One day recently, I was poking around on the internet. I was trying to find out if there are any high quality sword and sandal movies, cinematic adventures that actually took themselves seriously. Conan the Barbarian obviously sits on that throne, but the only others that popped up in my searching were a few from the 50s or 60s. Is Arnold’s epic really the only quality flick from more recent decades? Sure, we have all sorts of stupid ridiculous shit from the 80s and 90s, farcical parodies like The Barbarians or The Warrior and the Sorceress and a hundred others. Is the first Deathstalker movie really the closest thing?
Well, no. Actually, this one is the closest. Some filmy people obviously saw the first Conan movie and said hey, let’s make the same movie, but with a woman in the lead role.
This one starts out the same as the first Conan. A marauding gang on horseback with swords and axes and knives blows through a peaceful village and kills just about everybody. Except Hundra, she was out hunting and gathering. Her mother and younger sister are killed, along with all the other villagers. She vows revenge. But it’s not safe for here there, so she hits the road.
She runs into a village elder, who tells her to quit screwing around and get laid and get pregnant and have some kids. Hundra says fuck that shit, ‘no man will ever penetrate me’ she says. But the town elder says I’m a whole lot older and wiser than you, so go and do it! Hundra says ok fine, and continues on her journey.
She tries to hook up with the first guy she runs into, but they get in a fight and beat the shit out of each other, so that date didn’t work out so well. Hundra figures she might have a better chance in a bigger city, so she continues on.
She makes it to a city, and checks out the local townfolk, but is not really impressed with anybody there. But, she has a knack for getting into trouble, and finds herself in the court of the local ruler guy, mayor or governor or king or whatever he is. It is there where she proclaims that she chooses him for a mate. But, he doesn’t really want to have anything to do with her. Thus sets up the rest of the movie.
So it’s not a chick flick, but it is a sword and sandal flick with a female lead, who goes with the WOMEN POWER!! the whole time, so ya, I’m sure they were hoping and expecting that this one would be a hit with the ladies. For us men, I dunno, it’s not worthless. There are a bunch of silly parts, but I think the bigger picture is that it’s so damn refreshing to see a sword and sandal flick that isn’t a joke, that isn’t a caricature of the classic sword and sandal flicks. It’s way too long at one hour 45 minutes. But, that’s just another way this one was trying to be like the first Conan epic.
The sets and cinematography are pretty good. Where’d they shoot this? Greece? Spain? Italy? Middle East? Can’t tell.
Music by Ennio Morricone, but it’s not some of his best work. He basically wrote one short theme, and they use it over and over and over and over. A few scenes have more music, especially towards the end.
B-movie Roundup 