Let me cut to the chase - this is pulp adventure at its rawest, and I mean that as both compliment and warning.
I finished this one during a late-night security assessment at a client's warehouse complex. Seemed fitting, honestly. Dark corners, strange noises, that prickle at the back of your neck. Conan would've been right at home.
Howard Doesn't Waste Your Time
At an hour and twenty-eight minutes, this thing moves like a combat patrol through hostile territory. No fat. No filler. Conan gets warned about a sketchy inn, ignores the warning (because of course he does), and within minutes he's fighting off a cannibal who wandered into his room like it's Tuesday night.
The setup is brutal in its efficiency - the city of Zamboula has essentially outsourced its disposal of unwanted visitors to Darfarian slaves who roam the streets after dark hunting for meat. The locals just lock their doors and pretend it's not happening. Sound familiar? I've seen this scenario play out in real life - communities that tolerate dangerous elements because confronting them is inconvenient. Howard wrote this in the 1930s, but the human tendency to look the other way hasn't changed one bit.
The Naked Lady Chase Scene (Not What You Think)
So Conan's dealing with cannibals when he stumbles onto a naked woman chasing her lover through the streets. The guy's been driven insane by a botched love potion - she wanted devotion, got a raving lunatic instead. There's something darkly funny about this. Woman tries to chemically guarantee affection, ends up with a man who's lost his mind entirely. Howard wasn't subtle about his themes, but he was honest about human nature.
The plot from there is straightforward: kill the priest responsible, collect the reward. Conan approaches this like any good operator would - assess the threat, identify the objective, execute. No moral hand-wringing. The priest has it coming, and Conan's the instrument of that particular justice.
Mark Nelson Behind the Mic
Nelson does solid work here. Nothing flashy, but he understands the material. He doesn't try to make Conan sophisticated - the Cimmerian is a blunt instrument, and Nelson voices him accordingly. The pacing matches Howard's prose, which is punchy and direct. I didn't catch any obvious flubs or moments where the narration pulled me out of the story.
That said, I'm working with limited intel on Nelson's specific performance choices. The recording is clean, the delivery professional. For a sub-ninety-minute listen, that's exactly what you need.
What Howard Got Right (And What He Got Wrong)
Look, we need to address the elephant in the room. Howard was writing in 1935, and his depiction of the Darfarian characters reflects the casual racism of pulp fiction from that era. It's uncomfortable. The cannibals are portrayed as savage and subhuman in ways that haven't aged well. If that's going to ruin the experience for you, fair enough - skip this one.
But if you can contextualize it as a product of its time while still recognizing its problems, there's genuine craft here. Howard understood momentum. He understood that adventure fiction lives and dies on forward motion. Every scene either reveals character or advances plot - usually both simultaneously. Ruthless King operates on the same principle - no wasted motion, just relentless forward momentum.
Who Should Lock Their Doors (And Who Should Walk Right In)
This is for sword-and-sorcery purists who want their Conan undiluted. If you've never read Howard and you're curious about the original barbarian - not the Schwarzenegger version, not the comics - this is a quick, punchy introduction. The short runtime makes it low-risk. Skip it if you need complex character development or if problematic racial elements are a dealbreaker. This isn't a nuanced exploration of anything. It's a man with a sword solving problems the old-fashioned way.
Mission Debrief
Worth your time? For fans of classic pulp adventure, absolutely. It's lean, mean, and delivers exactly what it promises. At under ninety minutes, it's shorter than most action movies and twice as efficient. Ranger stayed awake for the whole thing, which is more than I can say for some of those literary novels Linda keeps recommending.
Not a must-own, but if you've got a subscription service or catch it on sale, it's a solid way to spend a drive across town. Howard knew how to write action, and Nelson knows how to deliver it. Sometimes that's enough.
