Warrior Queen

Warrior Queen (1987) is a movie I recently watched on Amazon Prime. The storyline follows the slave and prostitution trade during the days of Pompeii. When a female queen emerges and rises up the ranks she uses her powers to change the slave and trade business and free the victims of the system.

This movie is directed by Chuck Vincent (Sex Drive) and stars Sybil Danning (Amazon Women on the Moon), Donald Pleasence (Halloween), Rick Hill (Liar Liar), Samantha Fox (Jack+Jill) and David Brandon (StageFright).

The female auction is an A+ and was my favorite part of the movie. The props, unfortunately, were poorly constructed. The background music was funny and the storyline was painful. It felt like just a reason to put hot girls in a movie. There were some good kill scenes and I got a good chuckle from the Lou Ferrigno lookalike.

Overall this is a bad movie that is only worth watching for the ladies and unique circumstances. I would score this a 4/10 and recommend watching it once.

Every male who was in his teens during the video-boom of the early 80's, must have some affection for the Barbarian/Roman epics which were in abundance. They just about skirted around the soft-porn self-embarrassment issue and could be nonchalantly given to the video shop assistant without too much shiftiness. It was an historical adventure film for the more mature viewer and the fact that this may include the occasional orgy scene, naked whipping, brothels and sumptuous exposed breasts was by the by.

'Warrior Queen' was released as the sub-genre was being replaced with mainstream films which could now get away with graphic simulated sex scenes - 'Fatal Attraction' was released the same year. No tarty business-woman could replace a statuesque, Amazon-like, 6-ft blonde, wielding a huge sword though.

The video cover for 'Warrior Queen' is almost certainly the film's highpoint, featuring a trio of muscular, tanned, bikini-clad beauties. Needless to say, the film itself is pretty crap - although there is just about enough going on to not feel completely cheated.

The film begins with a sub-title informing us that this is "Pompeii, August 22, 79 AD". Sybil Danning is a visiting Queen, entertained by Pompeii's ruler, a shambling Donald Pleasence who was presumably desperate for work. Along the way to the films inevitable conclusion (featuring lots of stock footage of a volcano doing its worst), we are treated to a pretty good slave auction scene; a rubbish arm-wrestling contest, complete with poisoned spikes; a gladiatorial duel featuring Goliath (a baddie, played by a big dumb Steve Reeves/Lou Ferrigno lookalike) against an opponent, both tied to pillars throwing discus's at each other; and a hang-tough contest played over a floor of wooden stakes.

Whilst not up to the standard of Sybil Danning's other Roman epic 'The Seven Magnificent Gladiators'-1983, 'Warrior Queen' provides enough nostalgia to give the viewer an entertaining hour or so of adolescent memories.

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.

...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. (*)

Where to begin? The "Warrior Queen" has basically no relevant part in the movie aside from disinterested brooding and maybe a single line of dialogue, the plot is entirely non-existent, and the choreographed fighting looks like bored rehearsals... yet somehow this movie is still frightfully entertaining. It truly defines "so bad it's good" but my god, it is a calamity of indescribable proportions. Everyone must watch this at least once in their lifetime.