She

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.

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.

(1984) She FANTASY/ SCIENCE FICTION ACTION/ COSTUME/ COMEDY

Adapted from the novel by H. Rider Haggard co-written and directed by Avi Nesher that has Tom (David Goss) and Dick (Harrison Muller) and their sister, Hari (Elena Wiedermann) arriving on a barge to set up shop and sell items along other people around them. Unbeknownst, Nork raiders led by Hector (Gordon Mitchell) were going to barge in and terrorize them, knocking and injuring the two brothers out and kidnapping their sister, Hari at the same time. And by the time they attend the first village they see, they then met a woman, who succeeded in drugging both of them. And by the time, Dick comes to he is already chained up while lady who drugged their food informed him, he sold Tom to her goddess "She" (Sandahl Bergman). It is their she happen to select him to walk through a straight line through a bunch of spikes blindfolded while She's small army shove him for the purpose of getting himself spiked. And by the time Tom makes it through and just when She's right hand woman, Shenda (Quin Kessler) wanted to end his life, She stops her and leaves him lying on the ground unconscious. And by the time Tom is nursed back to health, he tells the helpful stranger his objective, which was to save their kidnapped sister, and he tells him the only person most likely to do that was She since Tom has no idea where the Nork Valley is located. So Tom goes back to the same tent where he was drugged to free his brother chained up before he thwarts She worshipers, kidnapping her for directions. And one of the first things that happened was they get themselves mugged by mutants while they were sleeping, placed into an incinerator machine that is reminiscent to the "Star Wars" movie before they were saved and freed by She's loyal sidekick and their army. It is from their she decides to follow and help them despite having to go through many other strange groups and cults such as zombie men/ women with fangs; men wearing monks wardrobes worshiping a guy named Godan (Gregory Snegoff) during their journey.

The SHE movie starring Ursula Andress from 1965 and this one are two different kind of movies, for the only thing both movies have in common is the fact that both SHE characters hate men and were sacrificing men, the direction or approach are different as the SHE in this movie, she and her female sidekick and then the army cooperates with the stars of Tom and Dick (something from a child's book) to rescue their sister. In other words, the SHE character is used as a backdrop. There is also only a single nude scene throughout, and that is the actress of SHE herself Sandahl Bergman to which the only thing showed are her breasts for she does not make out with no one.

If Monty Python threw together a Road Warrior spoof after a 3 day binge using a paint sprayer weilded by a rhesus monkey as their key script writing tool...

Nah, not quite fair. As many other reviewers have said, this movie manages to be class A cheese. It manages to be sufficiently entertaining to not deserve shredding by Mystery Science Theater 3000 - one needs to hear the incredibly ridiculous dialog without interference!

There is a pretty reasonable supply of eye candy headed up by Sandahl Bergman and her trusty Amazon lieutenant, who also seem to be the only people with any fencing training. Most sword fights involving men are basically aimless waving of cheesy looking weapons.

But the true charm of this effort is the degree of "OMG how can they POSSIBLY top the sheer ludicrousness of THIS bad guy encounter with the next one?" The writers consistently fail to disappoint!

The ending did kind of tick me off - something is left unresolved in direct violation of a prediction from an oracle type near the beginning.

And the landscapes totally violate the Law of Post Apocalyptic Uninhibitable Desert - everything is either small cities or dense forest, a couple of decades after a mutation inducing nuclear holocaust!

Oh - Ms. Bergman's so-so acting in Schwarzenegger vehicles was orders of magnitude better than her sleepwalking through this role

But let such quibbles go. Acceptable outrageously awful mindless fun!