Amethea (Lana Clarkson) is some kind of barbarian princess and it’s her wedding day but the wedding is not to be. The soldiers of the wicked king Arrakur (Armando Capo) raid her village, rape her kid sister Taramis (Dawn Dunlap) and kill or enslave everyone. Everyone except Amethea and two other young women, Estril (Katt Shea) and Tiniara (Susana Traverso). The girls decide they’re going to get their revenge. Now you might wonder how three young women could possibly hope to take on the might of the army of the evil king but these are warrior gals! Girlpower!
First they find a party of the raiders and wipe them out. At the raiders’ camp they find two more survivors from their village, Amethea’s sister Taramis and another girl who dies as a result of being raped and tortured.
Taramis has dealt with her nightmare experience by retreating into her own private world. She cannot admit that her village no longer exists and that all her friends are dead.
Amethea and her friends get into Arrakur’s city and make contact with the rebels (naturally there have to be rebels). The girls keep getting captured, and generally get raped as a result. But they’re resourceful and usually escape. Their plan now is for a coördinated rising with the city rebels and the gladiators. If they can just avoid being captured and raped again for a day or so they might have a chance.
One of the problems with girl hero movies is that they can be too obviously unrealistic. If the women too easily defeat men who are clearly bigger and stronger than they are it’s not going to be believable. This film avoids stretching credibility too far. The girls lose a lot of their fights. They do OK in one-on-one fights but if they’re outnumbered they always lose. When they win it’s often because they have the advantage of surprise. In their initial fight at the raiders’ camp the raiders are taken completely by surprise and the girls are smart enough to even up the odds by picking off most of the bad guys one by one. It’s not that Amethea and her friends are not good warriors. They are. But they are not super-women. This also has the advantage of making the movie more exciting - the audience really feels that these women have the odds stacked against them and wonders how they’re going to finally prevail.
The plot doesn’t have a great deal in the way of originality or complexity. It’s pretty much a standard western revenge plot with elements of the rape revenge genre. In fact the plot is mostly just an excuse for lots of sword fights and lots of scenes of half-naked young women. Which for a sword & sorcery movie is really all you need. Although in this case it’s mostly swords and no actual sorcery. And no monsters. But plenty of T&A and a bit of frontal nudity.
This movie was filmed in Argentina, with Argentinian director Héctor Olivera at the helm. It manages to look quite lavish with some fairy impressive sets although being a Roger Corman production you can bet the budget was actually very very tight indeed. But whatever it cost to make the money is all up there on the screen.
Lana Clarkson makes a pretty good warrior queen. Her performance might not qualify as great acting but it’s spirited and lively, she manages to look reasonably convincing in her many action scenes and she looks terrific. She’s also likeable, which helps. Amethea is fairly obviously one of the templates on which Xena: Warrior Princess was based (although Xena also owes a huge amount to the excellent 1993 Hong Kong action flick The Bride with White Hair).
The other cast members are quite adequate for a movie of this sort. Arrakur is suitable malevolent and there’s a crazy sex-crazed torturer. Argan (Frank Zagarino) is the closest thing the film has to a male hero but he’s dull and colourless. But most it’s the actresses who carry this movie. Fortunately Lana Clarkson and Katt Shea as the ditzy but formidable Estril are up to the job.
Lana Clarkson was of course tragically murdered by Phil Spector in 2003.
Shout! Factory’s DVD release offers an extremely good anamorphic transfer. Barbarian Queen was released along with The Warrior and the Sorceress as a two-movie pack and both movies are included in the Roger Corman Sword & Sorcery four-movie set (which represents great value for money if you love such movies). The only extras are some deleted scenes including a much more explicit version of one of the film’s many rape scenes.
And yes, there is a lot of rape in this movie. But then given the society that’s being depicted that’s almost certainly entirely accurate even if those scenes are obviously there to amp up the sleaze and exploitation factors.
Barbarian Queen ticks all the right boxes for its genre. It’s trashy but it’s energetic and very entertaining trash. In other words, it’s the Roger Corman formula that worked for him over and over again. If trashy exploitation is your thing then Barbarian Queen is highly recommended.
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