Barbarian Queen (1985)

Part of Roger Corman’s nine picture deal with Argentina the Barbarian Queen seems to be an answer to the question, “Was Deathstalker rapey enough?” This entry was also helmed by local Argentinian director Héctor Olivera who’s most notable contributions to film is this one and the equally terrible Wizards of the Lost Kingdom. Bad acting, terrible dubbing, gratuitous sexual assaults, recycled sets and a plot that wanders around like a beaten lost puppy makes this one of the worst entries in the genre.

 

Her steel is hardly the only thing naked here.

Do you remember the beginning of Conan the Barbarian where young Conan is being told about the “Riddle of Steel” by his father and then the village is attack by Thulsa Doom and his marauders? That was a pretty badass opening wasn’t it?  Well this film starts with a girl being horribly raped by soldiers before the village is attacked by the villain and his marauders which pretty much sets the tone for the rest of this movie.

 

Viewers with taste may want to abandon the film now.

Descriptions of the movie claim it takes place during the days of the Roman Empire but as not one character dresses like a Roman and all the sets are reused ones from Deathstalker I never got that vibe. It’s basically just another evil king ruling from an evil city full of harem girls and gladiators with nothing to set it apart from other Sword & Sorcery movies except for the lack of sorcery that is.

 

Lana Clarkson is The Barbarian Queen.

The village is attacked during the wedding preparations of marriage between Prince Argan (Frank Zagarino) and Amethea (Lana Clarkson) and most of the villagers are killed while the few survivors are taken as slaves including Argan and the poor raped girl who turns out to be Taramis (Dawn Dunlap) Amethea’s sister. Amethea only survives by setting fire to her hut and then taken cover in her bathtub.

 

That party got out of hand.

Two other women survived the attack; Estrid (Katt Shea) and Tiniara (Susana Traverso) and Amethea convinces them to join her on her mission to avenge her ruined wedding day, “I’ll be no man’s slave and no man’s whore, and if I can’t kill them all, by the gods they’ll know I’ve tried.” They canoe down the river for a while until they come across a military outpost where they see some old dude raping a woman that is tied to a fence, they kill the rapist but the girl dies in the arms of Estrild.

 

Rapist Interruptus.

The trio make quick work of the rest of the soldiers of the outpost and discover Amethea’s sister who has gone a bit funny in the head since her capture and one can assume multiple sexual assaults by the soldiers here. I don’t want to harp on this but for a movie called Barbarian Queen there just seems to be lot of violence towards women here and were not even at the fifteen minute mark.

 

The first of our heroes many failures.

The four women take the horses of the now dead soldiers and proceed on their “Revenge Quest” only to be attacked by a rebel band of villagers that is until the villagers learn that Amethea and company are also enemies of Arrakur (Armando Capo) who lead the attack against Amethea’s people and who rules the land with an iron fist. The rebels lend the women a young girl named Dariac (Andrea Scriven) to lead them to the city as only she knows the secret way in.

 

We’re told this a girl so I’ll take their word for it.

They are lead through underground passages into the catacombs below the city where they meet up with Dariac’s father the apparent leader of the underground rebel movement. He tells them that he can’t let them fight as they’ll start a battle that the rebels are not ready to finish.

 

The rebel leader seen here with standard issue eye patch and “missing arm.”

Now is when things start to really go bad, for reasons unknown the group split up which allows traumatized Taramis to run off and join the evil Arrakur as she apparently is suffering from some form of Stockholm syndrome, when Estrild tries to find Taramis she is captured and raped by city soldiers and then later dies in the castle dungeon.

 

“At least I’m out of this movie.”

When Amethea and Tiniara see Estrild being taken away they rush to her rescue but instead they themselves are quickly captured by the more of the city soldiers.

 

I’m getting the impression that as heroes go, Amethea kind of sucks.

Tiniara is sent off to be a harem girl and sex toy for the gladiators while Amethea is interrogated by Arrakur himself who orders her to take her clothes off and when he tries to kiss her she bites his face.

 

This kind of thing never happens to Conan.

Arrakur doesn’t kill her for this insolence but sends her to his chief torturer and we are “treated” to the film’s most bizarre scene as Amethea is tied spread eagle on a rack while some kind of mechanized steel gauntlet is aimed at her chest.

 

Words fail me.

If this scene comes across as a tad fucked up how she escapes is even more so; the twisted bastard decides to move onto the sexual assault portion of his torture regime but when he starts screwing her Amethea clamps down on his dick with her super vagina muscles and she refuses to stop squeezing his manhood until he releases her hands. Of course when he does she kicks him into a nearby vat of acid.

 

Liquefied rapist.

Meanwhile Tiniara as a harem girl has made contact with Argan who is now a gladiator and tells him that she and Amethea have made contact with the rebels and that with their help and the help of the gladiators they could overthrow Arrakur. That plan has a few hiccups being that Tiniara and the gladiators have no way of confirming with the rebels the details of the plan, they have no idea where Amethea is, and the rebels aren’t armed or remotely ready to start their rebellion.  Other than it’s a cracker jack plan.

 

Would you trust her to plan anything?

The big finale has the gladiators being betrayed by one of their own but just as all seems lost the rebels show up and a brainwashed Taramis plants a dagger in the back of Arrakur saving Amethea from getting her head lopped off.

 

You go girl.

I’ve seen my fair share of cheesy exploitation films but this one takes the cake, it would have been better off if they had just gone ahead and made it an outright porno. The action scenes were terrible with the only thing worse than the lame sword fighting would be the acting which was more wooden than the swords. As heroes go Amethea is about the worst as she fails almost constantly at everything and even at the end she has to be saved during her fight with the chief villain.  The only saving grace here is we get to see poor mentally shattered Taramis get her revenge.

 

I’m assuming ten minutes later the rebels toss these idiots out of the city.