She

I must say that I am starting an unfortunate career of following Sandahl Bergman flicks. Don't get me wrong...I've enjoyed what I've seen of Ms. Bergman's acting in Hell comes to Frogtown and in this film She(the book is interesting by the way). As long as you're not looking for anything special it's cool. I personally enjoyed it but I was lynched by the 3 friends I made watch it with me. Especially since the whole movie we were waiting for the plot to resemble anything that the back of the movie box. It never did. There was supposed to be this whole plot about the all powerful "She" falling for a man who might kill her. As far as I can tell there was a woman...who was generally referred to as "She"...and indeed there was a lead male character. But they never so much as looked at each other crosswise. But hey the real reason to watch the movie is ghouls, the god "She"(who has no powers as far as I can tell), the other god they meet who actually has powers and wants to "study" our heroine, the weird dividable guy(my fav)...it's a labyrinth of weirdness. I dug it.

Supposedly based on the same popular sci-fi novel by H. Rider Haggard which was made into a film in 1935 and 1965 (the latter starring Ursula Andress), but, according to those in the know, it has nothing to do with it (despite claiming otherwise). This is a batcrap crazy post-apocalyptic sci-fi starring Sandahl Bergman (Conan the Barbarian, Red Sonja, Hell Comes to Frogtown). I frequently joked during the movie that there was absolutely no plan as to where this movie was going. They were just making it up as they were going on. The actors would raid the costume and props departments and just come back with whatever weird stuff they could find. There's no other way to explain a giant, bearded man wearing a tutu and a gas mask. The (rather confusing) plot begins with two men (David Goss and Harrison Muller, Jr.) losing their sister to a group of crazy-looking men. They hear that the local goddess She (Bergman) knows where they're taking her, so they considerately kidnap her and make her lead them to their sister. Apparently each small settlement has their own god or goddess, a few of which we'll meet along the way. Accompanied by one of She's chief warriors (Quin Kessler), they make their way across the post-apocalyptic landscape and run into all sorts of zany tribes. One has a god named Godan who has telekinetic powers. The most memorable sequence in the film has an annoying Robin Williams impersonator named Xenon (David Traylor, who is a stand-up comedian who goes by the stage name David Zed) who, when you cut him into pieces, starfish-like, regenerates into multiple Xenons. Don't get me wrong, this movie is pretty terrible. But it plays out like a drug trip, and you'll definitely remember it. I'm really surprised I hadn't heard of it beforehand.

The land of the unused wardrobe, misfits from Ork, Cheeks falling out of loin clothes, war of the pronouns, or what do we settle for after Conan. I really like Sandahl Bergman and wish she had a better agent to get her the parts she deserved. She was the only one who knew how to act in this movie. She could have started her own acting school with the actors from this movie.

This is exactly what bad movies are supposed to be: a magnificent accident; bizarre; terrible dialog; insipid acting; but most importantly, uncontrived. Not like that Troma crap. Troma wishes its movies were bad, but all I see are contrivances: people who try to pawn off badly made bad movies as something special, like She. She is everything you want and more. Badly executed scenes for even more badly conceived plot points. Terrible costuming including spiked football helmets intended to look "post- apocalyptic". Male sexual fantasies enacted on screen, masquerading as female empowerment. But through all of it, an effortless "badness" that leaves one questioning, simply, "how?". How did this make it to film? How did it actually get made, and who actually looked at the final cut and said 'yep, it's just like I imagined it. Trust me, this is a golden turd. It's the reason we bother to watch terrible movies.

This is an extremely weird movie, regardless of genre including Italian B movies. It is the oddest movie I have ever seen. See there's this woman, called She, and she is a goddess. And she has to go through these other worlds with their own various Gods and Goddesses. Among the creatures she meets are a group of men who look like potatoes, the semi-Nazi God Nork, and a 300 pound man in a candy pink tutu. This is definitely fun to mock with friends. I have no idea what it was trying to be, but it is god awful good.

After seeing this I read the novel by Haggard, in an attempt to make sense of what I had seen. I thought I had gotten the wrong book, but no the She I read is cited in the movie credits. The only similarity between the two is that both do indeed have main characters named She.

My recommendation is to see this when ever you get the chance. This film is so bad that it's good. It's a bit scary, but this is the film that got me into liking movies