Barbarian Queen (1985) Concorde Pictures/Action-Fantasy RT: 72 minutes Rated R (violence, rape and a whole lot of nudity) Director: Hector Olivera Screenplay: Howard R. Cohen Music: Chris Young and James Horner Cinematography: Rodolfo Denevi and Rudi Donovan Release date: April 26, 1985 (US) Cast: Lana Clarkson, Katt Shea, Frank Zagarino, Dawn Dunlap, Susana Traverso, Victor Bo, Arman Chapman, Andrea Barbieri, Tony Middleton, Andrea Scriven, Robert Carson, Matilde Mur, Eddie Little, Patrick Duggan. Box Office: N/A
Rating: ***
“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.”
This brilliant line of dialogue is the work of Howard R. Cohen, the screenwriter behind such treasured trash classics as Vampire Hookers, Saturday the 14th, Space Raiders, Stryker and Deathstalker. It can heard coming from the lovely lips of Lana Clarkson in the sword-and-sorcery cheapie Barbarian Queen. Am I the only one who considers her the Marilyn Monroe of B-movies? I can’t be. In the milieu of straight-to-video movies, the Deathstalker star was a hot goddess. Sadly, she was taken from us far too soon when that whack job record producer Phil Spector murdered her in 2003. She was a true beauty.
Directed by Hector Olivera (Cocaine Wars), Barbarian Queen is an American-Argentine production that was distributed by Concorde, the company founded by Roger Corman after he left New World in 1983. The “King of Schlock” serves as executive producer on this cheesy fantasy flick featuring Clarkson as a female warrior named Amethea looking to free her people from the clutches of the evil tyrant Lord Arrakur (Chapman, Rage of Honor). Dirty bastard that he is, he attacks the village on the day of her wedding to Prince Argan (Zagarino, Where the Boys Are ’84). That’s right after a couple of his thugs gang rape Amethea’s little sister Taramis (Dunlap, Forbidden World) while she’s out picking flowers. When the dust finally settles, several of the villagers are dead while others (including Taramis and Argan) are taken prisoner.
Having managed to escape by outwitting the dim marauders, Amethea grabs her sword and swears vengeance. Thankfully, she’s not alone in her quest. Riding by her side is her loyal lady-in-waiting Estrild (future Poison Ivy director Shea) and fellow female warrior Tiniara (Traverso, Happy Highschool). On the way, they raid an encampment where a now-traumatized Taramis is being used as a sex slave. The ladies make short work of the men before continuing their journey to Arrakur’s city where they hook up with an underground band of rebels too afraid to take up arms against their common enemy. The leader, a wuss with an eyepatch and a missing arm, doesn’t think they’re ready to fight yet. What does it say about a man when his preteen daughter (Scriven in her only acting gig) has a bigger set of balls? She looks 12, but she’s ready to help take down the awful autocrat.
Movies like Barbarian Queen were very popular with teen boys in the 80s and not because of the violence or fantasy aspect. The main reason can be summed up in a single word, BOOBIES! FACT, teen boys like boobs. It’s a “the more, the better” kind of deal. There are more naked boobs on display in Barbarian Queen than in some issues of Playboy. Also, the women tend to fight in skimpy costumes that leave nothing to the imagination. These movies are softcore sex fantasies for the D&D crowd. The only problem is that Barbarian Queen doesn’t offer much in the way of fantasy. It has plenty of sword action, but no sorcery.
Barbarian Queen may not have dragons, but it does have a dungeon. And where there’s a dungeon, there’s torture. And where there’s torture, there’s nudity. Our heroine finds this out first-hand when she and her companions are captured and sent to the hellish place which could also serve as an underground S&M club. Amethea is tied spread eagle to a rack (sans top, of course) with a mechanized gauntlet of some kind aimed right at her bust. The creepy dungeonmaster (Middleton) makes the mistake of trying to rape his prisoner. Little does he know what grisly fate awaits him upon entry. She clamps down on his manhood with her vagina muscles and refuses to let go until he releases her from her bonds. When he does, she pushes him into a vat of acid conveniently located right in front of the rack. Don’t you just love twisted s*** like this?
And what of Argan and the other men from the village? They’re being trained to fight as gladiators for Arrakur’s amusement. It’s a job with perks like nightly orgies with the harem girls. This is how Estrild gets with Argan to plot an uprising against their oppressor. Naturally, there’s always that one guy that shouldn’t be trusted. You know, the SOB secretly in league with the main antagonist. Like all such SOBs, his treachery is only a temporary hitch. The fight against evil prevails in the exciting climax. Will good triumph over evil? I think you know the answer to that burning question already.
If you go by the standards of cinema as art, Barbarian Queen is a bad movie. And I mean BAD! From the clumsy sword fighting to the terrible acting to the dopey dialogue to same sets recycled from Deathstalker, it is definitely not in the same league as Casablanca or Conan the Barbarian. Speaking of recycled material, does some of the score sound familiar? It should. You heard it in Battle Beyond the Stars (by James Horner).
To me, Barbarian Queen is pure low budget exploitation gold. It’s S&S junk like Sorceress and The Warrior and the Sorceress, two other Roger Corman flicks. If you go by those markedly lower standards, Barbarian Queen is still pretty bad, but a hell of a lot of fun. All of the things that qualify it as bad make it positively laughable. Once again, the makers cast a lead actor (i.e. Zagarino) that looks like he stepped right off a California beach. The guy can’t act, something he proves every time he opens his mouth to speak. He has quite the physique though. His man-boobs are as prominent as any pair of female boobs that appear in the movie.
Clarkson wasn’t the best actress in the world, but that fearless attitude of hers carried her a long way. She was up for pretty much anything. Although pleasing to the eye, she was definitely more than mere eye candy. Her performance in Barbarian Queen didn’t win any awards nor was it meant to. A movie like this isn’t about good or even passable acting. It’s about hot babes with nice boobs and big swords in that exact order. The only player that even tries to deliver something close to a performance is Dunlap as a young girl suffering the after-effects of multiple rapes. Her character gets over it pretty fast judging by the way she seizes the opportunity to become Arrakur’s newest concubine (it’s all part of the plan).
Oddly enough, I didn’t watch Barbarian Queen until I was in my 20s. I rented it one summer day from a local video store during a period of unemployment. I don’t remember anything about it, so when I rewatched it this past New Year’s Day, it was like seeing it for the first time all over again. It was an entertaining 72 minutes with a plot consisting of recycled bits and pieces of Conan, Deathstalker and other Conan knock-offs. It’s filled with poorly choreographed sword fights, not enough blood and lots of boobs! I can see why it appealed to 15YO boys back in the day. I, however, would have been the lone voice clamoring for more bloodshed. Either way, Barbarian Queen is good goofball fun if you know how to take it. It is its own kind of trash art. Oooh, I can’t help myself. I have to quote one more line from this glorious pile of S&S rubbish:
Arrakur: “You are much too beautiful a girl to let yourself be broken into food for the royal dogs.”
Dialogue like that lives on forever, wouldn’t you agree?
