Amazons

I can almost see Beavis sitting back on the couch, licking the yellow Cheeze Puff dust off his fingers and saying "Yep, nothing like sitting down to a nice bag of Cheeze Puffs and a good old Barbarian Women movie." It's sometimes a fascinating if disreputable genre, who's modern form is traceable at least back to 1972's ATTACK OF THE BARBARIAN WOMEN by Alfonso Brescia, or possibly even PREHISTORIC WOMEN from 1967 era Hammer. There is one reason to watch them, and that is to observe hawt, half-naked chicks chop each other & anyone handy up with broadswords before relaxing in the saunas together. Gotta love the Bronze Age some days.

As others have stated this one isn't bad, right up there with BARBARIAN QUEEN as probably the best examples of the mid 80's Americanized version of the genre, which probably seemed like a good marketing bet in the wake of the success of CALIGULA and Lucio Fulci's CONQUEST, which this is basically a combination of. They are usually a good bet on the entertainment factor because firstly, the cast members playing the Barbarian Women will all have to be in peak physical shape to look good in their designer fur & leather bikini costumes. People who take care of their bodies usually enjoy showing them off, so the ladies won't be adversed to ideas like being oiled up for frontal shots of their abs & thighs. Couple that with a desire to make an impact and we are talking about actresses who will be delighted to appear on screen naked, do sex scenes, and maybe even a snake dance.

This one is curiously plot heavy, and the one thing that kept tweaking my funny bone were all the absurd names given to people, places, events and objects. "We must cross the forest of Anjoo and climb the sacred Nak-Nak tree to find the Sword of Nibblenoon", all said with perfectly straight faces and ample feminine curves. Even the old soothsaying 300 year old witch-lady is hot, and those with a taste for discipline may be amused by the completely subservient & impotent nature of the men in the film. The one guy who is supposedly the hero spends the film locked up in a cage until it's time to feed him to a lioness, and the only male character in the film that makes any kind of an impression is Joseph Whipp's at-times hilarious meanie sorcerer villain, who not only gets to sleep with the lead actress but gets some genuine laughs playing his role in a totally blasé, non-mystical manner. He's just an evil rotten dude endowed with some kind of magical force, basically wants to destroy the world, enslave humanity and conquer Hell. You have to admire someone who knows what they want, and has a scheme to achieve it.

The only thing I didn't really like about the film was the one problem I have with the whole Barbarian Women genre, which is that the plots lend themselves to scenes that will inevitably feature sexual violence against the scantily clad heroines -- Fortunately this one aborts it's gang rape before the fireworks start but it's still kind of disturbing to watch a couple of big-haired 80's Valley Girl types get roughed up by a bunch of scummy, sweaty, degenerate male extras who look like roadies for Meatloaf. I guess the fact that they all get killed off after wards is supposed to make it all even out, but notice how you don't see a lot of films like this being made anymore.

So get a bag of Nachos or whatever, spark up and enjoy the show. Beats the Global Warming movie genre at least.

6/10 for being so relaxingly stupid, and over quickly.

If I didn't know someone in this film I would never have watched. Pretty awful all around. But as one tries to find the good in a bad situation - like when you're being held captive against your will (like watching this made me feel) - I found myself looking for the positives. At first I thought all the acting atrocious, including the person I know. But then I realized that this has a lot to do just with the American accents sounding like people from Los Angeles (instead of "good" actors with British accents typically in these types of films) but if you accept that, then the acting really isn't so bad. I realized that the actors just inevitably reflected the low budget quality of every scene they were in. I also imagined that if all the footage were re-processed through modern editing & effects software, this could actually look a helluva lot better and improve it's IMDb score up to maybe a 6.5 or so. (That could even be a fun film school assignment!)

The person in this film that I know was my high school drama teacher (super nice guy BTW, we all loved him). But I did NOT ever need to see him do a sex scene. Man, did I cringe at that! Fortunately, that scene was shot as badly as everything else so it wasn't THAT traumatizing. :) And I just noticed: look at the IMDb credits for the crew. They totally "whitened up" all the names like "Lopez" and etc. Miguel López is credited as Mike Lowe; Norberto Castronuovo credited as Norman Newcastle; Federico Fernández becomes Fred Fern, and so on. What's up with THAT?

If you have an imagination and can "see" this flick re-edited with modern technology, you might find it palatable. Or if you just like hot chicks with great boobs. And if you don't know anyone in it.

Ok here is the plot:

The movie has boobs in it.

Really the cover art describes the film much better than I can.

Anything past boobs was clearly irrelevant to the people who made it and the people who watched it :)

Roger Corman tells a story so well that this sword & sorcery adventure would have been on par with popular blockbuster films such as Conan the barbarian, were it not for obvious shortcomings in the time and money spent on production. The dubbing is sloppy and the dialog is toneless. The cheap special effects are mediocre at best and, at their worst, they look like something taken out of a cheap horror/science fiction flick from the 1950's.

As an alternative attraction, Corman affords us numerous glimpses of sexy and/or athletic women, usually dressed in revealing attire and sometimes completely naked. Unlike a soft-porn production, however, the emphasis is on action and adventure, thus providing a unique platform for this kind of voyeurism.

This movie may have some appeal for amazon aficionados. The hand to hand combat scenes come off reasonably well. In fact, Mindi Miller (Windsor Taylor Randolph), as Dyala, was particularly adept at handling a staff. And, both she and Penelope Reed, who played Tashi, have physiques suitable for their roles.

Corman depicts amazons somewhat differently than I have seen in other productions such as Xena. In Corman's story, amazons have a prominent role in society, but still keep their place alongside men. This makes sense if anyone ever wondered where baby amazons come from. I also like the fact that despite being great warriors, the amazons still remain vulnerable, allowing us to fear for their safety and making them appear more human.

Basically, the amazons are threatened by en evil wizard, who makes a pact with supernatural ghost-like beings and uses human sacrifice to gain metaphysical powers. To stop him, Dyala and Tashi, are sent on a dangerous quest for the sword of Azundati. The suspense and the overall impact of the movie are dampened, however, since we know that despite impossible odds, ultimately good will conquer evil, and all will enjoy a happy ending. So, Corman makes their challenge more difficult by creating dissension and treachery among the amazons and their friends. To provide a greater sense of reality and mortal peril, a few key characters in the story actually die.

If you like the thrill of naked breasts and thighs, but you still want a half-way decent story, this movie may be worth your while.

Just in case your not hip to who Roger Corman is and your not familiar with the term "Amazons" than maybe you should find another film to view because as far as exploitation goes this delivers the goods. Story is about an evil wizard named Kalungo (Joseph Whipp) who along with his minions attack the Amazon city of Imbissi in which the female warriors are forced to retreat with the Spirit Stone. They head to the Emerald Queen (Anita Larronde) who informs them that they need to retrieve the Sword of Azundati which is the only thing that can combat Kalungo.

*****SPOILER ALERT***** A beautiful (of course) warrior named Dyala (Mindi Miller) is dispatched on the mission with Tashi (Penelope Reed) who is the daughter of her sworn rival Tshingi (Danitza Kingsley) who is also a spy for Kalungo. While on their journey they encounter thieves and snakes and hoards of other tribes that want to sacrifice them to supernatural trees.

This was made in Argentina and directed by Alejandro Sessa who is making his debut after being a producer on several Corman films and it appears that he learned very well on how to stretch a dollar with a small budget. Naked Amazon warriors. Yep! That's what everyone who hasn't seen this is wondering about so I can tell all of you that this indeed delivers an abundance of nudity and I had to chuckle when the two lead characters venture off to save the world and no sooner than you can say "Russ Meyer" they are skinny dipping in a lake! Not only does this work as far as exploitation but also on a "so bad it's good" level with horrible dubbing and editing. How about that top notch transformation scene where the lioness changes into the naked woman? Or the laughable attempt of actor Whipp trying so hard to be evil when he looks like a left wing pacifist. The story is somewhat all over the place with it's magic swords and feuding families but if your a connoisseur of films that have hot and frequently nude Amazon women or of just bad films altogether than you can be rest assured that this is exactly what it advertises.