Barbarian Queen (1985) Movie Review

Barbarian Queen was a 1985 sword-and-Sandal fantasy action film directed by Héctor Olivera, written by Howard R. Cohen and produced by B-movie king Roger Corman as part of his nine picture deal that included shooting several films in Don Torcuato, Argentina. The cast includes six foot bombshell Lana Clarkson, actress turned writer/director Katt Shea, Frank Zagarino, Dawn Dunlap, Armando Bó's son Víctor Bó, Susana Traverso, Andrea Barbieri and Tony Middleton. The film was one in a series of fantasy films Corman shot in that country throughout the 1980s, including Deathstalker (1983), The Warrior and the Sorceress (1984), Wizards of the Lost Kingdom (1985), Amazons (1986) and Deathstalker II: Duel of the Titans (1987). Most of these films recycled the same sets, props, costumes and even footage, each movie recycling more and more resources.

The wedding of Queen Amethea is interrupted by a gang of bloodthirsty soldiers following the orders of Lord Arrakur. Her groom is captured and her sister is raped. Amethea unites with her handmained, Estrild, and a warrior, Tiniara, in order to rescue her loved ones and defeat the man who caused her such pain.

Without much to brag about, Barbarian Queen functions very smoothly and without issues as a likable and fast paced fantasy flick with all of the ingredients that make this type of formula work: cheap attires that add to the drab ancient look, lots of violence and nudity for the sake of exploitation that makes the whole ordeal sleazy, captivating characters that fall into archetypes but that are decently played by the cast, a simple but ultimately engaging storyline that has all the emotion and rawness needed to entertain and a particular rhythm that makes things more digestable. It's a pretty complete package, it goes along well with the technical skills of Hector Olivera and his wonderful directing as the film is well blocked and expertly lit, giving a lot of texture and grittiness to the images.

While the characters are not profoundly explored they are very well defined, which gives the routine plotline some more substance. The performers do their job very well and the three main ladies stand out both because of their skills and their physicality seen on the frame. They really do have some screen presence. We also get some cheap and silly but endearing special effects that are not that bad considering that it's such a meager production. The film's biggest flaws are the more misogynistic components and the lack of investment in the bonding or interactions between the female leads themselves.

The fact that this was a low budget genre film should already give you a hint of how sleazy this film is going to be. Some will find shocking the fact that a film with a semi-feminist message ends up exploiting women and has some lurid nudity and sexual assault as a form of spectacle for the public but a lot of these contradictions are why exploitation movies are fascinating. By having to appeal to the market they can also inject some thoughtful commentary or ideas without having to lose the audience. Nothing wrong with touching upon subjects directly, but having this distance and paradoxical nature does give us some very interesting results. It should also be said that this is a common thing for Corman, especially considering how there's small remains of The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (1957) throughout this film, only updated and modified to fit the Conan rip-off mold. 

Overall, this is a good sword-and-sandal item of the eighties with enough virtues and interesting implications in its subtext.

Red Sonja New Year's Special 2025

We have yet another New Year's special with the redhaired warrior from the Hyborian age that compliments her Holiday special from last year. Written by Dan Panosian and illustrated by Valeria Burzo, in this new one-shot we see Sonja being hired by a pair of townspeople who seek the she-devil for her skills in combat to face against some giants who terrorize the town, once there she will meet the people of the town, who are celebrating the eve of a new moon, an event that requires the sacrifice of a fire woman.

The initial set-up of the storyline seems incredibly trite at first but the writer knows how to spin things around a bit and never allows it to become generic or forceful, from the start the somewhat skeletal story begins planting questions and intrigue that will eventually pay off later in the story. It is somewhat predictable if you are familiar with this type of plot but you actually enjoy it because of the small twists that keep things moving without fat or rest, while the mostly visual storytelling also carries a great deal of the baggage very effectively. The snow white surroundings contrast appropriately with Red Sonja's fiery red hair, something that aids the storyline and feels relevant to it, while the action portrayed moves and looks fluid enough from panel to panel.

Recommended for Red Sonja fans.

BUY HERE

Red Sonja: Holiday Special (2018) Comic Review

Here we have a very peculiar comic book Holiday Special featuring one of the toughest redheads in fantasy: Red Sonja. A one-off special from 2018 featuring two stories. Illustrated by Ricardo Jaime (Crackdown, Godslap), written by Erik Burnham (Lady Hel, several works with the TMNT, Ghostbusters and Red Sonja) and Amy Chu (Ana and the Cosmic Race and several Red Sonja issues).

Sonja travels through a snowstorm and finds an unknown cloaked woman who reminds her of a place she visited previously. She tells her the story of her time in our modern civilization, traveling throughout New York City with Max and getting a taste of Christmas, the most human celebration.

Then they find a man in a Santa costume running from mobsters, Sonja predictably takes them out without much effort, but the trio flees when the goons take out their guns. The guy in the Santa costume is finally safe and the goons lose them among the crowd at a Christmas celebration.

It's a funny story that plays with the usual "fish out of water" gags and dynamic whenever Sonja is taken out of her realm and inserted in New York City or something. Not a horrible one-off but it's also far from a highly memorable one. The resolution was done a bit too quickly and too easily but you can forgive it because of the time and space constraints. I think it's perfectly fine for Sonja fans, as it is short and sweet.

The second story isn't christmas related but it's drawn in a very retro style and looks quite wonderful, so I don't recommend you skip it, we might look at it some other time.

Niki and unnamed Women Warriors from Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983)

Spacehunter is a silly sci-fi 3D movie that follows Wolff, a hero trying to rescue three women lost in a dangerous planet, he faces mutants and several other menaces. It's kind of a male fantasy, featuring one sole man saving three women who really dont do much in the movie besides screaming and being pushed around and abused (the movie has a reputation of being misogynistic), but you wouldn't expect any less from these nonsensical older movies that never claimed to be real nor sensitive to begin with. The Han Solo-like protagonist teams up with a small teenage girl named Niki (Molly Ringwald), spunky and resourceful, the young scavenger becomes his companion and aids him in his search for the women. 

At one point, they meet a group of female warriors who threaten them as they fall into a flooded facility of sorts. Niki drowns and Wolff tries to save her but both are caught in nets by the women, all of the sudden an aquatic reptile comes out of the water and scares the women, who then escape the picture shrieking and fleeting the scene. 

The scene is very short, I wish the warrior women had more screen time because they weren't really that common in the early eighties. They don't do much, an action scene would have been good.   

Niki's relationship with Wolff grows as the film goes on, at first they are sort of antagonistic but by the end they begin to like each other and a bond is created (similar to True Grit), I don't think it was a particularly well developed relationship and some of Niki's lines of dialogue were pretty bad and obviously written by old guys. Obviously because of her age Niki doesn't do much in the action sequences but she has a good little scene that involves her going through some sort of American Gladiators-style junkyard with futuristic obstacles. 

Not a good movie but it has a few certain scenes that make it enjoyable.