, the summit cemented historic nuclear cooperation. Hungary’s nuclear plant expansion continues uninterrupted, and we are preparing to purchase advanced American small modular reactors. These reactors provide clean baseload power grounded in real engineering rather than the green wishcasting that keeps Europe dependent on unstable energy markets. It is also a significant investment in U.S. technology that will establish Hungary as Central Europe’s nuclear hub. Third, Trump agreed to provide a financial protective shield to guard Hungary against speculative attacks from Brussels and its political allies. This will stabilize our currency, steady the markets, and deprive globalists of one of their most frequently used weapons: politically motivated financial disruption. Fourth, the partnership is no longer just ceremonial. It is deep, operational economic cooperation rooted in shared interests. American capital and technology are paired with Hungary’s stability, skilled workforce, and predictable regulatory climate. Hungarian families will feel the benefits in the short term, and American investors will feel them in the long term, as they recognize that Hungary is the most reliable and sovereign-minded partner in Central Europe. Fifth, the summit reaffirmed Hungary’s role as a peacemaker. Trump made it clear that the idea of a Budapest Peace Summit is still on the table. Unlike Western Europe, Hungary never succumbed to the war fever that swept the continent. From the beginning, we have insisted that peace, not escalation for the sake of appearances, is the only responsible path out of the Ukraine-Russian war. A successful outcome would entail a structured package including an immediate ceasefire, humanitarian relief, protection of civilians and minorities, and a realistic framework for security guarantees. Budapest is the only European capital in Europe capable of hosting such a conversation credibly, calmly, and seriously. It is no surprise that EU officials, the NGO media complex, Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar and the Hungarian Left, and even President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded with nearly identical talking points aimed at undermining the agreement. They are nervous because the world they built on lecturing sovereign nations is collapsing. Hungary and the United States have modeled what a partnership based on mutual respect looks like, and others are taking notice. As Hungary approaches its elections, the strengthened trans-Atlantic alliance provides economic stability, policy freedom, and strategic depth. The financial shield protects the Hungarian Forint from political manipulation. Washington now treats Budapest as an equal partner. This enables us to maintain effective policies, such as a workfare economy, robust family support, a zero-tolerance border policy, and nuclear energy that reliably provides electricity. Sovereignty is not just a slogan. It is relationships that deliver results. Many Americans still underestimate the extent of our existing business ties. Thousands of American companies operate profitably in Hungary, employing tens of thousands of people and taking advantage of our strategic location, world-class infrastructure, and reliable workforce. They stay because conservative governance produces predictability. They invest because Hungary’s energy strategy—from U.S. liquid natural gas to future small modular reactors—offers long term reliability, which Western Europe cannot provide. For the United States, Hungary offers a stable foothold in the heart of Europe. For Hungary, it is a valuable investment that strengthens the economy and our sovereignty. Regarding migration and border control, Hungary has become a model not because of ideology, but because of its clarity. Borders matter. A nation that cannot control who enters cannot defend its future. Hungary insists that demographic decline must be solved with strong families, not mass migration, and America’s conservative movement increasingly agrees. We have built a workfare society rooted in order, security, and responsibility. This stability is why investors come, why families thrive, and why our culture remains strong. Lastly, the Trump-Orban summit was not only the pinnacle of Hungarian diplomacy; it also sent a clear signal to the world. Trump demonstrated that he views Hungary as a sovereign and reliable power capable of making meaningful contributions to the alliance. This strengthens the Hungarian people and warns Brussels that its era of coercion is coming to an end. A golden age has begun. It rests on a simple truth: When sovereign nations defend their energy security, economic stability, cultural identity, and peace, everyone wins. The world is watching what Hungary and the United States are building together. And others will follow. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post A Golden Age in US-Hungarian Relations Has Begun appeared first on The Daily Signal.

In solidly blue Illinois, members of the state’s conservative Freedom Caucus are harshly criticizing the reinstatement of a non-citizen as a police officer who was recently arrested by Immigration Customs Enforcement. On Oct. 15, ICE arrested Radule Bojovic, an alleged “illegal alien from Montenegro who was recently sworn in as a police officer in the Chicago suburb of Hanover Park.”  The Department of Homeland Security alleged that “Bojovic overstayed a B2 tourist visa that required him to depart the U.S. on March 31, 2015. Over a decade later, he was still illegally in the U.S.” After being released on bond Oct. 31, Bojovic went back to work for the Hanover Park police department, per Fox 32 Chicago. Now, conservative legislators in the state’s Freedom Caucus are calling for action. “You have a situation where a non-citizen is here with arrest powers over the citizenry of the folks here in the state of Illinois, and this is something that we cannot stand for,” Rep. Adam Niemerg told The Daily Signal. “We’re having a full investigation with the DOJ, with ICE enforcement, with my Freedom Caucus colleagues and myself, and we’re going to get to the bottom of what’s going on.” .@GovPritzker doesn’t just allow illegal aliens to terrorize Illinois’s communities, he allows them to work as sworn police officers.Radule Bojovic overstayed a B2 tourist visa that required him to depart the U.S. on March 31, 2015. Over a decade later, he was still illegally… pic.twitter.com/7rQFULQh20— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) October 16, 2025 “This popped up, and we’ve been kind of trying to chase down the details and so we FOIA’d [filed Freedom of Information Act requests] to try to find out—we haven’t got this back yet—but we’ve tried to uncover the employment documents. Did he lie about his status? There’s more questions than we have answers right now,” state Rep. Chris Miller told The Daily Signal. But these legislators are not completely optimistic about being able to build a coalition in the Illinois General Assembly to prevent this from happening in the future. Why? Because Republicans in the state assembly voted for a bill allowing noncitizens whose deportation has been deferred by the “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) process” to apply to be law enforcement officers.  It passed with 100 yeas and only 7 nays through the House on May 19, 2023 before being sent to the governor. Republicans outside the Freedom Caucus “aren’t going to talk about it because they voted for it,” Miller told The Daily Signal. “I mean, this is embarrassing for the Republican Party here in the state of Illinois, and it’s just another example of the lack of leadership we have at the core of the Illinois Republican Party, and particularly in the House of Representatives.” Miller continued, “It’s a disaster, and these guys can’t talk about it because they’re too proud to admit that they made a bad vote and made a mistake, and so they just want this to go away, and I doubt that they’re all that happy that it’s getting the exposure that it is.” Niemerg is more hopeful about his party, telling The Daily Signal, “I know that the Republican caucus can unite around this. We’ve had some issues within the Republican caucus trying to get Republicans to unite around the illegal immigration issues. It’s been a little bit of a battle that I’ve been a little bit frustrated with.” He suggested some Democrat legislators might come on board with opposing the policies. “As far as the Democrats go, yes, the moderate Democrats in some swing districts that are not liking some of this policy coming out of Gov. JB Pritzker,” he said. “You have an election cycle coming up for the Democrats in 2026.” Illegal immigrants arresting United States Citizens. This is treasonous. We are working to fully support and assist @DHSgov with help from @Theswampmonitor to get the answers our people deserve. pic.twitter.com/g0XnJRYS9e— Illinois Freedom Caucus ?? (@ILFreedomCaucus) December 4, 2025 When contacted, the Hanover Park Police Department directed The Daily Signal to reach Deputy Chief Victor DiVito, who did not respond to voicemail messages. However, the department previously told reporters, “Given that [Bojovic’s] bond was not contested and he remains authorized to work by the federal government, the Hanover Park Police Department determined that he may return to work.” “The bottom line is that all information we received from the federal government indicated that Officer Bojovic is legally authorized to work in the United States as a police officer. Clearly, without that authorization, the Village would not have hired him,” the department said. “Additionally, the Village has not received any notice from any federal or state agency that his work authorization status has ever been revoked.” The Daily Signal contacted the office of Illinois Republican Minority Leader of the House of Representatives Tony McCombie for response to the Freedom Caucus members’ remarks on the party at large but did not receive a response. The post Illinois Reps Outraged Over ICE-Arrested Cop Back on Duty appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Berlin’s regional parliament has passed a far-reaching overhaul of its “security” law, giving police new authority to conduct both digital and physical surveillance. The CDU-SPD coalition, supported by AfD votes, approved the reform of the General Security and Public Order Act (ASOG), changing the limits that once protected Berliners from intrusive policing. Interior Senator Iris Spranger (SPD) argued that the legislation modernizes police work for an era of encrypted communication, terrorism, and cybercrime. But it undermines core civil liberties and reshapes the relationship between citizens and the state. One of the most controversial elements is the expansion of police powers under paragraphs 26a and 26b. These allow investigators to hack into computers and smartphones under the banner of “source telecommunications surveillance” and “online searches.” Police may now install state-developed spyware, known as trojans, on personal devices to intercept messages before or after encryption. If the software cannot be deployed remotely, the law authorizes officers to secretly enter a person’s home to gain access. This enables police to install surveillance programs directly on hardware without the occupant’s knowledge. Berlin had previously resisted such practices, but now joins other federal states that permit physical entry to install digital monitoring tools. More: Germany Turns Its Back on Decades‑Old Privacy Protections with Sweeping Surveillance Bill IT security experts caution that maintaining hidden system vulnerabilities for state use exposes everyone to greater cyber risk. They also question the constitutional legitimacy of combining digital espionage with physical intrusion into private homes. The revised law also changes how police use body cameras. Paragraph 24c permits activation of bodycams inside private homes when officers believe there is a risk to life or limb. The government presents this as a measure for officer safety, but many view it as an open door to video surveillance within citizens’ most private settings. Paragraph 26e expands “cell tower queries,” allowing police to obtain data on every mobile phone connected to a specific tower during a chosen timeframe. This form of data collection can identify the movements of thousands of uninvolved individuals, including people who might simply have attended a protest. Under paragraph 24d, automatic license plate recognition systems will be used to record and cross-check vehicle plates with databases. Paragraph 24h also grants police the ability to neutralize or even take control of drones in certain situations. Paragraph 28a introduces biometric face and voice matching, using publicly available information from the internet. This gives Berlin’s police the ability to compare surveillance footage with images posted on social media platforms. This as a major step toward automated identification of individuals in public life. A further innovation, paragraph 42d, authorizes the use of real investigative data, such as photos, videos, and text messages, for “training and testing” artificial intelligence systems. This breaks the principle that data collected for one purpose cannot later be reused. Because AI models can reveal patterns from the original material, this clause risks turning police archives into training sets for machine learning systems. The law also lengthens preventive detention periods. Under paragraph 33, individuals may now be held for up to five days, or up to seven in terrorism-related cases. Lawmakers discussed this provision in connection with protests by the environmental group “Last Generation,” whose civil resistance actions have triggered repeated detentions. The group NoASOG denounced the law as an attack on civil society, while the Society for Civil Rights (GFF) announced plans to prepare a constitutional complaint. Berlin’s data protection commissioner, Meike Kamp, had already warned that approving the state trojan amounts to “a frontal attack on the IT security of all citizens.” She said the overall framework creates “a constitutionally highly questionable density of surveillance.” Berlin now joins the list of German states that have widened police authority in recent years, but the scope of this legislation stands out. It links physical home entry, digital interception, and artificial intelligence analysis under one legal structure, reducing the barriers between policing and private life. The range of new powers granted to police shifts the balance decisively toward state control of personal information. Berlin is a city once known for strong privacy traditions and the ASOG reform marks a decisive moment. Whether it withstands constitutional review will determine how far Germany’s commitment to individual privacy can bend in the name of security. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Berlin Approves New Expansion of Police Surveillance Powers appeared first on Reclaim The Net.