Replete with gratuitous mud-wrestling, anachronistic attitudes and buxom actresses wearing fur-and-leather swimsuits at least three sizes too small, BARBARIAN QUEEN II: THE EMPRESS STRIKES BACK is a campy actioner for tired businessmen and oversexed amateur historians.
While evil usurper Ankaris (Alejandro Bracho) vies for the absent king's magical scepter, the monarch's daughter Amathia (Lana Clarkson) is in a quandary: if she wields the weapon prematurely, her father could die, but if she doesn't act soon her people will never slip out of those unattractive
slave bracelets. Pressured by Ankaris's misogynist henchman Hofrax (Roger Cudney), Amathia foolhardily attempts escape only to be betrayed by Ankaris's ambitious daughter Tamis (Cecilia Tijerina), a teenage sorceress who's preoccupied with stealing Amathia's power and turning the beleaguered
princess's suitor Aurion (Greg Wrangler) into her own boy toy.
En route to her execution, Amathia escapes the noose, befriends a forest Amazon named Ziela (Rebecca Wood), rescues a peddler's daughter and routs Hofrax's troops. Reigning over her newfound forest coterie, Amathia trains the good-hearted rabble, defeats a larger contingent of Ankaris's guards,
pausing only to humiliate Hofrax and rekindle her affair with the wishy-washy Aurion. Lured into a trap when Ankaris starts executing the innocent en masse, Amathia endures treacherous torture, Hofrax's insults and a poisonous spider bite before being rescued by Aurion.
Attaining proof of her father's demise, Amathia seizes his scepter despite the machinations of Tamis who transforms herself into a witch. Ankaris mistakenly kills his own daughter and commits suicide, paving the way for Hofrax's downfall. Ultimately, Amathia decides that "the real magic is
democracy" and wisely opts to forsake further bloodshed and rule with compassion and decency instead.
The cast of BARBARIAN QUEEN 2 seems to have assembled in between stints at a topless bar in the San Fernando Valley. Even on its own limited terms, the film suffers from action scenes that are as underdeveloped as the female cast is overdeveloped; from fanciful costuming that somehow spans the
eons from Cave Man Couture to contemporary House of Suede and Leather; and from a needlessly complicated plot that relies too much on Amathia's flight-and-fight syndrome. As an excuse to stare at babes, it is altogether more successful.
Structurally magnificent, Lana Clarkson (BLIND DATE, THE HAUNTING OF MORELLA) could rank right up there with the Wonders of the Ancient World, positioned right after the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. As for bad movie lovers, they will no doubt be kept busy enjoying some ham from Tijerina as the
delinquent teen and Cudney as mankind's first woman hater. The film, however, does boast one classic bad movie line. Tearing off Amathia's skimpy bikini top, Hofrax regards her proud breasts and sighs in disdain: "What an awesomely disgusting sight!"
Male chauvinists will doubtless be content with BARBARIAN QUEEN 2's mindless swordplay and constant parade of exposed female flesh; camp followers will enjoy the film's cheesy good-naturedness, dreadul art direction, and costumes by Genghis of Hollywood. (Violence, nudity.) leave a comment