Warrior Queen

This is a rather strange little ditty that comes to us courtesy of exploitation and soft-porn veterans Chuck Vincent, Aristide Massaccessi (Joe D'Amato; director of "Emanuelle," "Buried Alive," "Anthrophagus") and Harry Alan Towers. More or less a T & A retelling, if not a send-up, of "The Last Days of Pompeii," this film focuses on the plight of a young, amply-endowed slave-girl, (Tally Chanel) who is sold into servitude in a brothel frequented by studly gladiators and politicians. Her struggle for freedom is encouraged by Caeser's sympathetic wife, the semi well-preserved Sybil Danning, who discovers her while on a diplomatic trip to Pompeii. As it turns out, she herself, is of the same tribe, but has to conceal her heritage, due to her royal station.

A campy, but dreadfully stilted lampoon of sword and sandal peplum, "Warrior Queen" does boast a delightfully hammy performance by Donald Pleasence as the vice-ridden pro-council of Pompeii. There's hardly any dialogue from the rest of the cast and that's probably a blessing! But, on the prurient plus side, there's a generous helping of nudity and "hard-gore" violence, which is the obvious draw of such a film. However, I must include "Warrior Queen" in my personal pantheon of golden turkeys, which, although it doesn't reach the same heights of lunacy as say, "Plan Nine from Outer Space," it does run an impoverished, if not very close second-place to "Caligula"!

A word of warning: the Warrior Queen available on Amazon Prime is the R-Rated version which runs at a scant 69 minutes, ten minutes less than the director's cut. What did I miss? Well, seeing as this film is from producers Harry Alan Towers and Aristede Massacesi (AKA Joe D'Amato), and porn director Chuck Vincent, I imagine a whole lot of sex and graphic violence.

The shorter version still has its moments though, since not all of the sleaze hit the cutting room floor, with lots of full frontal female nudity and a little gore to make the experience less painful (without it, the film would be close to unwatchable).

The plot for the film is virtually non-existent, with almost an hour of random Roman nonsense before the climactic eruption of Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii (largely consisting of scenes from another earlier movie and volcano stock footage). The build-up is a series of unexciting but occasionally bloody gladatorial contests, sleazy slave trading, rape, and assorted acts of deviancy, with Sybil Danning as the titular Warrior Queen, who spends most of her time looking bored and yawning as bumbling Pompeii official Clodius (Donald Pleasence) tries his best to entertain her, pitting his slaves in arm-wrestling to the death and hosting a games in her honour.

Despite Danning and Pleasence's top billing, the real stars of the film are Rick Hill as charioteer Marcus and Tally Chanel as slavegirl Vespa, eye-candy for both sexes. Hunky Hill is all macho posturing while Chanel definitely makes up for the fact that Danning remains clothed throughout, the blonde stunner baring all. Look out too for porn-star Samantha Fox (not the singer) as Clodius's wife Philomena and Lou Ferrigno lookalike Marco Tullio Cau as Goliath, Marcus's rival in the arena.

4.5/10, rounded up to 5 for the hilarious sight of Pleasence catching doves in a net.

...so the title (and the video cover) could be described as misleading. Sybil Danning does fight off a couple of attackers at the start, and does decapitate one guy with her sword later on, but that's about it. Her character (the mistress of the Roman emperor) barely speaks in this movie. She looks unimpressed by what is going on around her and occasionally even yawns - reflecting the audience's reactions perfectly! Donald Pleasence, as the ruler of Pompeii, is ludicrous; if Sybil doesn't talk enough, Donald talks too much, and at least half of his dialogue is made up from the same three words, repeated ad nauseam: "My lovely highness". The rest of the cast includes Rick - "Deathstalker" - Hill, and a Lou Ferrigno-lookalike, and some beautiful women. The movie has literally NO PLOT - for 55 minutes we are watching these people do nothing, until it's time for Vesuvius to erupt and Pompeii to be destroyed. This climactic disaster sequence is OK for the budget standards of the movie, but it's obvious that stock footage was inserted at some points. (*)

Firstly the title n poster is totally misleading. There is no warrior queen present n none of the girls r shown fighting except for one scene where Sybil Danning decapitates a guy who attacks from behind that too without turning around. N in other scene she stabs a guy by throwing a weapon.

The entire half hour is full of softcore sex, lots of nudity. Throw in some gladiator fights with violence n end it with a volcano erupting with bad footages from other sources. Rightly stated by other reviewers about a Lou Ferrigno lookalike n we have Donald Pleasance with a unique crown on his bald head. Saw this in the early 90s on a vhs. Revisited da 79 mins cut recently.

I'm guessing the actual plot of the movie was part of that cut? I waited impatiently to see a "warrior Queen" helping slaves. Instead got a bunch of pointless sex and violence, while the warrior queen lady looked on yawning and bored. I yawned some myself, even despite the movie being barely more than an hour. It managed to still have very little actually going on, and what did go on didn't seem to have any point.

There wasn't much useful dialog. There were a decent amount of action scenes, but many were a bit weird and unnecessary. The queen did have a couple herself, but nothing especially worthy of the "Warrior" title. Sadly, this movie did not deliver anything beyond gratuitous nudity and violence.