Did you people see the same film I saw?

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The acting in this movie is really good.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This movie has stayed with me ever since seeing it as a teenager when it was played as an accompanying short film to "The Empire Strikes Back". I thought it was absolutely brilliant however I also remember the comments of "Eh?" and "I don't get it" I overheard at the cinema.It is dark, moody, brooding and atmospheric. Something to be experienced and slowly digested rather than passively watched - much of what a viewer will take out of this movie will be based upon what they themselves read into it.I am so glad to have finally found out what the movie was called and even better to have found it is finally available. I am downloading it on iTunes as we speak!

Like the others who have commented, this film remains deeply embedded in my mind, a quarter of a century after I saw it for the first and last time.It would be fascinating to see how it has aged, and to exorcise the partially submerged memories of various elements that feature in this short film. The helmet sequence at the end - if I remember it correctly - is one of the few images I can still recall with clarity. The rest of the film lurks somewhere inside my being like a musty odour inaccessible to anyone's nostrils, including my own.Today's kids would probably find this woefully tame, and it probably is nothing more than a load of old faux-medieval tosh with heavily filtered skies like a proto-Robin of Sherwood. However, at the time - for a child - there was something that resonated very strongly with the subsequent mood of the swamp scene in Empire Strikes Back... which, arguably, was more alarming with its Freudian dream sequence of Skywalker decapitating himself / his father, if I recall correctly (another one I haven't watched for a very, very long time).What on earth was the Lucas-Christian axis trying to do the minds of toddlers back then? Whatever it was, it mashed my head so much that I am now compelled to drone on about it on a popular internet film forum such as this one, as if I am at an AA meeting or similar support group.As you were.UPDATE 18/10/13Well, after 33 years I was finally able to revisit 'Black Angel' at the restoration premiere last Sunday at Throckmorton Theatre, Mill Valley Film Festival. An extraordinary film - and an extraordinary experience collapsing the gulf of time between viewings into a few short minutes and finding some core images reasonably intact, with other elements archetypal enough to be strangely familiar, without directly accessible memory. "I'm going to bypass your forebrain and appeal directly to your amygdala."Things are looking good for this film being made much more widely available in 2014 - I'd advise anyone who sees this once again (or for the first time) to be especially careful with spoilers, as there will be quite a few people from the UK, Scandinavia and Australia eager to experience their own "chronological vertigo"... 33-year-old spoilers are the absolute pits :)

I saw this in the UK when it was the opening act for "The Empire Strikes Back". That was back in the day when you got a double-bill of two movies, or at least a movie and a short. A full generation has passed and I can still remember it vividly, even after seeing it only once.At first I thought I was watching some time filler on the topic of pony-trekking... and then I noticed the rider had an axe by his saddle. Ahah; my interest immediately jumped a few notches. The things I recall most readily are the hero's helm with its entwined snake, his opponent's unusual maul for a weapon, and the armour which seemed grey with spider webs. In fact the armour was really something to see, being very dark but not quite black.I do hope this comes out on DVD at some point. I had read many years back that it might be done as a full-blown movie. Either way, I want to see it.

I saw this film like other people as a short before The Empire Strikes Back, and I must say I found it a curious but extremely dark and memorable pairing up. Its medieval and gothic overtones certainly coloured my experience of Empire, for good or bad. I would love to see it again, as an adult instead of a, then, scared and bewildered 6 year old. Worth a look, if you get the opportunity.