Most people who have seen the movie The Beastmaster (1982) probably recall a very specific horrific moment (or two) with an unnamed creature that captures its prey within its leathery wings, spits out a digestive enzyme on its victim and slurps them up in one big gulp before releasing their dissolved remnants (mostly bones coated in the aforementioned goop) onto the ground. While there are other demonic beings in the movie, I would dare say that these creatures have been the primary thing people will recall about this movie (besides the actors) since it’s such a unique element that I honestly have not witnessed or known about prior to this movie being conceived. Despite not having an official name (imdb.com simply calls the main one the Winged Creature Leader), it has been effectively accepted that these things are known by the cult following as the Winged Devourers. But what are they? Where do they come from? Are they based on anything? Various people have attempted to tackle answering these questions, but I’d like to create a combination of using existing information as well as my interpretation while maintaining story elements and as much logic as I humanly can for a fantasy movie.
Besides the “Winged Devourer” nickname, others would describe/name these creatures as the “bird men” or “bat-like winged creatures.” We can only assume that they have a connection to birds because they seem to worship eagles as demonstrated through a symbol mounted in front of what might be their sacred tree. This symbol is in the shape of an eagle. Later, when Dar attempts to elude these creatures during his initial encounter, his own eagle companion Sherak, lands on his wrist and hops over to the idol/statue where it seems to ward off these creatures. These beings respect Dar’s companion and back away, allowing him to escape unscathed. However, the leader confronts Dar and provides him with an amulet, which I assume is some sort of Batman type of signal to summon these creatures during a crisis (which he does at the end of the film). Regardless, we do establish here that these creatures are connected to avians or at least eagles in some fashion.
Yet it’s really hard to describe what these creatures are. Their “wings” aren’t feathery but leathery. They have no facial features outside of a long mask with no noticeable features except for human-like eyes (because budget…) They are bipedal and VERY tall. When the leader “stands” (or flies in place?) next to Dar before handing him the amulet, he clearly towers over the warrior by at least a foot or two. They have talons rather than hands that are “built” into their winged/cloak-like thing attached to the backside of their bodies. They seem to have legs but no visible feet. Also, while having muscular frames, they exhibit no external organs. They do seem to emit an ear piercing shriek though as exhibited when the one creature captures the little man from the cage.
In terms of their habitat, Dar stumbles upon a hill where he’s searching for Kiri (Tanya Roberts) who is a slave and has asked him to forget about her. For whatever reason, Dar decides to investigate this hill, despite the alien-like massive tree sitting at the top where these various glowing pods dangle. By the time he reaches the tree, it becomes night time and the entire area is dark save for the strange pods and a brewing cauldron sitting on top of a hot fire pit. There is only this one massive tree for which these pods hang.
Now, no one ever speculated what these pods represent. Even Dar at one point looks up and tries to figure out what these things are. But they look like large glistening, translucent sacks with brown veiny lines containing another sack inside that emits a bizarre pale greenish glow. Each of these pods have a dark round spot on the side but it’s impossible to tell what that might function as. My initial guess as what these things could be is either nests or some sort of incubation chamber for their young. But outside of this exotic look (along as serving as a bizarre lighting fixture), nothing else is established about them.
Hanging from the tree is a shoddy locked cage containing a diminutive man who in all likelihood will serve as the creature’s eventually supper (but not initially as the next scene suggest). Despite the fact that this poor guy probably has been terrorized and witnessed some foul shit, he never gets a single line in during the entire movie. All he can do is emote while Dar inspects the zone.
Then there’s the cauldron sitting above a large fire. This is one of those really bizarre elements that doesn’t really fit what we’ll learn about in this story. Inside the cauldron brews a nasty soup. Dar takes a whiff and is disgusted then proceeds to asks his poor tiger/panther “Ruh” who immediately rejects it. As Dar further prods the soup, a cheap plastic prop of some dude’s head floats upward. This thing looked bad like part of the color was faded and there was a strange scar running up the side of its face. Obviously, this was done as a cheap jump scare tactic but it’s such a strange placement.
Afterwards, the creatures make their premier. And there’s a LOT of them. Since one of my initial theories was that the pods possibly were used as a nest, the number surrounding Dar (technical limitations aside) defy what I think those pods’ actually purpose are. But in their initial state, these creatures look like priests because they’re clad in brown leather robes with their faces hidden underneath a hood. Obviously, their numbers can overwhelm Dar so he cuts the little imprisoned man free.
Now, here’s where things get freaky and silly at the same time. The little man panics and begins to trot off in terror, despite the fact that he can see that Dar and he are completely surrounded by these creatures. Worse yet Dar doesn’t try to stop the guy or offer any help to protect him. The guy just zooms off right into the welcoming arms of one of these creatures. And it’s not like he couldn’t see the creature. He had a few seconds to turn around and bolt back towards Dar (who is tall, strong and carries a big ass sword along with having a bad ass tiger/panther thing)
From there we get the infamous devouring scene (hence the Winged Devourer name) where the creature with it’s wings/arms extended wraps the shower curtain-like plastic/rubber material around the tiny man, scoops him and begins emitting the piercing shriek while the little man can do little except grunt and moan. Oh and by the way, Dar does not offer once ounce of help for the poor dude in all of this so what a fucker! Anyway, the man’s hair can be barely seen just hanging above the top of the wings/cape thing while the creature’s mask hovers over his head. As this is going on, there’s this strange gurgling/liquid noise emitting in the background. The little guy (despite getting captured FACE first) manages to turn around in this thing but is completely entangled and struggles to escape but the wings/cape lock around him firmly.
Then we begin to see what this liquid nose is: green goop. In the next shot, the poor man’s feet are barely dangling above the ground as this strange goop issues from under the wings over his sandal wearing feet. By now, the man’s cries are completely muffled despite how the goop sound continues to run. The next scene shows that the guy is still struggling, his head probably buried deep inside of the wings while he continues to fight, even though the wings have formed a leathery impenetrable bag around him. The creature continues to look downward as it manages its prey. Another shot of the man’s dangling feet with the ground having formed a small puddle beneath him. The next shot shows the man’s imprint of his hands and face (even teeth and lips) pressing hard against the leathery wing as he’s dying inside. Afterwards, we see the exterior of the wings where the man’s form as a bulge is still fighting a bit before there’s a “gulp” type of movement that goes inward and effectively is the moment where the man is “eaten” away all at once with the bulge not as big and no longer moving. Finally, the creature makes a turn and releases the remnants of the man, which are shown to be just bones covered in the slick dark green fluid. You even see the man’s skull roll out if you watch frame by frame.
Of course, none of this makes much sense although there have been people who attempted to justify the mechanics of this particular scene. But before we go into the biological aspects of these creatures, the first thing I need to address (or question) is why didn’t they just cook this guy before? Obviously, they were planning to eat him eventually but why didn’t he go into the human stew along with the beheaded fellow? I know I’m not the only person who questioned these creatures’ eating habits. Also, wouldn’t the rest of the flock get mad at this one prick who effectively took their future dinner away? There’s just a bunch of stuff that doesn’t add up in this scene. Finally, as a small detail, we only saw the guy’s bones. What happened to his clothes?
The reason I get a little picky with this scene is because in the later battle, these creatures assault ARMORED MEN. But after they devour the ARMORED MEN, the Winged Devourers leave behind their armor. Well, that makes perfect sense. And leaving behind bones makes perfect sense. But the little dude had leather sandals and raggedy clothes. You can’t tell me these creatures ate that too.
Really that’s all we get in terms of what we can infer. I read that the director said he simply wanted something to “appear freaky” when it came to these creatures. One blogger mentioned he couldn’t find much (or any) information about the VFX crew (the crew themselves are listed on imdb but not as a company for VFX so it could’ve just been a bunch of independents). But I suppose the core of this situation partly boils down to where these creatures were inspired from?
I did hear that the story itself was based on a novel that involved a native American as the chief character. That character like Dar has a connection to wild life. But that’s where most of the similarities end since The Beastmaster is more of a fantasy that was a byproduct of the Conan era. According to a podcaster who did a deep dive, it was based on a mythological Native American creature that had a penchant for human flesh. There were other characteristics such as it having wings, etc. but nothing really outstanding to directly and overtly connected to these beings.
Since this movie came out in 1982, one thing I can say is that I never heard anything resembling these types of creatures in pop media culture prior to this movie. The closest thing I can think of that may have occurred around that period was the Cloaker from the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual II book, but that was published in 1983. The Cloaker though did make its appearance in an earlier Greyhawk module in 1981. While the commercials do actually use the words “dungeons and dragons” to describe the movie, I don’t know if the director/writer/crew were even aware of the Cloaker much less play AD&D.
Perhaps, that is why this movie really struck a note in most people who viewed it at the time. The Winged Devourers certainly were one of the highlights in an otherwise cheesy, low budget fantasy (although this movie managed to attain a cult following status along with two follow ups and a TV series although none from my knowledge ever revisited these beings). It’s pretty rare to come up with a unique signature item in a realm where everything has been done multiple times over.
That said, we aren’t here merely to sing the praises of this movie but to extend the lore of the Winged Devourers. My inspiration for this expounding is the Dungeons and Dragons monster ecology where we learn a little more about the creatures, their society, etc. In this case, in establishing the elements in the movie, the one thing I want to do is explore the mechanics of the Winged Devourer that tries to retain a level of reality and logic while respecting the world building aspects established in the movie.
First, let’s establish what they are. Are they humanoids? Birds? Bats? At the very least, they are a hybrid between a human type of life form with birds. Due to their apparent worship of an eagle entity, in all likelihood they are partly avian in nature. Their screech during the consumption of a victim is very hawk-like and apparently they can fly (which we see after the battle with the monster men at the end and Dar watches the leaders take off into the air).
Next, these creatures do seem intelligent as they exhibit culture and limited mechanical ability. The culture examples are through the bird/eagle altar/idol by the tree, the cauldron with a cooking person, even the captivity of the small dude in a cage as well as the amulet that the leader provides Dar. Also, because of the way they were able to recognize friend from foe at the end fight, we can assume that they possessed some level of deduction. We don’t know if they can communicate with each other via speech but they at least understand Dar’s eagle when the eagle wards them away and establishes that Dar is significant in some manner.
From there, I suppose one of the major things to address is their lair. They apparently inhabit the top of a hill where a massive tree suspends various glowing pods or sacks. Being aerial creatures, I assume this is the reason for their location (not to mention being far enough away from civilization to avoid an invasion). As far as the tree’s significance goes, it’s impossible to say if there was a religious or functional aspect to it. We do see that they keep the eagle idol/altar thing in front of the tree. However, we don’t see where these creatures sleep or how for that matter. When they appear, they do so suddenly out of nowhere. So it’s possible that they were hiding in the darkness and had detected Dar ahead of time. Or that they were disturbed by Dar’s violation (i.e. appearance) in their lair.
For that reason, I initially believed that those glowing pods could’ve been their nest. But considering their number, it wouldn’t make much sense. There is an illustration that shows many more of these pods around the tree:
In seeing this illustration, it’s a lot clearer that these pods probably served as the individual nest spaces for these creatures because there’s enough to fit the colony. Also, note that the colors are inverted where these things look like nest with a glowing light beaming out rather than a strange dark splotch off to the side.
Because of this visual discrepancy and the fact that none of these were occupied, it’s impossible to say what purpose they served beyond a strange light source. However, you can say that these things are HUGE like some massive sack. One theory I had (besides nest) was that they could serve as an egg sack for their young. You can see some sort of glowing outline within. I doubt that they put that much thought into the production but you still have to question what these things were.
Without anyone offering any ideas, my best guess is that perhaps these were the young forming for these creatures. We never get to see any hints of how these creatures reproduce. The closest analogy I have to something like this are the Director’s cut of Alien with the Brett Egg thing. With the Brett Egg thing very few people probably knew about that subject in 1982. You would need to read Alan Dean Foster’s novel or be a super fan and buy some magazine with an interview from Ridley Scott to gain this type of knowledge as the Director’s cut didn’t happen until much later.
Another (more gruesome) possibility is that these pods served as a storage unit for these creatures in terms of food. Or perhaps, the faint outline in these things is from victims that had been caught and slowly being preserved or wasting away inside of these things. Maybe the glow is some external digestive process to help breakdown victims and that the pods are like large cocoons.
Like the exterior has that glossy/plastic possibly silky type of fabric that weaves around it while inside it seems gelatinous. But you can see in the image the various brown/reddish lines running about. Could that be blood of a victim? Also, the interior has that off green tint kinda like the green digestive enzyme the creatures spew. It’s uncertain what the lighting might be but one theory I read was that it could be part of the bizarre process for turning one into that liquefied substance for these creatures to consume.
The other theory which is even more gruesome is that there’s a dual purpose behind these things in using people to feed a growing host. So that goes back to the Alien Brett Egg imagery. Similarly, Battlestar Galactica had the Ovions in an episode from 1978 where humans were quietly abducted to the Ovions’ breeding chambers far below the surface where these prisoners were restrained in trays and locked within a chamber for the Ovion young to feast upon. Logically, speaking this would make the most sense for me on these things purpose, although I have no idea how they can produce the lighting effect. Maybe the little dark circle is meant to be a hole for the adults to access and provide more nutrients for their young.
But if this were the case, then we need to explain the most controversial aspect of these creatures: how they feed. I consider this controversial not just because of the infamous digestion scene but because of the cauldron with the human head soup. I understand that the floating head was meant to be used for shock value but it also undermines the way that individual creatures can feed. So why is there a need for a cauldron? Do these things get indigestion when someone isn’t heated up correctly?
In all likelihood, I’m guessing that prey, especially human prey, is difficult or at least a bit of a struggle for them to obtain. Also, these creatures seem social in having a large group present when Dar appears. The cauldron in itself represents a communal meal if anything, implying that these creatures quite possibly feasts together and ration what they find. That would explain why the little dude in the cage was still alive. As far as why soup is used, the best answer I can come up with (beyond the stupid jump scare moment) is their digestive process. So if these creatures need to liquefy their victims for digestion, then the soup part makes sense especially if they intend to share it with the tribe.
Then we get to the actual Winged Devourer consuming a victim. Not only does this appear to be a way for them to nourish themselves, but it also serves as a type of assault. I mean with regard to the end scene, there’s a weird dual purpose going on. Like they effectively got a free meal for their tribe in having all those soldiers available. Besides, their “attack” we don’t really see what else these creatures can do to attack someone but their main offense is so lethal that it doesn’t matter in the end.
Regardless, their whole process of consuming a victim can be a long discussion in itself. The main components are:
- The victim is secured by the creature wrapping its wings tightly over the victim
- Emitting a shriek (might be optional but at least was heard during the first on screen victim
- Hanging the facial area of the creature over the trapped victim as a digestive enzyme is spewed over
- Eventually, sucking the victim’s flesh off the bone and leaving bones and armor (if available). Clothes might be incorporated (or just a silly oversight from the film makers)
So the two biggest mysteries are:
- Where/how does this enzyme get secreted?
- How does the victim eventually get slurped up?
The reason why these are mysteries is due to the creatures not exhibiting a mouth. I have seen an illustration where it looks that someone drew a fangs mouth on the creature’s belly but the behind the scenes shot does not display anything like that. Instead, the being has a reasonably muscular form.
Besides, having a mouth on its stomach would defeat the purpose of the green digestive enzymes. The only weird part visually from the movie is where the little man gets “sucked inward” rather than upward. Some people (myself included a while back) that the wings themselves emitted the enzyme. But the way the bird’s head is positioned makes me believe that it vomits the enzyme from a hidden beak/mouth. In that manner, the creature functions similarly to the Brundefly from The Fly (1986) which makes a lot of sense as we have actual living creatures that do this type of thing in nature. Also, when the creature opens its wings back up, only part of the side of the wings was covered in green goop.
Then there’s a few inconsistencies about how this operates. For instance, there’s two shots of the little guy’s feet getting covered in the goop. Why doesn’t his feet start dissolving? When I first saw this scene, I interpreted the goop as akin to bird poop (because you’d see that nasty pigeon shit as some gross white liquid turd). In my mind, the guy was getting chunked away by the creature and the creature had an incredibly high metabolism rate. Of course, that’s prior to me learning about how certain biology functions. Nonetheless, part of the confusion perhaps is due to the bones being covered in a darker green slime. Also, there’s no traces of blood left on the bones. The end scene is harder to dissect because the action occurs too fast to really process (also, the torch lighting makes it harder to discern any details)
At any rate, I hope some day someone else can further shed light on these creatures. It’s a real shame too because these things seem to have deserved a larger role in the series.