Lacking that B-movie charm

I like a lot of 80s B movie Fantasies and decided to check out the Deathstalker films because I just watched The Barbarians on youtube, LOVED IT, and am now giving Deathstalker a chance.

I picked up the Roger Corman Sword and Sorcery Collection and watched the first film last night and was not impressed. To me what makes a Sword and Sorcery B film so great is when the cast and crew are aware that they are making a sub par film and are in on the joke, but with Deathstalker I felt like they were trying to make a decent movie and just gave up when it became clear they were too incompetent to do so. The Barbarians was hilarious because the tongue in cheek tone was present throughout the film, but I didn't get that vibe with Deathstalker. I like seeing boobs and ass as much as the next guy, but this film was gratuitous in the way they showed it and often not in a funny or sexy way either. I like blood and gore but when the sorcerer was feeding that boy's eye and fingers to his pet creature, that was just a little too far for me when it comes to a movie I want to laugh at (or with).

The biggest surprise I had while watching Deathstalker is that some scenes actually look very good trying to replicate Boris Vallejo's imagery, they were held back only by the anemic production budget, but the rest of the movie is plain old bad film making. I just found very little charm to the movie which I find essential to enjoy trash cinema. The last 20 or so minutes are genuinely funny with some hilarious moments in the sorcerer's castle, and the end is pretty satisfying, but getting to that last half hour was a long hard slog.

I heard Deathstalker 2 is the true stand out in the series so I'll check that out tonight.

EDIT:

OK so I guess I have to eat my words about the first one because they did everything I suggested they do for the first to make the sequel better, place tongue in cheek and just have fun, but they failed miserably at it. It just wasn't funny yet they tried so hard. Army of Darkness is funny, Flesh + Blood is funny, The Barbarians is funny, but Deathstalker 2 was full of cringe inducing puns. I think I might prefer the first over the second, but the sequel does do a better job at portraying the Deathstalker character by turning him into a swashbuckling scoundrel instead of a thuggish brute like in the first. Aside from a fun sword fight at the end, the sequel just didn't do it for me. I like how the first had imagery which tried to capture the magic of Boris Vallejo, the sequel attempted none of this. The bloopers for Deathstalker 2 should have been kept in the final cut because they were genuinely funny, and the acting was better when they didn't think the cameras were rolling. If you're going for comedy, you need some genuinely talented or charismatic people in your film, but Deathstalker 2 failed at this. I actually have the urge to watch the first again, at least certain scenes, so at least that one might grow on me.